The first seven 2022 technology stories we discussed are here in Part 1.

Now let’s wrap up the exciting conclusion with our last seven tech stories we thought were important enough to remind you of.


FTO Crypto Goes Bankrupt

The collapse of FTX, caused by a liquidity crisis of the company’s token, FTT, served as the impetus for its bankruptcy. Prior to its collapse, FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume and had over one million users.

Our Take: Maybe, just maybe, there might be more oversight of the crypto markets from this. As for prices, historically in crypto they've been cyclical - and the market understood so little by most of its investors that prices frequently don't reflect any real-world issues anyway.


iPhone 14 - The Camera

The advancements on the iPhone 14 and particularly the iPhone 14 Pro cameras are really starting to change the game. There are new lenses, new sensors and new approaches towards focus and motion.

Our Take: The reasons for upgrading to any edition of the new iPhone have historically been overrated. But this leap in photo and video quality truly is a big advance. We know a filmmaker here who says there's no point to him shooting with his older, dedicated cameras; and he says the camera's ability to intelligently determine what to focus on is incredible.


Facebook - Meta Layoffs

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's efforts to build the Metaverse have been less effective and slower than anticipated. In November 2022, they laid off 11,000 developers involved in the Meta development division.

Our Take: Of course, there will be some sort of "metaverse" eventually. Will it be Facebook, aka "Meta", that brings it to us. I'm going to go on record and for the most part predict: No. Meta, aka Facebook, is having some at large problems (see loss of ad effectiveness in last week's 2022 summary).



AI Content Creation

There is suddenly a lot of art and music that are selling in the marketplace, which were initiated or aided by Artificial Intelligence. There are a bevy of AI online solutions and apps available to artists and writers.

Our Take: At least so far, these are just tools. Your Roomba is not directly composing poems for you. Artists have gained access to a little extra inspirational tools; but personally I think of these as more of a souped-up version of something like a rhyming dictionary or guitar effects pedals. These tools spit out great suggestions of ideas whereas the artist still has to pick the best suggestions and still cultivate them and turn them into something worthwhile. For now, at least.


Return To Office Work

Despite the surprising success of businesses adapting to remote work environments during the COVID pandemic quarantine era, many large businesses and tech giants are returning to full-time in-office work.

Our Take: Businesses have so much to gain from a hybrid system instead of fully in-office: less real estate expenses, more worker time spent on work instead of kibbitzing, employee satisfaction and retention. I've always said if a boss thinks you're goofing off at home, it's because it's what that boss would do himself. Also, if work can't be quantified and evaluated, then it's probably a bad job description and situation to begin with.


First Party Data

We mean directly collected and voluntarily submitted data as opposed to things like third-party cookies. Things are trending away from third-party cookies.

Our Take: Marketing and social media marketing continues to get a little less huckstery every year at least by a tiny bit. Thank goodness. Over time, companies don't leap into snap decisions based on just having some or any data. Quality data eventually wins the war.


Elon Musk Buying Twitter

We know everything that happened to Twitter. Elon Musk overpaid for Twitter partly out of ego and also out of botched negotiating tactics. Despite his protestations, he's in this for messaging and ideological reasons as much or more than tech or financial ones.

Our Take: He ruined a good thing, and especially with the very recent and abrupt end of third-party app access - its days are numbered. If SpaceX and Tesla are run with any of this attitude, I may hold off on both for a very long time.