It's hard to believe,empire erotice but this year is already halfway over.
Since January, a lot has happened in the tech world. It's a fickle, fast-paced industry, and some major products and services haven't survived past the mid-year mark.
Some of the entries on our list lived long, fruitful lives and contributed lasting legacies to the ever-evolving space. (RIP, Skype.) Others were flash-in-the-pan features or straight-up flops (we're looking at you, Humane AI Pin), destined to meet their inevitable demise. Regardless, they're all worthy of remembering for the way they impacted our lives — even if that impact was just as a punchline.
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Join us as we look back at the year so far and say goodbye or good riddance to the tech that died along the way.
Humane AI Pin
Oh, AI Pin, we hardly knew ye. After less than a year, Humane's attempt to replace the smartphone with a screenless, AI-powered werable pin came to an untimely end. In theory, the concept of an AI assistant that projected a screen on your hand or a surface sounded pretty intriguing. But Humane's execution of the AI pin was all wrong. From the beginning, reviewers panned the $700 device for myriad reasons, including its faulty projector, finicky response to hand gestures, inaccurate AI responses, and overheating issues. Returns of the AI Pin soon flooded in, and Humane shut down support in February 2025.
Humane may have failed to develop a useful AI wearable, but OpenAI is taking a crack at it. Sam Altman was an investor in Humane, and under his direction, OpenAI recently announced a partnership with Jony Ive, the iconic designer of the iPhone, to create an AI device.
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Skype
Ubiquitous video calling apps like Zoom and FaceTime owe a debt of gratitude to Skype. Twenty-two years ago, the only way to call someone was through an (often) expensive phone plan. Long-distance calls were an extravagance, only made for special occasions or emergencies.
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Then, along came Skype in 2003, offering free calls between users over the internet. Not only did it disrupt the telecom industry, it made video calling a thing when it added video support in 2006. Eventually, Skype was acquired by Microsoft in 2011, and it lived an increasingly irrelevant existence as other video calling apps from Apple, Google, and the aforementioned Zoom came on the scene. In February, Microsoft announced that it would retire Skype by May and migrate users to its other video platform, Teams.
Forced retirement is a bittersweet ending. But Skype lived a good, long life, and we'll always have its legacy.
The OG bookmarking app is saying goodbye this year. Mozilla, which has owned Pocket since 2017, announced in May that it was shutting down the read-later platform, with support ending on July 8.
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Pocket launched in 2007 as Read It Later and grew to 30 million users, according to Mozilla. As Mashable's CJ Silva described, the app quickly became a popular service "just as social news and social bookmarking began to take off." But according to Mozilla, "the way people use the web has evolved, so we’re channeling our resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs."
Change is hard, but if you want to keep your bookmarking habits, Silva recommended a bunch of great Pocket alternatives. Just think of Pocket every time you hit "save."
Zelle (kind of)
The Venmo alternative shut down its mobile app in April, but it lives on through your bank. Announced in October 2024, Zelle said it would phase out the standalone app since it only facilitates around two percent of transactions. Instead, it will focus on its money exchange service through the many financial institutions it has partnered with.
"Today, the vast majority of people using Zelle to send money use it through their financial institution’s mobile app or online banking experience, and we believe this is the best place for Zelle transactions to occur," according to the 2024 press release. And now, this plan has gone into effect.
Meta fact-checking program
At the start of President Donald Trump's second non-consecutive term in office, Mark Zuckerberg launched his MAGA makeover. This began with ending Meta's fact-checking program for being "too politically biased," according a video announcement on Facebook. President Trump has accused social media sites of censoring right-wing content, and Zuckerberg seemingly endorsed this viewpoint in killing the program. "What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far," said Zuckerberg in the video.
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Instead, Meta has implemented a crowd-sourced community notes approach, like Elon Musk's X. Meta began implementing community notes across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads on March 18.
TikTok Creator Marketplace (kind of)
This is another entry that's not so much a true death but a reincarnation, if you will. TikTok shut down its Creator Marketplace, a valuable tool for creators to connect with brands for ad campaigns. Instead, it folded the marketplace into TikTok One, a new platform geared towards advertisers with a whole bunch of generative AI tools.
One of those tools is an AI avatar feature, which lets brands create AI-generated people showing off their products. How that impacts creators looking for partnerships remains to be seen. But creators have also proven to be resilient through the looming ban and trade wars.
Mr. Deepfakes
Ding dong, Mr. Deepfakes is dead. We'll gladly celebrate the shutdown of the notorious site known for hosting nonconsensual deepfake porn. As first spotted by 404 Media, the Mr. Deepfakes URL redirected to a "Shutdown Notice" in early May.
According to the message, the shutdown was forced by a service provider that "has terminated service permanently." It also said Mr. Deepfakes "will not be relaunching" and "this domain will eventually expire and we are not responsible for future use."
Just a week before, Congress passed the Take It Down Act, which made posting nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) a federal crime and gives stronger recourse for victims of such content. It's unclear if the shutdown was related, but regardless, regulators are paying attention to the widespread issue.