Seductive Electronic Gadgets Are Soon Forgotten

Seductive Electronic Gadgets Are Soon Forgotten

By KATIE HAFNER

Published: October 15, 2003

[]dam Lipson cannot decide which of the many gadgets he bought in the last couple of years proved most useless.
Perhaps it was the microscope that hooked up to his computer. Then again, maybe Mr. Lipson, 42, would choose the universal remote control that came with a manual as thick as a Russian novel. But that would be shortchanging the Webcam — a video camera that transfers images over the Internet — that he used once, stashed in a closet and finally threw away.
Mr. Lipson, who runs a computer security consulting company in Pearl River, N.Y., is but one of many shoppers who have bought electronic devices lately that end up stuffed into a bottom drawer, on the high shelf of a closet, or in the back of a garage. The lucky ones manage to unload them to somebody else through eBay, which is full of offers these days for "barely used" products or items still "new in box," a term that has become so common it is often shortened to "NIB."
Gadgets bought and barely used are the technology world's equivalent of exercise equipment. Often purchased in a well-intentioned bout of self-improvement, they are opened, used once or twice, then abandoned. Sometimes they never make it out of the box.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/technology/15GADG.html?th



Have you puchased electronic or other gadgets that ended up in the closet or junk heap? I have my closets are full of them.