16. CableCard (2004-?)

In an ideal world, you were supposed to be able to do away with your cable box and have this little PC card-size CableCard slide into the back of your TV (or even your computer). An excellent idea, but CableCard had a couple of shortcomings at launch and was never fully embraced by the industry. CableCard 2.0 was supposed to alleviate the issues but it, too, has languished. Time will tell if the successor technology, Tru2way, fares any better.