They Tried To Wallpaper Your House With Bubble Wrap
Two thrill-seeking inventors made a living-room look like a washing machine and learned the hard way that not all bright ideas deserve respect.Read More 
Picturephone: The Video Phone That Made Us All Self Conscious
AT&T flogged a video-phone dream at the World's Fair, then discovered people prefer privacy, lipstick, and not being boxed into a phone booth with bad lighting.Read More 
Puckle's Revolver: The 1718 Machine That Misfired
In 1718 a well-meaning inventor built a cranky 'repeater' that promised to rain lead and instead delivered embarrassment, pamphlets and a few sad test firings.Read More 
CueCat: The Cute Plastic Spy
They mailed millions of plastic cat-shaped barcode scanners to readers and accidentally invented the first adorable privacy scandal.Read More 
The Man Who Let Sound Take Notes
In 1857 a French tinkerer built the phonautograph that dutifully wrote down sound but, in a fit of modesty or incompetence, never bothered to play it back.Read More 
The Car That Wanted A Mini Nuclear Heart (and Nope)
In 1958 Ford sketched a tiny car with a nuclear reactor in its butt and the 1950s were charmingly delusional about that sort of thing.Read More 
They Tried To Smash Cities With Bats, Properly Daft
In WWII the US actually trained bats to carry tiny incendiaries so they'd roost in wooden houses and start fires - and it worked well enough to be terrifying.Read More 
Edison's Creepy Talking Doll That Couldn't Keep a Job
In the 1890s Edison shoved a tiny phonograph into a child's doll and the world collectively decided some things should stay silent.Read More 
The Great Panjandrum: When Britain Invented a Rampaging Rocket Wheel
During WWII Britain briefly decided the best way to break a concrete seawall was to tow a pair of rocket-driven wooden wheels full of explosives, and then had a very awkward afternoon on the beach.Read More 
They Hung Babies Outside Windows And Called It Fresh Air
Back when folk thought dangling your nipper outside the flat was common sense, so they bolted a wire cage to the sill and called it childcare.Read More 