What was discontinued and closed in 2017

The year 2017 comes to an end and with it various projects, companies and products in the IT industry. Not only the Jamaican coalition failed and Germany’s formerly second largest airline filed for bankruptcy, many smaller projects were terminated prematurely or set to market. Golem.de gives an overview of failures of the year 2017.

Lily Camera is not built

As soon as the year starts, the first promising company fails. Lily Robotics ‘ selfie camera drone Lily Camera was considered a very successful project. It was meant to be a four-rotor lunar drone that would be thrown into the air, then track its users and take pictures. However, the device is not even finished. On January 12, the company has to announce the end of the project to its 60,000 pre-orders. The reason: The company founders Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow have not found another investor. The goods will not be delivered. However, the more than 60,000 new customers will at least receive back their paid-in money – 500 euros per copy.

At the end of the year, there is a glimmer of hope for the project: the company Mota Group, which already manufactures other quadrocopters and aerial drones for the enterprise market, has taken over and further developed the idea of the Lily Camera . Added are a 4K camera and retractable rotors. However, the price of the new threat is even higher at $ 700.

Google’s solar drones stay on the ground

Google wants to bring the Internet to the whole world and is already developing various projects. The solar-controlled drones should cause a special sensation. Already in 2014, Google and Facebook outbid each other for the company Titan Aerospace. Google ultimately made the better offer: more than $ 60 million. Titan Aerospace developed the Solara 50, a propeller-driven flying drone that was charged by solar cells on the 50-meter wings. The aircraft was supposed to fly autonomously up to 19,800 meters for up to five years to serve as an Internet hotspot.

But crashed on a test flight in May 2015, a Solara 50 on an airfield. The resulting negative news coverage was a setback to Google’s plans for the global Internet and one possible reason why Google closed the deal on January 16 .

Another reason could have been Google Loon, a research project that has similar goals. Instead of propeller sailors, weather balloons should be used as flying access points. These are cheaper and not so maintenance intensive.

$ 20,000 phone flops

Expensive does not have to be better: This applies to the Solarin smartphone of the Israeli startup Sirin Labs . $ 20,000 cost the smartphone, which should be particularly safe and good. Customers received a kind of surprise bag for their money, because Sirin did not want to give details on the telephone.

Over time it became known that the smartphone had a Snapdragon 810 processor, which was often noticed by heat problems. It had a 24 MP camera for 4K imaging, a 1440p display and a large 4000mAh battery. The phone could radio in 24 different LTE frequency bands and was thus usable in many countries in the world. A switch on the back could activate a security tag that encrypted calls and messages via AES256. The target audience: government agencies and senior government employees or corporate executives.

However, probably only about 700 devices of Solarin were sold. Even the reduced price of 14,000 US dollars was apparently too high for most customers, especially as it remained completely unclear how large the security gain really was. On March 15, Sirin Labs dismisses one-third of his staff, and thereafter, nothing is heard from the Solarin smartphone. The manufacturer is trying it now with another concept: a smartphone that relies on Blockchain . Its price: 1,000 US dollars.

Out of the mouse

For the peripheral manufacturer Mad Catz it was already bad in 2016: First, the Americans had to sell their Saitek division to the competitor Logitech for 13 million US dollars – a brand under which Mad Catz sold gamepads, joysticks and steering wheels. On March 30, 2017, the company has to give up altogether .

Mad Catz was known for his exceptional-looking mice for a high purchase price, which could be adapted to the user’s hand. Often, however, these were criticized for their poor build quality or in spite of setting options strange ergonomics. The manufacturer developed some weeks before the bankruptcy, no new products, but marketed only old hardware as a new product. The accumulated debt pays the company with the sale of remainders.

Vodafone Secure Mail is switched off

Just one day later, on March 31, 2017, the mobile operator Vodafone is scheduled to use Secure Mail . The company completely shuts down the service and deletes all accounts, email histories, and attachments from its servers.

Secure Mail was backed by a proprietary encryption algorithm that Vodafone had developed by a third-party company. The company falsely claimed that the RSA algorithm had been used in ECB mode, resulting in negative media feedback. Vodafone later corrected his claim.