But for every life-changing Zoom, there was at
least one soon-forgotten Quibi. Here’s a look at
the year’s tech winners and losers.
LOSERS:
— Virtual Reality
As the world adjusted to a new stuck-at-home
reality, the pandemic could have been virtual
reality’s chance to offer an escape. With the use of
special headsets and accouterments like gloves,
the technology lets people interact with a 360
degree view of a three-dimensional environment,
seemingly a good fit for people stuck indoors.
But people turned to easier-to-use software
and games that they already had. Few rushed
to spend hundreds of dollars on a clunky new
headset or tried to learn the ropes of virtual
reality meeting software. And no VR games
broke into the mainstream. So virtual reality,
on the verge of success for decades, missed its
moment, again.
— Social media election labels
It was the year of labels on Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and even TikTok. Ahead of the Nov. 3
U.S. presidential vote, the companies promised
to clamp down on election misinformation,
including baseless charges of fraud and
candidates’ premature declarations of victory.
And the most visible part of this was the bevy
of labels applied to tweets, posts, photos
and videos.
“Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet
is disputed and might be misleading about
an election or other civic process,” read one
typical label applied to a tweet by President
Donald Trump.