6 world technology highlights 2022

Cryptocurrency Disaster

2022 is a terrible year for the cryptocurrency market when a series of big names collapsed one after another. The disaster began when the Luna token fell 99.6%, from a peak of $86 to $0.005 on the morning of May 13. Before going bankrupt, Luna's capitalization reached over $30 billion. The collapse has led to the collapse of many of the biggest names in the market such as investment fund Arrows Capital (3AC), exchange Voyager Digital, digital currency lending platform Celsius Network... So far, users and investment funds still have no way to get their money back. Founder Do Kwon is still on the run.

In November, the cryptocurrency market continued to witness another disaster when FTX - the world's third largest cryptocurrency exchange - collapsed. On November 8, from a price of 22 USD per token, FTT plummeted to 2.4 USD after a few hours. Sam Bankman-Fried's assets lost 94%, from nearly 16 billion USD to 991.5 million USD. On November 11, FTX filed for bankruptcy. Millions of users' money was stuck on the exchange. On December 12, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested and faced a sentence of up to 115 years. Similar to Luna, the FTX disaster caused a serious crisis in the cryptocurrency market. BlockFi, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency lending companies, declared bankruptcy due to its involvement in the FTX exchange collapse.

From left to right, Do Kwon - founder of Terra, Sam Bankman-Fried - founder of FTX, Changpeng Zhao - founder of Bianance.

The cryptocurrency disaster in 2022 shows no signs of stopping as in late December, a series of negative news targeted Binance - the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Analysis ofReutersshows that Binance's operations and cash flow management are even more opaque than FTX. Users are withdrawing their funds from the exchange, while founder Changpeng Zhao has repeatedly reassured the community. If the worst-case scenario happens to Binance, the cryptocurrency market could fall into the biggest crisis in history.

Portrait of Elon Musk seen through the Twitter logo. Graphic image:Reuters

Elon Musk has been the center of attention in the tech industry for the past six months after acquiring Twitter. In mid-April, he announced plans to buy the social network, but in May he changed his mind. Two months later, Twitter sued Musk, forcing him to continue the contract. He finally became the new owner of the social network on October 27.

As expected, after taking over Twitter, Musk created a series of disturbances. Starting with the dismissal of some key figures of the company, the American billionaire continued to cut more than half of the staff. Musk even fought with Apple but then gave in.

However, the billionaire is also making many pivotal changes to Twitter. After a short testing period, Musk launched a campaign to charge a "blue tick" account fee of $8/month. Explaining his unusual actions, Musk said on Twitter Space on the evening of December 20: "The company is in a state similar to an airplane that is flying straight down to the ground at high speed, the engine is on fire and the control system is not working." He admitted that his directions were somewhat strange, but that it was his way of preparing for an "emergency fire drill" that could happen in the future.

Aliya Capital Partners, the asset management firm that invested $360 million in Musk's deal, believes the current risks are only short-term, and that in the next few years, Twitter can generate 4-5 times more profit.

Wave of tech layoffs

When Musk announced that he was laying off half of his 7,500 employees, the blame was on him. But the undercurrent had been brewing since before that. In July, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been telling employees to improve their performance or leave. In November, he announced that he was laying off 13% of his workforce, or 11,000 people. But Meta’s CEO warned that the cuts were not over.

A wave of tech layoffs is costing Silicon Valley its edge in attracting global talent. Illustration:Quartz

Similarly, since mid-year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has asked employees to increase their productivity by 20% or risk losing their jobs. Team managers at Google have been asked to evaluate performance and rank employees to reduce 10,000 underperforming employees. This number is equivalent to 6% of the total workforce of nearly 187,000.

Amazon employees also faced historic layoffs. In October, CEO Andy Jassy urged managers to “double down on savings.” A month later, the company froze hiring, slashed a range of operating costs, and scaled back unprofitable operations.

Other tech companies like Amazon, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Lyft... also confirmed plans to adjust staff. Statistics fromLayoffs.fyiBy the end of November, the total number of tech layoffs in Silicon Valley had exceeded 100,000, most of them from large tech companies. This has not only disrupted the lives of engineers but also seriously threatened the allocation and attraction of tech talent in the world's leading innovation centers such as Silicon Valley.

Meta plunges

2022 was a year of failure for Meta. After changing its name from Facebook to Meta in October 2021 to pursue its virtual space ambitions, Mark Zuckerberg's company continued to decline. In addition, Apple's move to change its privacy policy on iOS also seriously impacted the platform's advertising revenue.

The company is having a major problem with its ambitions, experts say, as the costs of the platform have risen, leaving investors less confident. Meta’s bet on virtual space has cost it $9.4 billion this year and more than $10 billion last year. The company even predicts that its losses “will increase significantly year over year.”

Meta booth at the Viva Technology conference in France in June. Photo:Reuters

Zuckerberg himself admitted that many people disagreed with him about investing in virtual universes. However, he believes that the company's future lies in the metaverse and that patient investors will be rewarded.

According to statistics, Meta's revenue in the third quarter of 2022 decreased by 4.5% compared to the same period last year. Meta also dropped out of the list of the 20 largest companies in the world by capitalization. Last year, they were one of the five companies worth more than 1,000 billion USD in the US along with Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon. The company is now worth about 270 billion USD, lower than companies such as Home Depot, Pfizer and Coca-Cola.

US $53 billion chip bill

On August 9, US President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS & Science Act, which provides nearly $53 billion for semiconductor manufacturing incentives and $200 billion for research into AI, quantum computing and other advanced technologies. The act is expected to bring foreign manufacturing facilities back to the US. In fact, many major chipmakers have announced expansion of operations in the country. TSMC said it would invest at least $12 billion in Arizona. Samsung pledged to invest $17 billion in Texas. SK Hynix revealed plans to spend $15 billion on Intel and Micron.

US President Joe Biden attends an event to promote domestic semiconductor manufacturing on the White House grounds on March 9. Photo:AP

In early December, Mr. Biden visited TSMC’s chip factory under construction in Phoenix, Arizona. The Taiwanese semiconductor company plans to build another factory by 2026 with the goal of producing 3nm chips with an estimated investment of $40 billion. This is considered a victory for Mr. Biden after policies to attract the technology sector.

Under the new law, subsidized companies will receive incentives to expand production in the US, but will be restricted from making “major transactions” in China or any other country for 10 years.Nikkei AsiaThe subsidy package's provisions are a quagmire, forcing manufacturers to choose between the US and China, according to analysts.

After a two-year pandemic-induced chip shortage, chip supply chain inventories have been rising since the start of this year, according to VLSI Research.FortuneIn the context of declining demand and piling up chip inventories, it may be a mistake for the US to pour tons of money into a sector that "does not need support as much as it should."

The most technological World Cup in history

The Qatar 2022 World Cup is considered by experts to be the World Cup with the most technology ever. Notably, the Semi-Automatic Offside Detection Technology (SAOT) is based on 12 specialized cameras mounted under the roofs of stadiums and synchronized. Optical tracking data considers 29 data points of each player's movement and the position of the ball, analyzed at a rate of 50 times per second. For the SAOT technology to be accurate, the ball used at the 2022 World Cup, Al Rihla, has sensors that transmit data 500 times per second to the VAR room.

In the final round of Group E qualifying, the Al Rihla sensor decided the fate of the entire group when it recognized Japan's goal against Spain. Then, in the Portugal-Uruguay match, the same sensor showed no vibration when the ball passed through Ronaldo's position, meaning the Portuguese superstar did not score.

SAOT technology was applied to catch offside in the Croatia - Belgium match. Photo:FIFA

Another automated goal-line system is Goal-line. This technology was first introduced at the 2014 World Cup and has been continuously upgraded over the years. In Qatar this year, each system in the eight stadiums uses data from 14 high-speed cameras mounted on the pitch or under the roof.

Many applications are also used at this World Cup. In particular, the FIFA Player Performance Information Application provides detailed data on the performance of each player after each match and is applied for the first time at the World Cup. The FIFA+ application uses AR technology to display detailed player parameters on the field, heat maps, VAR replays... in the 2022 World Cup matches. People watching the match live at the stadium in Qatar can use a smartphone with the FIFA+ application installed. When pointing the camera at any player, an AR "overlay" including information such as name, shirt number, speed, distance traveled, heat map... will be displayed in detail on the screen in real time.