Farmville, Flash and Segway PT movers top list of tech we lost in 2020
It’s a brand new 12 months, and some of the most well-liked apps, software program and {hardware} of the previous years is now useless and defunct for 2021.
Missing in motion.
Adobe Flash
The Adobe Flash software program, which was used to animate cartoons again in the day and deliver video to life on so many web sites, is not supported by Adobe, which in 2017 introduced that it might disappear by the tip of 2020.
The drawback: the software program did not play effectively with cell phones (Apple’s Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to customers explaining why he would not let Flash on iPhones again in 2010) and had safety points. So what to do in the event you’re a Flash person? Adobe suggests that each one customers ought to delete this system from their computer systems now. While assist has ended, Adobe will block Flash content material from working in Flash Player starting January 12, so that you higher get busy. Adobe says Windows and Apple customers will get notifications urging them to delete Flash, with steps on how you can do it.
FarmVille
The fashionable sport, which hundreds of thousands performed for hours on Facebook since 2009, is now defunct on Facebook, a sufferer of Flash’s demise. The social community is not supporting video games constructed in the Flash format.
The sport goes again to early days of social networking, the place we constructed our farms with in-app foreign money of instruments and extra land, and nudged mates to go to.
The Flash-based sport created by Zynga, designed to be performed inside Facebook, shut down on Thursday — sure, there have been individuals nonetheless enjoying it — although its sequels that may be performed by cell apps will survive.
If you spent cash shopping for in-app additions of land and the like, maker Zynga says sorry, no refunds.
To proceed the Farmville expertise, Zynga is sending gamers elsewhere, to completely different variations of the Farmville sport, Farmville 2: Tropic Escape and Farmville 2: Country Escape. It says a cell model of Farmville 3 is coming quickly.
Toshiba
Many of us grew up utilizing Toshiba laptops in the Eighties, 1990, 2000s and 2010s. But in 2020, Toshiba bought its laptop computer division, to a different Japanese competitor, Sharp, ending a 3 and a half-decade run. Toshiba made the primary transfer in 2018 when it bought 80 p.c of its PC enterprise to Sharp, however went all the way in which in 2020. Toshiba was additionally a well-liked identify in TVs, and nonetheless is, promoting a well-liked Amazon-branded Fire TV Edition that is bought closely at Best Buy. But Toshiba not makes the TVs. It bought TV naming rights to Chinese agency Hisense in 2017.
Segway PT
The oddball Segway PT (Personal Mover) noticed production cease in July, as the corporate mentioned it needed to focus as a substitute on scooters.
The two-wheeled stand-up car might be finest referred to as being utilized by police forces and Kevin James in the film Paul Blaart: Mall Cop.
Segway is ending manufacturing of its two-wheeled private transporter car that gained reputation amongst vacationers and some police forces, however discovered itself embroiled in mishaps with well-known personalities.
Launched practically 20 years in the past, the corporate will cease manufacturing the Segway PT beginning July 15 because it shifts focus to different models akin to its shared scooter enterprise, it mentioned on Tuesday. The mannequin accounted for lower than 1.5% of the Bedford, New Hampshire-based firm.
Quibi
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, previously of Disney and eBay, had this concept for a brand new video service that might provide high-profile Hollywood expertise in brief movies that folks would pay $4.95 to look at. They did not. And the service went bust in December.
Essential Phone
Andy Rubin, who created Google’s profitable Android software program, select as his subsequent act to introduce a brand new telephone to tackle the iPhone, Galaxy and Pixel, known as Essential. Consumers did not agree that it was certainly value a lot, and the company shut down in February.
Google Play Music
For years, music followers utilizing the Android telephone system had been inspired to pay $10 month-to-month to hearken to songs on the Google Play Music app. Or, they had been requested to pay $10 to get to look at YouTube with out adverts, and in the event that they ordered, they’d get Google Play Music at no cost.
But then Google did some company shuffling, and determined that since YouTube was so fashionable, it ought to be selling its music service as “YouTube Music,” and it constructed a brand new music service beneath the YouTube that wasn’t very completely different from Google Play Music.
Still, in the tip Google determined it did not want two music companies, so introduced it was killing Google Play Music, efficient in December. So lengthy Google Play Music, hiya YouTube!
Follow USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham (@jeffersongraham) on Twitter
