Technological disasters make millions of dollars “evaporate”-Hi-tech fashion

Investments in technology development are not cheap, so their failures will cost businesses heavily, not to mention some at the cost of lives.

Here are some disasters that cost businesses millions of dollars around the world in the history of the technology industry.

RMS Titanic

In an era before jets dominated the skies, shipbuilding was one of the most technologically advanced transportation industries. Drawing on the knowledge and expertise developed in the industry, the shipbuilders of the early 20th century built ships of magnificence and feats, with the Titanic being the most eye-catching name.

Built in shipyards in Belfast (Northern Ireland), the RMS Titanic represents the best and latest in shipbuilding engineering and technology of its time. It is celebrated for representing a new era of ocean travel, with accommodation and luxury never before seen on the water. The shipbuilding company was so proud of their shipbuilding skills that they arrogantly declared that “the ship cannot sink”.

However, the RMS Titanic proved otherwise on the night of April 15, 1912, when it sank to the ocean floor after colliding with an iceberg. According to Brittanica, a number of mistakes and mishaps caused the ship to collide with an iceberg, along with a series of bad decisions from the crew due to the arrogance of thinking the unsinkable ship was the cause of the disaster. largest at that time.

Tragedy occurred, causing 1,517 people to die. Investopedia estimates that the Titanic cost $7.5 million to build in 1912, and that equates to about $400 million today. But more importantly, the 1,517 lives lost cannot be measured in USD. There are also costs associated with fallout that continue to mount long after the ship has sunk.

Mariner I

The Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik put the space race at the forefront, and the United States responded by investing all its efforts in space exploration. One of their efforts was to develop Mariner I for the Venus mission in 1962. According to NASA’s cost records, the total cost of research, development, launch, and support for the series Mariner spacecraft (Mariners 1 to 10) is about $554 million. Calculating based on inflation rates, the total amount today exceeds $5 billion. If the cost of all 10 spacecraft is divided equally, Mariner I costs 500 million USD.

This spacecraft is designed to fly to Venus and collect data about the planet. The Soviet Union tried to reach Venus but failed. Meanwhile, Mariner I also failed, forcing ground control to send an abort command just 293 seconds after Mariner I was launched into space.

During a review of the flight, NASA discovered a missing hyphen in the code caused incorrect sending of instructions to the spacecraft. This means, just a man-made character code creates a serious waste of taxpayers’ taxes. A second spacecraft was prepared and launched within months of Mariner I’s failure and became the first successful Venus exploration mission from Earth.

Microsoft Zune

Steve Jobs introduced the iPod to the public at a time when most people weren’t interested in the digital realm. Since then, the Internet has gotten faster and faster, and technologies that support entertainment through digital platforms appear seemingly weekly.

The iPod was a huge success for Apple and many companies introduced MP3 players around the same time, but none of them managed to capture the iPod’s market share. Given the size and strength of Microsoft, the company could have competed with its rival when it failed to Zune.

According to Medium, Zune is a high-quality product with an interesting interface. Its specifications are comparable to that of an iPod and also perform similarly. However, Microsoft failed to market the device and target a very narrow group of people. The wrong timing was also the reason for the downfall of Zune, because the product was released 5 years after the iPod. Even when the Zune was discounted from $229 to $168, the product sold quite slowly. As a result, Zune was completely discontinued in 2011 after costing Microsoft $289 million.

Samsung Galaxy Note7

Samsung is the manufacturer smartphone Top Android and has held that title for many years. While the Korean company has been making all kinds of electronic devices for decades, the Galaxy phone is the one that most people notice. The Galaxy Note capitalizes on the growing trend of smartphone screens at a time when most phones aren’t significantly larger than a deck of cards. The Galaxy Note series was successful and became one of the best-selling products of Samsung. However, development is not always without mistakes.

Not long after the Galaxy Note7 series was introduced, reports started appearing that the phone spontaneously caught fire, smoked, and smoldered into a pile of worthless electronic waste. As problems arose more and more, the case became more famous and Samsung was forced to step in to not only save face but also minimize any liability for injury or damage caused by the phone. . Finally, the company asked all Galaxy Note7 owners to power off their devices and issued a recall. According to Reuters, the amount that Samsung lost due to this incident amounted to about 17 billion USD.