The world never changes quite the way you expect. But at The Verge, we've had a front-row seat while technology has permeated every aspect of our lives over the past decade. Some of the resulting moments -- and gadgets -- arguably defined the decade and the world we live in now. But others we ate up with popcorn in hand, marveling at just how incredibly hard they flopped. This is the decade we learned that crowdfunded gadgets can be utter disasters, even if they don't outright steal your hard-earned cash. It's the decade of wearables, tablets, drones and burning batteries, and of ridiculous valuations for companies that were really good at hiding how little they actually had to offer. Here are 84 things that died hard, often hilariously, to bring us where we are today. Everyone was confused by Google's Nexus Q when it debuted in 2012, including The Verge -- which is probably why the bowling ball of a media streamer crashed and burned before it even came to market.

Cross-industry collaboration Announced in a blog post today, Microsoft said the institute will look for ways to directly integrate AI research into Cortana. The organisation is being co-funded by Microsoft Research, Cortana Research and the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. The Institute is unique in its intention to directly combine research with real-world implementation. Currently, AI researchers tend to operate independently of the engineers building applications such as Cortana. The Cortana Intelligence Institute will bridge the gap, providing researchers and engineers with a two-way link to each other.

If 2016 was the year of putting failures behind it, Microsoft's 2017 was a year of focus. Over the past 12 months we've seen the software giant successfully execute on its plan to become a major cloud competitor. It's a massive part of Microsoft's business now, and it will only continue to grow into 2018. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also revealed that the company's future is in artificial intelligence, Mixed Reality, and quantum computing. We've seen early work in all three areas this year, even if quantum computing and true artificial intelligence are still a ways off in the industry.

Google has pulled YouTube from Amazon's Echo Show smart speaker. Apparently, Google and Amazon are in some kind of disagreement with the former claiming that the Echo Show is violating their terms of service. For the uninitiated, the Echo Show is one of Amazon's Alexa-powered smart speakers. It's currently the only model that features a touchscreen display and a front-facing camera for video chats. The display on the Echo Show also allows users to watch videos online and even use it as a monitor to view their home security cameras.

Read our thoughts on its most important launch title, and while you're at it, gaze at the prettiest Windows Phone that's now turned Android, and how Roborace is turning robots into racecar drivers. This is the Nintendo Switch's hit. 'Breath of the Wild' is the best'Zelda' game in years Nintendo has changed Zelda a lot for its Switch incarnation -- arguably the most since the series debuted. With a bigger world, exploration key to your progress, and weapons that you'll need to keep an eye as they degrade, it's a different spin on Link's journey through Hyrule. But despite all that, Aaron Souppouris says that it remains unmistakably a Zelda game.

Microsoft, which owns Minecraft, will stop supporting the Windows Phone 8.1 version of its own immensely popular world building game, Ars Technica reports. While the game's development continues apace, Redmond is essentially admitting that even with a massive player base, the venn diagram between Windows Phone users and Minecraft fans has too little overlap to be worth the effort. On mobile, the Android and iOS versions of Minecraft: Pocket Edition will still be supported, of course, and that same version is also what gets ported to platforms like the Gear VR and Apple TV. Unlike those other systems, which recently hit an official 1.0 version last month, the Windows Phone version never quite made it out of beta. Microsoft did, however, recently release a new version of Minecraft for Windows 10 as a Universal Windows Platform app that will eventually run on everything from desktops to Surface tablets to the HoloLens.

An independent Windows Phone developer has created an app for Microsoft's mobile platform that will attempt to outmatch Apple's intelligent voice-controlled assistant Siri. Ask Ziggy for Windows Phone is a free ad-free mobile app that can perform similar tasks to the iOS 5 voice assistant. "Ask Ziggy uses Speech Recognition to translate human speech into transcribed text, which is displayed in a speech bubble. The transcribed text is analyzed for patterns to detect commands or general queries. Commands are interpreted and routed to routine phone tasks such as emailing, texting, calling, social network updates, and getting directions," said Shai Leib, the app's developer, told WPcentral.

Cortana is one of the most useful features of Windows 10. But if you weren't previously introduced to the Microsoft digital assistant via Windows Phone, you might have little idea how to take advantage of it. Here are a few ways you can use Cortana to streamline common tasks. Cortana is always at your fingertips in Windows 10. But while you can type Cortana commands in the taskbar search box, it's much more efficient to use your voice.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it was further "streamlining" its mobile phone business. The firm will lay off more than 1,800 workers, and will focus its phone efforts where they have differentiation, according to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella. So while this certainly doesn't mean that Microsoft will ignore smartphones in the future, it certainly sounds like they're not interested in selling Lumia phones -- or any others -- to the average consumer anymore. It may sound a little bonkers to get out of the smartphone market now, when everyone and their mothers are glued to their mobile devices. And this latest move does mean that Microsoft has written down more than the 9.6 billion it spent to acquire Nokia's handset business in 2014.

Last September, Minecraft-developer Mojang surprised many by adding the option for anyone with the Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS and Android versions of the game to quarry together in the same blocky worlds. But there was a catch: Everyone had to be on the same local network, relegating collaborative endeavors to house parties. Mojang has confirmed cross-platform play (Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS and Android) is coming to Minecraft Realms, its subscription-based hosting service. Around since 2013, Realms turns Minecraft server hosting over to Mojang for 8 a month, removing the technical busywork of setting up your own server, and ensuring your worlds are available 24/7. If you're an Android user, the Realms Android Alpha is both free and available immediately, though you'll need to set up an Xbox Live account (if you don't have one) to sign in. Mojang isn't saying when the final version will be ready, but confirms it'll support cross-platform play between iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Windows 10 at launch.