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Bubble memory looked promising 50 years ago and was briefly used.
Worm drives and Holgraphic storage looked promising 20 to 30 years ago. We are still waiting for it.
Magneto Optic storage did deliver, but eventually Flash and writeable DVD/BD replaced it.
Optane looked promising, but is gone.
In the 1950s Atomic power promised us almost free electricity. Then later Fusion power was only 10 or 20 years away, 50 years ago.
Things claimed in labs may or may not ever see the light of day.
Beam indexing CRT (no shadow mask or Trinitron grid) was promised for colour TV in 1951. In the late 1990s it was finally working, but never reached the market because colour LCD was dramatically improving.
Electronic TV was outlined in 1905, but it took till 1935 to solve the issues with the camera. The CRT already existed in 1905!
Transistor theory was known in the 1920s but it took till 1948 to demo it (material purity was the issue) and about 1950 for decent production. It 1954 for the first transistor radio and they weren't economic to replace valves till 1958.
Magnetic tape recording was demonstrated in the late 1890s and Fax in 1851. But it was Telefunken in the 1940s that first had viable tape recording.
The liquid hydrogen & oxygen engine for rockets to the moon was demoed in a lab in 1930s.
The first aircraft to take off, fly and land automatically was 1972. But that's not commonplace yet.
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