Even the brightest and best get it wrong sometimes…Bill Gates and Sir Alan Sugar have made two of the most inaccurate technological predictions of all time.

In a list of the ten worst predictions, published by gadget magazine T3, Sir Alan Sugar’s 2005 allegation that the iPod will never take off tops the roll, while Bill Gates’ rather over-enthusiastic guess that spam will cease to exist by 2006 obviously still needs some work.

People have variously written off jumbo jets, televisions, X-rays and telephones, as well as predicting the rise of nuclear vacuum cleaners and alleging that England has enough ‘messenger boys’ to make make the telephone unnecessary.

The List:

1.  The iPod will never take off — Sir Alan Sugar in 2005.

2.  There will be no need for a computer in the home — Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp in 1977.

3.  Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years — Alex Lewyt, president of the Lewyt Corp Vacuum Company.

4.  TV won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at plywood box every night — Darryl Zanuck in 1946

5.  There will never be a bigger plane built — a Boeing engineer in 1933, after the first flight of the Boeing 247, that could hold ten people.

6.  We stand on the threshold of rocket mail — US Postmaster General, Authur Sommerfield in 1959

7.  No one would ever need more than 640 KB of memory on their personal computer — Bill Gates in 1981; machines are now sold with approximately 3,500 times that amount

8.  The Americans have need of a telephone, but we do not.  We have plenty of messenger boys — Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the Post Office in 1878

9.  Spam will be solved — Bill Gates, 2004

10.  X-rays will prove to be a hoax — Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society in 1883.

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