The month of July will arrive uninvited in just a few more days marking the first half of 2022 has already left us like how we let off a cough on the stairs. In the first six months we have changed from a pandemic to pre-endemic phase with more and more people returning to the norm before Covid-19.
To celebrate the first six months that will leave us, here are the 10 biggest, most important, contagious, emotionally discussed and most shocking news to date.
1.NFT Here Here Everywhere
We can’t help but discuss NFT for the first half of 2022 as it is an inevitable topic if you spend time online. The purchase of Non -Changeable Token (NFT) is seen as a status symbol of certain groups with Bored Ape Yacht Club being the most prominent collection with it bought by Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton and many more people who do not want to miss owning cyber apes sold at hundreds. thousand dollars.
In Malaysia, NFT became the focus of public attention after SueAnnaJoe's NFT Rusuk Emas was sold at a price of RM52,000 (22 BNB) at the end of 2021. Altimet's involvement also made people start to know what NFT is. As a result in January 2022 Rompak film producers used NFT sales to collect in producing their films. AEAON, KFC and MyeongDong Topokki in Malaysia also offer their respective tokens to not miss jumping into the web3 world.
2.Russia is subject to various technological restrictions
Russia invaded Ukraine in February on the grounds that the former Soviet Union was being ruled by Nazis who violated civil liberties. The world immediately realized the real reason was that President Putin did not want Ukraine from joining NATO which was seen to have a negative impact on Russia. The war that initially would only take a few weeks as the size of the Russian army doubled in size is now more than four months old with tens of thousands already reported killed and millions more displaced.
The western bloc countries immediately condemned the Russian attack and imposed various economic and technological sanctions on Russia. Russian users fell victim after apps could no longer be purchased from the app store, Windows could not be updated and subscriptions to services like Netflix were also blocked. As for the Russian technology industry, they are affected by barriers to buying chips and all forms of technology from the west. This caused Microsoft and Google to withdraw completely from Russia.
Among the unexpected effects of economic sanctions was that a network of Russian cinemas illegally screened western films and McDonalds was sold before being rebranded just a few weeks ago.
3.Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard
If you told us ten years ago that in 2022, Microsoft would buy one of the world’s largest video game companies we would laugh at you. But in January 2022 this is what happened with the purchase of Microsoft surprising the world of technology especially the world of video games.
Microsoft is believed to have paid $ 70 billion to buy Activision Blizzard with the video game series Diablo, Call of Duty, Overwatch, Starcraft, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft now theirs. This is their second surprise purchase after buying Bathesda in 2020. The impact was huge enough that Sony’s shares plummeted by as much as 12%.
Some see the purchase of large companies by Microsoft will kill competitors as the popular Bathesda and Activison Blizzard franchises will now be the exclusive rights of their Xbox platforms.
4. Meta Share Value Falls RM1 Trillion
The market value of Meta plunged -26% causing the loss of share value to reach $ 251 billion (~ RM 1.05 Trillion) last February after financial reports showed the company suffered a loss of $ 20 billion due to the development of metamesta platform and also ATT ad tracking system by Apple. Mark Zuckerberg, who is listed as one of the world's 10 richest people every year, continues to drop out after losing $ 29 billion due to the depreciation of Meta shares.
Even so, Meta is still committed to developing the world's premier metamesta platform as Facebook is the world's leading social media platform. Various strategies were announced to ensure Meta products remain relevant such as making the app more TikTok -like and adding NFT integration on all their platforms.
5.Modern General Cancer Vaccine Preparation
Cancer is a disease that claims many lives in the most brutal way. Often it is so slow to detect that no treatment can be given. A few weeks ago singer Adibah Noor passed away due to ovarian cancer. Therefore treatments and vaccines to fight cancer are being developed by some leading pharmaceutical companies.
Moderna, which first became known for developing the Covid-19 vaccine, announced the development of a cancer vaccine last February that uses mRNA technology. In the case of the cancer vaccine, it is designed to attack the Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) antigen and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) that help cancer tumor growth. Moderna said in the early stages tests will be done to prevent skin and lung cancer.
The first half of 2022 also brought with it a lot of good news for humans and bad for cancer. In May, Imugene Limited began cancer treatment trials using the CF33-hNIS VAXINIA virus that shrinks the size of cancers in the ovaries, pancreas, lungs, breasts, and intestines in animals. Earlier this month, dostarlimab successfully eliminated tumors in patients without surgery or radiotherapy.
6.Samsung Promises Support 4 Android Versions And 5 Years Of Security
Five years ago Samsung won the award as one of the most agile companies to update Android software and security patches with HTC and Google being the fastest. Realizing that software is just as important as hardware, this year Samsung promised update support for up to four versions of Android and security patches for five years.
This puts Samsung as the Android manufacturer with the best support beyond what Google can afford to promise for the Pixel. Support will be provided not only on vertex devices but also on intermediate devices. With better software support, users no longer have to worry about security but can also use the device longer - as long as it’s not as long as Chris Evans already is.
7.Elon Musk buys Twitter
Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter at a value of $ 44 billion last April. The purchase was made after the world’s richest man conducted a poll on whether Twitter still allows freedom of speech. Starting out as a joke it later became a not -so -funny joke for Musk as it resulted in Tesla shares plummeting and company staff voicing dissatisfaction until they were fired.
Two months after the announcement was made Mas Elon has yet to finalize a purchase with Twitter not providing data on the actual number of bots on the platform. Meanwhile he shared ideas like making Twitter more like WeChat and giving identity verification to all users.
8. Leica and Huawei Cooperation Ends And Now Moves To Xiaomi
The big news in the world of technology is that Leica ended its partnership with Huawei and moved to Xiaomi. The collaboration since the Huawei P9 ended with the P50 Pro earlier this year. Undoubtedly the Huawei brand only started to be respected after a collaboration with Leica which is very prestigious in the world of photography. There’s also no denying the Huawei camera with Leica is a great combination with the best night mode in its class.
But as we wrote last May, the collaboration between Xiaomi and Leica will be the catalyst for the “little rice” to become the world’s leading smartphone maker as targeted by Lei Jun himself. Xiaomi’s shortcoming from the start was the camera performance that was still behind Samsung, Apple and Huawei. With the Xiaomi 12 Ultra equipped with Leica lenses set to launch in July, we’ll see if our predictions will come true.
9. Mandatory USB-C Usage On iPhone Starting 2024
Thank God this month when the European Union (EU) agreed to make the use of USB-C port mandatory on all electronic devices starting 2024. Apple has no choice but to replace the Lightning on the iPhone with a port that has been used on the iPad for the past few years.
This change has been long awaited as standardization reduces the number of cables that users have to carry when on vacation for example. EU action initiated the movement so that it was also done in the United States. Global standardization will certainly happen as there is no reason for models with Lighthing to continue to be produced by Apple after 2024.
10. Apple Chip Succeeds Samsung Chip Failed
Now end this list article with the different fortunes of the world's two leading technology companies, namely Samsung and Apple. Apple continues the success of Apple Silicon with the launch of a new MacBook with the Apple M2 chip that provides an increase in power over the Apple M1. Preliminary reviews praised the improved performance once again without the issue of overheating that haunts Intel’s release chips.
Samsung, meanwhile, is hoping with the reality that their new -generation Exynos 2200 chip with AMD’s Xclipse GPU fails to meet a given target. It is problematic to the point of causing various issues to consumers in Europe and in benchmark tests not being able to compete with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. More embarrassingly the more powerful MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chip. MediaTek which was once considered a powerless cheap chip maker is now beating Samsung Exynos.
As a result of the failure of the Exynos 2200, Samsung will eventually produce a mobile device chip designed specifically for Galaxy devices by 2025. For now their device will use a Qualcomm chip that is gaining popularity in markets such as Malaysia.
BONUS - The Value of Cryptocurrencies Plunges
The value of the world’s major cryptocurrencies plummeted like Pandelela Rinong at the Olympics. The value of Bitcoin, for example, dropped to below RM80,000 from RM263,000 in November 2021. The impact of the war in Ukraine and the still -unstable economy caused the value of major cryptocurrencies to fall. Coupled with various crypto schemes that have depreciated so much that it has almost caused many investors to sell the crypto they hold.
When the article was written the value of Bitcoin was still fluctuating with it now around RM92,000. With the recession expected to intensify coupled with soaring inflation, the value of major cryptocurrencies is not expected to recover in the near future. For investors who can be patient, the wait for the moon should be temporarily postponed.