British scientists will investigate whether higher doses of a cheap and widely used steroid called dexamethasone might work better in severe COVID-19 patients compared to standard lower doses, they said Thursday. , showed that it was able to save the lives of COVID-19 patients in a so-called "breakthrough" in the coronavirus pandemic.
They found that a 6 mg daily dose of dexamethasone, used to reduce inflammation in diseases such as arthritis, reduced the death rate among critically ill COVID-19 patients in hospitals by about a third.
"Given the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, we can expect patients with severe COVID-19 to be hospitalized for a while," said Peter Horby, a professor at Oxford University who co-led the study.
“So it is very important that we continue RECOVERY to compare a higher dose of 20 mg dexamethasone given once a day for five days, followed by 10 mg once a day for another five days, with the usual low dose treatment.
Process is supported by the UK government and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French's charity.
Last week, scientists began investigating GSK and Vir Biotechnology's antibody-based drug COVID19 as a possible treatment for hospital patients.
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These were the biggest crypto security breaches of the past 10 years
As the cryptocurrency market has boomed over the last 10 years, so too have the number of security breaches and cyberattacks trying to take advantage of its growth.
According to a new report from invezz, it's estimated $12.1bn in cryptocurrency was stolen between January 2011 and December 2021 with Japan, South Korea, the US, the UK and China being the countries with the most security breaches.
When it comes to how such a massive amount of money was stolen, exploiting vulnerabilities in crypto exchange security systems was the most common tactic with $3.18bn lost in security breaches, $1.76bn stolen through Decentralized Finance (DeFi) hacks and $7.12bn lost through crypto scams.
At the same time, crypto scams increased by 850 percent from 2011 to 2021 and this year saw the highest number of scams with 76 in total. However, the largest increase in the number of scams occurred between 2016 to 2017 (180%) when some of the most serious cyberattacks took place.
Biggest cryptocurrency security breaches
The hack of the Japanese crypto exchange Mt. Gox back in 2014 remains the biggest in history after all these years. However, it marked the second time the exchange was hacked as it fell victim to a similar attack back in 2011 when $8.75m worth of Bitcoin was lost. In 2014, Mt. Gox lost the almost 850k bitcoins (equivalent to $615m) after hackers flooded the exchange with a huge amount of fake Bitcoin.
The second biggest cryptocurrency security breach occurred in August of this year when the blockchain-based platform Poly Network had more than $600m in cryptocurrency stolen from it. Thankfully though, most of these funds were returned and the platform offered the white hat hacker responsible a job.
Back in January of 2018, hackers infiltrated the exchange Coincheck and stole $534m in cryptocurrency. They did this by accessing hot wallets in a phishing attack before spreading malware to extract the funds. While Coincheck suffered the third largest cryptocurrency security breach in the last ten years, the exchange is still up and running and was even acquired by the Japanese financial services provider Monex Group in April of 2021.
Invezz cryptocurrency analyst, Milko Trajcevski explained why keeping your coins in a cryptocurrency wallet like the Ledger Nano X is the best way to protect them, saying:
“The main thing here that we all need to be aware of as cryptocurrency investors is the fact that, as long as you keep your cryptocurrency tokens on the exchange wallet you are using directly, they will be at risk. Hackers and bad actors are constantly pushing towards new ways of compromising the security of these exchanges, and while they are fairly secure and even promise cold storage options and insurance, you still have a slight level of risk there. The best and only way for you to keep your cryptocurrency tokens as safe as possible is to store them within a private cryptocurrency wallet. A private cryptocurrency wallet is one where you have full control over the private keys to that wallet. Additionally, you can go the extra distance and invest in a private cryptocurrency wallet, but the general idea here is to keep your tokens off an exchange, where you have full ownership and control over them.”
If you are planning to ring in the New Year tomorrow by ordering food through platforms like Swiggy and Zomato, don't be surprised if you are asked to pay more. For, starting tomorrow, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) changes kick in, and food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato are mandated to collect and pay the GST on behalf of all restaurants.
As ever with tax changes in India, there is a bit of confusion in this one too.
Currently, all cooked food orders sold by restaurants (via food aggregators) invites a 5% GST. That is over and above the 18% GST that all foods get levied at the restaurant. The onus of paying the the 5% GST was hitherto with the restaurants. Now that responsibility has changed to the food delivery platforms.
What is the real change? Has a new tax been levied?
The proposal to direct food delivery platforms to collect and pay 5% GST on food orders directly to the government was announced last September at the GST Council Meet.
The decision was taken to bring online food deliveries on par with cooked food sold by restaurants. The government has made it clear that no new taxes have been introduced, and that it is simply a matter of the GST collection centre being transferred.
To make things clearer: At present, if any customer orders from a restaurant using platforms like Swiggy or Zomato, the online food app is supposed to collect the 5% tax on the order from the customer and pass it on to the restaurant that will have to pay the government. From now on, the food delivery apps will collect the same tax from customers and deposit it to the government directly.
Why this change?
The decision was taken in order to prevent revenue leakage at unregistered restaurants. Many eateries are unregistered as they are below the threshold of Rs 40 lakh turnover per annum.
Further, restaurants charge GST from their customers on every order placed through the food delivery app but fail to pay the tax to the government. Delegating responsibility to food aggregators is meant to reduce this tax evasion. It is estimated that the government has so far lost revenue of around 2,000 crore due to revenue leakage.
While Swiggy or Zomato cannot charge you a fee on the GST slab, they can charge a fee that justifies the extra work. And that is where this fear that your online food orders may get costly stems from.
Some clarity is expected to emerge based on the decision that food app companies take.
Check out our yearend stories around Tech, OTT, Fintech and Movies:
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10 best upcoming phones of 2022: the handsets we're excited to see
Elon Musk said that in the worst case scenario, SpaceX would bring humans to Mars in 10 years.
Spaceship engineering and cost reduction are the determining factors. "No amount of money can get a ticket to Mars," added in Lex Fridman.
Elon Musk said that SpaceX will bring people to Mars in 10 years with its Starship rocket, in the worst case break, the billionaire replied: “The best case is about five years, the worst case 10 years.
Musk told Fridman that the determining factors included the design of the vehicle, adding that “Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket ever built.
"The basic optimization of Starship is to minimize the cost per ton for orbit and ultimately the cost per ton for the Martian surface," Musk told Fridman on the podcast. Millions of dollars, Musk told Fridman.
"No amount of money can get a ticket to Mars," he said on the podcast.The SpaceX and Tesla CEO has predicted multiple dates for his company's arrival and landing on the Red Planet.
Musk said in an interview with the Clubhouse audio app in February that it will be "five and a half years" before a manned SpaceX spacecraft mission takes place.
Missile could land on the red planet. Musk tweeted in March that his aerospace company would land its Starship missiles "long before" 2030 on Mars.
SpaceX will be landing Starships on Mars well before 2030. The really hard threshold is making Mars Base Alpha self-sustaining.
Experts say it could take longer than they predict if things don't go exactly according to plan during the three remaining launch opportunities before 2026.
Musk is finally planning to build 1,000 Starship missiles, launching three of them a day, to bring a million people to the Red Planet.
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Oppo A16k India launch by mid-January -- specifications and more
The Oppo A16K had launched in the Philippines early in November this year and we had speculated that it would appear in India in the sub-Rs.15,000 category. There is now information floating in that the smartphone would appear on Indian shores in the second week of January.
A report published by 91Mobiles quotes tipster Mukul Sharma claiming that the new handset would appear in the first or second week of January. The company brought the Oppo A16 as the successor to its Oppo A15 launched in October 2020, thus adding more devices to its series of budget phones under the A series in India.
The Oppo A16 came packed with the MediaTek Helio G35, a big 5,000mAh battery and a triple rear camera on the back. The company had also launched the Oppo A15s announcedback in December with massive 5000mAh battery for Rs 11,490 and followed it up with a 128GB variant while retaining the same 4GB RAM.
Coming to the specifications of the upcoming Oppo A16K, the Indian variant could have 3GB RAM mapped to 32GB internal storage with a microSD card to boot. It has a 6.52-inch HD-plus water drop display with flat edges. However, the device could sport a lower 4,230mAh battery pack with 10W fast charging capabilities.
In the Philippines, the handset debuted with a mid-range MediaTek Helio G35 chip focused ostensibly for gaming needs. The device came with up to 4GB RAM and up to 64GB internal storage. We do not know if Oppo would bring an additional variant with higher internal storage in India.
The device has an in-built 5MP selfie camera with the Oppo A16k also holding a 13MP camera with LED flash. It runs on ColorOS 11.1 on top of Android 11 with a face unlock feature but misses out on the fingerprint scanner from the past. The Oppo A16K measures 7.85mm and weigh 175 grams. The color options could include Black, White and a Blue hue though more would be known only at the launch.
From a connectivity point of view, the device comes with a dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v5, a 3.5mm headphone jack, GPS, and a USB Type-C port. The main shooter also includes features such as night filters and power-saving mode. On the price front, the device sold in the Philippines for PHP 6,999 (approx. Rs.10,300).
Our yearend reviews of technology, games and movies
TikTok become the most popular domain on the internet by 2021 on Tuesday, by replacing Google according to cybersecurity company Cloudflare.
TikTok is a video-focused social media site from the Chinese company ByteDance.
“It was February 17, 2021 when TikTok took first place for one day,” write Joao Tome and Sofia Cardita in a blog post for Cloudfare.
“TikTok got a few more days in March and May too, but after August 10, TikTok took over most of the days.” There were a few days that Google was number one, but October and November were mostly TikTok days, including Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Facebook fell back from second place. in 3rd place, followed by Microsoft in 4th place, Apple in 5th place, and Amazon 6th and Netflix on No 7.
YouTube, who belongs to Google Parent Alphabet, was eight, Twitter was ninth and Whatsapp Lasth.Instagram gave up the top 10 of this year.
Cloudfare added that even though TikTok receives more traffic, Facebook still has more users on social websites around the world.
In 2020, TikTok and ByteDance opposed a print campaign by former President Donald Trump's administration to sell their US business over alleged national security threats.
A federal judge eventually prevented the White House from banning the TikTok app for US users.
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Patrick Pleul | picture alliance | Getty Images According to financial documents released Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold 934,090 com...
Elon Musk Sells Another $1 Billion in Tesla Shares to Prep for Largest Tax Bill in History
According to financial documents released Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold 934,090 company shares valued at around $ 1.02 billion not to fund a McMansion on Mars.Musk said he is preparing to pay the biggest tax bill in history.
With an estimated value of more than $ 275 billion, Musk is the richest person in the world.
As ProPublica revealed in a report earlier this year, Musk has not yet paid large sums of money in personal taxes, given that they alone pay taxpayers' income or share taxes as soon as they do.
After exercising options to purchase nearly 1.6 million Tesla shares at an exercise price of $ 6.24 per share (given to him in his 2012 compensation package), Musk's stake in Tesla rose to more than 177 million shares.
Now Musk is expected to face the largest individual tax bill in US history, with state and California income taxes estimated at $ 11 billion, according to CNBC
. Tax experts say you have to pay the bill before you can get any compensation of approximately $23 billion in stock options due in August.
After Musk was named "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine, Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted that the government should "amend the rigged tax code so that the person of the year actually pays taxes and stops taking advantage of everyone else."
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The 12 most exciting cameras of 2022, from the Canon EOS R1 to Alice Camera
2021 wasn’t the most exciting year for AMD. The company didn’t have a ton in the way of new products, and even the introduction of new products wasn’t enough to curb the supply shortages and scalper woes that had already made 2020 such a dismal year in this market.
There were still some notable moves, though, so let’s dig in and recount what AMD had in store for us this year and get some context for what’s ahead.
AMD lined up its latest products at CES 2021
We had a pretty good idea that AMD was going to show off mobile processors and extra Navi cards at CES 2021, and that’s exactly what the chipmaker did. AMD lined up its Ryzen 5000 mobile processors that would bring the heat against Intel’s dominance in the mobile market. These core-packed and highly efficient processors didn’t take long to hit the market in laptops either, turning up in late January. AMD also gave a glimpse of what was ahead with its Big Navi graphics cards.
(Image credit: AMD)
More Big Navi cards and APUs
Over the course of 2021, AMD sprinkled out more Big Navi graphics cards to complete its product lineup. While the top of its lineup had already launched in 2020, AMD rounded that out with lower end cards like the Radeon RX 6700XT in March and the RX 6600 just this past October. Along the way, AMD also introduced the mobile series of its GPUs.
AMD also had a helping option for new PCs that didn’t require dedicated graphics cards in the form of its new Ryzen 5000-series APUs. These chips combine the CPU and GPU onto the same chip, Where it’s other CPUs would require a dedicated video card to get any graphical output from a system, AMD’s APUs enable video output through a motherboard’s video connection and can even handle some light gaming.
The unending chip shortage didn’t end
Despite AMD introducing more products, particularly with lower-end models coming out, it hasn’t been much easier for PC enthusiasts to get their hands on parts. The ongoing chip shortage and crypto boom has kept demand high and supply low. All it takes is a quick look at online product listings or brick-and-mortar store shelves to find that products are simply unavailable or going for well above the recommended retail price – particularly for GPUs, as CPU availability has started to even out.
This isn’t a shortage that’s expected to come to an end soon either. AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su shared that, though she believes there’s an end in sight, it won’t be coming until late 2022. To help get there, AMD is planning to increase its manufacturing capacity, but that’s not a process that can happen on a dime.
(Image credit: Future)
FidelityFX Super Resolution finally arrives
When Team Red revealed the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT along with the rest of the Big Navi family, we were impressed by the sheer performance available for standard rasterization, but when it came to ray-tracing and 4K, Nvidia kept a lead. A big part of that was the availability of DLSS, Nvidia’s AI-powered super-sampling technique that provided better performance by rendering at a lower resolution but maintained near-native quality. AMD had an answer to that with FidelityFX Super Resolution, but it took the better part of a year for it to actually arrive.
In June, when FidelityFX Super Resolution did finally show up, it wasn’t available on all that many games. It is appearing in more titles on a regular basis though, including the recent Far Cry 6 and upcoming God of War PC port. We haven’t found FSR to be superior to DLSS, so it’s not quite helping Team Red catch up to Nvidia as much as it could have, but it’s lack of a requirement of dedicated machine-learning Tensor Cores in a graphics card (needed to run DLSS) could slowly help it eke out an edge in terms of wider availability.
On a side note, Direct Storage was one of the other big features expected to boost performance for this generation of graphics cards (for Nvidia and AMD alike), but we’ve yet to see it in any meaningful form.
Expected XT variants never came
While AMD released new graphics cards, APUs, and mobile processors, it didn’t end up bringing the long-expected XT CPU variants. While some previous processor generations got upgrades that boosted performance, like the Ryzen 3600X being followed by the 3600XT, those new models haven’t surfaced this go around. It’s possible AMD may just focus its efforts and manufacturing on Ryzen 6000 instead.
AMD partners with Nvidia in cloud gaming
You may think of AMD and Nvidia as enemies, but there are still ways their businesses can work together, and that’s demonstrated in their cloud gaming partnership. AMD is notably absent in the cloud gaming market, and Nvidia is absent in the CPU market, and that has left the two companies with an area they can team up.
And that’s just what happened in October when the two companies announced the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors would be powering Nvidia’s top-tier GeForce Now cloud gaming service. Nvidia is running the service on GeForce SuperPods, and though they will use Nvidia graphics, the CPU work is all AMD.
(Image credit: Future)
AMD’s comeback story continues
It’s no secret that AMD was the underdog for a long stretch, but it’s been having a major comeback since the introduction of its Ryzen processors and Zen architecture. That’s been big for not just its popularity but also its business, in turn. This year, AMD had its sixth straight quarter of revenue share growth in the CPU market. In Q3 2021, it was holding 24.6% of the x86 CPU market (a key segment), it’s largest share since 2006. It also reached its highest share in the mobile computing market. According to Steam’s Hardware Survey throughout the year, AMD has also made some steady gains on Intel.
AMD DDR5 system benchmark leaks
Though this isn’t exactly something that’s coming in 2021, some leaks have shown what AMD may have in store. Benchmark leaks show an AMD processor running DDR5 memory, putting an 8-core chip alongside two 8GB sticks of 4,800MHz DDR5 RAM. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise though, as Intel has already introduced DDR5 support with its Alder Lake chips.
Concluding thoughts
While 2021 may have felt like a slow year for AMD, that just makes 2022 look all the more exciting. Given we didn’t get any big leaps forward in the processor or graphics card department, we’ll expect more out of AMD next year. If 2021 was about rounding out its lineup with low- and mid-range products, 2022 ought to be a year for the next generation of flagship parts, like Ryzen 6000, RDNA 3, and new Threadripper CPUs.
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OnePlus, AMD and MSI are among the latest brands to confirm they have cancelled plans to attend CES 2022 in-person - taking the list to 19 high-profile names to have now dropped out - but the show's organizer remains adamant that "it's not time to pull the plug on CES 2022."
The brands stepping back from a physical presence at the show are citing the continued spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as the reason for their decision - yet it's still all systems go, according to the trade organization behind the event.
In an op-ed for the Las Vegas Review Journal on Christmas Day, head of the CTA (the firm which puts on CES each year) Gary Shapiro maintained that CES 2022 will happen in-person.
"CES will and must go on" Shapiro writes. "It will have many more small companies than large ones. It may have big gaps on the show floor. Certainly, it will be different from previous years.
"It may be messy. But innovation is messy. It is risky and uncomfortable."
OnePlus, AMD and MSI join high-profile attendees including Google, GM, Intel, Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia and T-Mobile in confirming they will not be attending CES 2022 in person due to Omicron.
The massive CES tech expo in Vegas has been in shock the past couple of week as most major tech media outlets - including TechRadar, Tom's Guide, The Verge, CNET, Engadget, TechCrunch, and Gizmodo - have also announced they will not be sending reporters to the show, to avoid the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Who has pulled out of CES 2022?
Below is a list of the most high-profile CES attendees that have so far announced that they won't be attending CES 2022 in person. In all, over 75 companies have now cancelled their presence at the show.
As the situation develops we'll likely see more companies update their plans, so expect to see this list grow in the build-up to CES 2022's start date.
Amazon
AMD
AT&T
Google
GM
iHeartRadio
Intel
Lenovo
Meta
Microsoft
MSI
Nvidia
OnePlus
Pinterest
Proctor & Gamble
TikTok
Twitter
T-Mobile
Waymo
Worries spreading like a virus
This year's show, which opens on January 5, was meant to herald a return to normality, with in-person attendance making a comeback after CES 2021 was relegated to being an online-only affair. But with an increasing number of big-name tech companies announcing they now won't have a physical presence at the show, it's leading many to question what an in-person show will now look like.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Amazon blamed the "quickly shifting situation and uncertainty around the Omicron variant" for its decision to change its plans. Meta, T-Mobile and Twitter cited similar concerns in their statements outlining why they're no longer sending staff to CES 2022.
CES's organizers have implemented a slew of health protocols for the event, including requiring that all attendees prove they're vaccinated against Covid-19; but this hasn't been sufficient reassurance for the aforementioned companies, who've chosen to play it safe and attend this year's show virtually.
TechRadar has also decided that we won't be covering CES 2022 in person, out of concern for the health and wellbeing of our journalists, but rest assured we'll still be bringing you extensive coverage of the event, delivering minute-by-minute breaking news of product launches and other major announcements, and in-depth analysis of the new tech you need to know about.
Despite the high-profile no-shows, CES's organizers do not currently intend to the format of this year's event. When asked for comment on December 22, a representative for CTA - the team behind CES - let us know that "CES [2022] will still take place January 5-8 in Las Vegas."
They added, "Thousands of entrepreneurs, businesses, media, and buyers are planning to come to Las Vegas. Top leaders from federal and state and foreign governments are attending. And, we have received several thousand new registrants since late last week.
"Given CES' comprehensive health measures - vaccination requirement, masking and availability of COVID-19 tests - coupled with lower attendance and social distancing measures, we are confident that attendees and exhibitors will have a socially distanced but worthwhile and productive event."
Is CES 2022 canceled?
So far there have been no announcements that suggest CES 2022 won't go ahead as planned; CES event organizers have told us that they will still hold an in-person event in Las Vegas from January 5 to January 8.
Even if the event organizers ultimately decided to scrap the in-person event altogether, we'll likely see the show go ahead in a virtual format, as it did last year.
We'll bring you all the latest news on the event as we get it – and remember, tune in to TechRadar for in-depth coverage of CES 2022, whatever format it appears in.
Squid Game, that debuted on Netflix in September, is one of the biggest hit shows on TV ever. Understandably there was a clamour for Season 2. But as it happens, there may a Season 3 as well, if things go well.
Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has said that he has been in touch with Netflix over that. “I’m in talks with Netflix over Season 2 as well as Season 3,” Dong-hyuk said during an online interview with Korean broadcaster KBS. He added: “We will come to a conclusion any time soon.”
This more or less confirms the industry talk that Netflix was looking to invest in the series for more seasons. But a formal word from Netflix is not out.
The speculation so far is that the second season of the series will tag along Gi-hun, the winner of the Squid Game in the first season, and his attempts to stop those who are behind the games.
Squid Game is centered on a gaggle of cash-strapped players who accept an invitation to compete in children’s games at a remote island. Their attraction is the cash prize of 456 billion won ($38.9 million). But they don't know that the whole thing is a game of high stakes that they had not bargained for.
The series is led by well-known actors like Lee Jung-Jae, Park Hae-Soo, Wi Ha-Joon, Oh Young-Soo, Anupam Tripathi, Heo Sung-Tae, Kim Joo-Ryoung, and model Jung Ho-Yeon.
Squid Game has also earned three nominations at the 2022 Golden Globe Awards, including Best Television Series – Drama, Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, and Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role on Television.
The man behind Squid Game, Hwang Dong-Hyuk, is known for his South Korean films The Fortress, Miss Granny, and Silenced.
There is indeed a lot of takers for new seasons of Squid Game. The hope is that Netflix should not end up diluting the show in its zeal to milk the market.
Image Credit:CIPhotos via Getty Images By Denise Chow
A global team of scientistshasdiscovered antibodies that can kill the variant responsible for therise of Omicron around the world. Inaddition,thescientists claim that these antibodies canneutralizeother variants ofCovid19 as well.
New treatments may be explored
According to one of the study researchers, David Veesler of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Washington School of Medicine, the antibodies work by targeting areas of the virus spike protein that are unchanged by mutations. Protein, scientists can develop vaccines and antibody treatments that work not only against the Omicron variant, but also against any mutation that may occur in the future.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has 37 mutations in its spike protein, which is considered an unusually high number for a virus. For this reason, countries like the US and UK are urging citizens to get a booster dose (a third vaccination) to increase the body's antibody response in the event of infection. Studies have shown that the variant, while less fatal, is more transmissible and able to evade the protection offered by vaccines designed with previous variants in mind.
Why the virus keeps mutating
If the virus continues to mutate (which it won't if the vaccine inequality is not addressed), one day a more deadly and transmissible variant could emerge that could spark another wave of infections like the one seen during the Delta wave in India.
The team behind the antibody identification believe that Omicron mutations could be due to a weakened immune system in a person infected with the variant. It is also possible that the virus jumped from humans to animals and then back to humans.
The researchers also found that the Moderna, Pfizer / BioNTech, and AstraZeneca (Covishield) vaccines offered some protection against Omicron, unlike Sputnik V, Sinopharm, and Johnson and Johnson, which did not show the ability of Omicron to penetrate cells prevent.
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The world of photography is changing so quickly that even the fastest telephoto lenses can't keep up. But it's also an exciting time for anyone with a penchant for snapping – and it's about to get even more fascinating in 2022.
Whether you shoot with a smartphone, film camera or a mirrorless powerhouse, this year has brought some ground-breaking tech that continues to redefine both cameras and photography. From AI photo editors to stacked sensors and weird viral tech that animates your old family photos, photography has certainly had its boundaries pushed in all directions over the last 12 months.
But how will this all shake out in 2022? We've turned our telephoto gaze to the new year and made our predictions below. Not all of the stories are positive (spoiler: it's still going to be really hard to buy some new cameras). And we've overlooked more niche developments like the expected arrival of tilt-shift autofocus lenses on Canon cameras, or business-focused concepts like NFTs, in favor of broader trends.
Whatever your photographic experience or style, though, there should be some eye-openers in our list of the biggest camera and photography trends of 2022 below – starting with the rapid rise of in-game photography...
1. Photo modes get photo-real
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This time last year we were having a blast with the Cyberpunk 2077 photo mode, which gave us everything from adjustable apertures to vignettes. But in 2022, in-game photography is about to go up a notch – particularly if the recent The Matrix Awakens: Unreal Engine 5 Experience is anything to go by.
The demo shows the incredible, photo-real power of next-gen consoles, and includes an impressive camera mode. You can change the aperture, focal length, exposure compensation – and even the position of the sun in the sky. With social media platforms like Twitter effectively banning real-world street photography, it's a refreshingly open place to take snaps.
Could the next big street photographer be a virtual-only artist? It's a bit soon for that, but it's hard to think of a better playground for pandemic-hit beginners to learn the fundamentals of light, composition and depth of field.
Like the computational photography wars being waged between smartphones, desktop photo editors like Photoshop and Luminar AI are also scrambling to outdo each other with new AI tricks. As we'll see in 2022, that battle is only just getting started.
We've already seen hugely impressive 'sky replacement' tools from both Luminar and Photoshop, with the latter's 'neural filters' also adding a tool called Depth Blur for adjusting your depth of field. But Luminar will fight back in February 2022 with the launch of Luminar Neo, a more fully-featured desktop editor with new tools like Face AI, Composition AI and, yes, even AI Power Lines Removal.
Effectively, we're seeing the rise of robot photo editors, and the results are far from a gimmick. A professional TechRadar photographer was left fretting about his future after using 2021's AI editing tools, and with impressive Photoshop plug-ins like Retouch4me getting on the act, the machine-powered editors will only get better in 2022.
A slightly less exciting trend for photographers, particularly those looking to upgrade their cameras, is that the stock shortages we've seen in 2021 are likely to continue into next year.
Anyone who's tried to buy a PS5 or graphics card recently will know this is a tech-wide issue. But the recent supply chain issues show that the cameras shortages are unlikely, as some had hoped, to ease up in early 2022. Our advice? Learn how to get more from your current camera, and treat any new launches as a bonus.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently announced that the app is "working on a version of a chronological feed", which it "hopes to launch next year". This is good news for those who've missed the feature since it disappeared in 2016, but it's unlikely to stem the exodus of photographers from the Facebook-ified service.
With Instagram seemingly more keen to be a home for memes, videos and e-commerce, photographers have been searching for new virtual homes for their snaps in 2021. The most promising was the arrival of Glass in August, though that app's appeal remains limited by its iOS-only availability and subscription model.
Alternatives like Flickr continue to live on, while Waldo Photos offers private photo-sharing. But will we see new contenders in 2022? It's certainly possible – and we'll hopefully even see more innovation like Galeryst (above), which lets Lightroom users go beyond the feed and host their own virtual photo exhibitions.
Before you don some black clothes to mark the demise of the camera's mechanical shutter, that physical curtain isn't going anywhere yet – but this year will show that it's certainly on the way out.
This year, we saw the Nikon Z9 – a professional powerhouse – become the first stills-focused camera to arrive without a mechanical shutter. The reason for this bold statement? So-called 'stacked sensors', which deliver incredibly fast read-out speeds, mean that the traditional downsides of electronic shutters (like the rolling shutter 'jello' effect) have been largely resolved. In this scenario, old-school mechanical shutters are an unnecessary complexity.
This means that high-end cameras will increasingly offer a completely digital shooting experience, with virtually no moving parts. Good for reliability and simplicity perhaps, if a shame for those who like a more tactile, physical experience. If you're in the latter camp, don't worry – stacked sensors remain very pricey, so will remain the preserve of premium cameras in 2022.
Just like in music, there's been a slight kickback against an all-digital world in photography. And while film cameras will never match the vinyl resurgence, which benefits from a steady flow of new music, there are signs that they'll continue to at least hold onto their existence in 2022.
It's difficult to get precise figures for film camera sales, but the anecdotal evidence points to a continued revival in popularity. The retailer Ffordes recently told Amateur Photographer that "film sales have gone crazy" this year, "to the point where we are struggling to get in enough stock to meet demand".
A glance at the second-hand prices of film classics on eBay hints at a popularity spike, too. Stalwarts like the Canon AE-1, Nikon F3 and Pentax K1000 continue to command premiums that were unheard of a few years ago. Nikon has even cashed in by remaking one of its film icons, the Nikon FM2, into a digital model called the Nikon Z fc. And with apps like Dispo recreating the disposable camera experience on phones, there's plenty of life in the resurgence yet.
Before 2021, deepfakes were considered to be more of a video-themed trend / threat to global democracy. But that changed in February when a new AI tool called 'Deep Nostalgia' tech went viral thanks to its ability to animate our old family photos – and we never looked at our Uncle Bob in quite the same way again.
Naturally, the tech divided internet opinion, with some enamored with the newfound opportunity to 'meet' old relations, and others branding it a one-way trip to the uncanny valley. But whatever you think about this new form of machine learning, it isn't going away – and we'll likely see it hit the headlines again in 2022.
We've heard a lot about smartphone sensors in the last few years, but 2022 could see their lenses grab finally some of the limelight. It'll still a bit too early for liquid lenses and metalenses to go massive, but other tech is bubbling to the surface.
This month, Oppo showed off a concept phone with an old-school, retractable camera module (above). This intriguing design packs a 50mm f/2.4 camera with 2x optical zoom into a phone that's only 8.26mm thick. It's a lens design we used to see on compact cameras, though this one strangely doesn't give you the benefit of variable focal lengths. Still, the phone will apparently retract the lens automatically when it senses it's been dropped.
Elsewhere, the latest rumors suggest that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra will have a macro lens, which could see it match the impressive iPhone 13 Pro. But will the iPhone 14 finally bring periscope zoom lenses to Apple's phones in 2022? The latest speculations suggests these won't arrive until the following year, which means lenses (at least in Cupertino) still have some evolving to do.
This year we saw the first proper shots fired on the new smartphone camera battlefield: computational video. As the name suggests, this close cousin of computational photography sees effects like virtual bokeh and HDR applied to moving images instead – with the considerable challenge being that this is applied to a minimum of 24 frames per second, rather than a single photo.
That today's flagship smartphones, in particular the iPhone 13 and Google Pixel 6, are capable of doing this shows the incredible brute force of their processors. The iPhone 13's 'Cinematic mode', powered by the A15 Bionic chip, delivers shallow depth-of-field and focus transitions, albeit only at 1080p quality. And the Google Pixel 6's new Tensor processor is able to apply HDR enhancements to every frame of a 4K/60p video.
Naturally, our smartphones are still a few years away from being able to reliably compete with the larger sensors and high-quality optics of mirrorless cameras. But the fast improvements we saw in their 'Portrait modes' are coming to computational video, and we'll likely see its next strides in 2022.
The mirrorless camera equivalent of the smartphone computational photography wars is 'AI autofocus'. With every new camera launch, a new AF tracking mode is added. Sony delivers Animal Eye AF, so Canon and Nikon respond with Motorsport tracking – and so the one-upmanship continues.
There are signs, though, that this autofocus battle is about to get even more spicy in 2022. Firstly, Canon delivered an impressive Eye Control AF on the Canon EOS R3, which moves the focus point around the frame depending on where you're looking in the viewfinder. In certain situations, such as shooting sport, that's a hell of a lot easier than fiddling with an AF joystick.
But it was an even more futuristic form of autofocus, using Lidar, that really got us excited in 2021. Showcased by the unique DJI Ronin 4D, this laser-based form of AF even works in complete darkness, and can be used with manual lenses, too. The downsides are that it doesn't work in subjects that are over 10m away and current phase-detect AF systems are still more accurate. But we're looking forward to seeing where Lidar autofocus goes in the world of mirrorless cameras.
Over the past five years we've seen medium format cameras, whose sensors are about 1.7x larger than full-frame, go from being niche beasts that lived on studio tripods to genuine handheld options for everyday shooting. The main driver for this has been Fujifilm's GFX system, but there are rumors that a familiar foe could re-emerge in 2022.
We know that Fujifilm is aiming to launch a 20-35mm wide-angle zoom and 55mm f/1.7 lens for its GFX cameras in 2022. But there is also speculation, based on a document from a couple of years ago, that DJI is planning to launch a new medium format camera based on the Hasselblad X1D chassis. If so, it might just bring a new focus to video shooting that's been absent on Hasselblad's previous models.
Not that you necessarily need a medium format sensor to get super-detailed, high-resolution shots. The full-frame Sony A7R IV achieved something similar with its Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode, and there are rumors that a Sony A7R V could arrive in 2022 – albeit towards the end of the year, due to the chip shortage.
The camera world is known for being a closed shop beyond the traditional Japanese giants of Canon, Nikon and Sony, but there are signs that some young upstarts could sneak in through a side-door in 2022 with some fresh ideas.
The long-awaited Alice Camera is a particularly interesting example. Expected to arrive in April 2022, it combines a Micro Four Thirds with your phone, which slots into the back and provides a modern menu system via a companion app. Interestingly, Alice Camera will also use some AI trickery built on the Pixel's trailblazing innovation and Google's Edge TPU chip, including AI-powered autofocus.
That crowdfunded project follows the recent arrival of the second-generation Pixii Camera, another independent offering that also brings new ideas like internal storage options and stunning retro-futuristic rangefinder looks. Will others follow their lead in 2022? We certainly hope so.
It was the year that life was supposed to start getting back to some kind of normal following a pretty horrendous 2020. But it’s fair to say that it hasn’t quite worked out like that in 2021, although normal service largely resumed in the world of wearables as new smartwatch and fitness trackers were fired out onto the market in regular fashion from the biggest names in the business.
There's definitely a sense that, with the tech world being hit by supply chain and chip shortage issues, some groundbreaking wearables that should have landed in 2021 have been put on ice until 2022.
That’s not to say we were short of devices in the wearable space to stir some excitement for what could arrive further down the line.
As is customary at this time of the year, we take a look back at the headline-grabbing announcements and news that shaped another packed year for wearables vying to earn a place on our wrists and elsewhere.
January to March: A quiet CES, Samsung and Wear OS rumors stir, OnePlus Watch and Google closes that Fitbit deal
The OnePlus Watch Cobalt Limited Edition(Image credit: Srivatsa Ramesh)
With the pandemic still very much in full effect, CES – the place that’s usually awash with announcements – didn’t really deliver a huge flood of new wearables to get excited about.
We saw a new hybrid smartwatch from Fossil Group brand Skagen, along with an LTE version of its Fossil Gen 5 Wear OS smartwatch, while Zepp (formerly known as Huami) rolled out yet more smartwatches. It added the Amazfit GTS 2e and GTR 2e to its already extensive collection of devices. Those announcements aside, it was a quiet show for wearables.
Outside of CES, Garmin announced the Garmin Lily at the start of 2021, a slender hybrid smartwatch designed for women. That model was joined in February by the Garmin Enduro, a multi-sports watch made with endurance athletes in mind that offered big battery life and software features built for ultra-runners and cyclists.
February and March were largely quiet months for launches and news, although it’s when we first heard chatter that new Samsung smartwatches were on the way, which might land packing Google’s Wear OS instead of Samsung’s Tizen OS. While this seemed like an odd move at the time, given how more impressive Samsung’s smartwatch platform performed compared to Google’s, this was a story that certainly dominated in 2021.
March was all about the OnePlus Watch, finally landing after years of speculation over whether it was – or wasn’t – in the works. Despite initial rumors that OnePlus' debut smartwatch could arrive running Google’s Wear OS, OnePlus decided to go it alone and use its own proprietary operating system to run the software show.
Arguably the biggest news to drop in the first few months of the year, though, was that Google had finally completed its acquisition of Fitbit. At this point we began to wonder how long it would take for Fitbit to start influencing Google’s wearable ambitions, firmly putting speculation of a Pixel Watch back on the table – which was also a topic of discussion later in the year.
April to June: Fitbit Luxe, Wear OS by Google and Samsung, Huawei Watch 3, and new Apple Watch features
Fitbit Luxe(Image credit: Peter Hoffmann)
Heading into spring, there was a lot more happening than in the first three months of the year. In April, the now Google-owned Fitbit launched the Luxe, a stylish fitness tracker that became the first (but not the last) Fitbit this year to feature a full color touchscreen.
There was launch news from Casio, too, as it rolled out its first G-Shock to run Google’s Wear OS, having previously only featured the smartwatch operating system on its Pro Trek outdoor series of watches.
Maybe Casio should have sat tight, though, since big changes were afoot with Wear OS. At Google’s I/O developer conference in May, we found out about a new version of Wear built by Google and Samsung. This pretty much confirmed that the next Samsung Galaxy Watch would run on the revamped Wear 3.0.
The Fossil Group, another Wear OS hardware partner, also revealed it was working on a smartwatch that would be built on this new Wear platform. However, at the same time the company dealt a blow to current owners of its smartwatches by revealing those watches wouldn’t be upgradeable to new Wear.
Huawei got in on the launch action, too, when in June the brand officially unveiled the Huawei Watch 3 – its first smartwatch to run on its own HarmonyOS platform. Offering a more finessed look than the Huawei Watch 2 and the Watch GT 2, it most notably brought Huawei’s AppGallery app store to a Huawei smartwatch for the first time.
Apple Watch owners received software update news, too: Apple’s WWDC developer conference keynote introduced watchOS 8, which introduced features such as an improved Wallet app to store digital keys and licenses, new mindfulness features, and improved photo and messaging support.
July to September: Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Apple Watch Series 7 and Fitbit Charge 5
Apple Watch Series 7(Image credit: TechRadar)
This is the part of the year where things typically start to get busy, and there was certainly plenty new to talk about.
In July, things were quiet on the launch-front, but Mobvoi was the first Wear hardware partner to reveal that one of its existing smartwatches would be compatible with Wear 3.0. The TicWatch Pro 3, its flagship smartwatch, would join the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra and TicWatch E3 watches in getting new Wear in 2022.
Jumping into August, Fossil officially unveiled its Gen 6 smartwatch, having teased earlier in the year that the device would also be joining the troupe of watches to run on Google and Samsung’s Wear. Except that version of Wear wouldn’t land on the smartwatch until 2022.
Fitbit was busy this month, too, announcing the Charge 5 – an update to its flagship fitness tracker. It followed the Luxe with a color touchscreen display, but it also inherited the ECG sensor that previously only featured on its Sense health watch. The latter addition made the Charge 5 the first fitness tracker that was capable of helping to detect signs associated with atrial fibrillation.
Then it was over to Samsung, following numerous leaks, to officially announce the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Watch 4 Classic. This provided us with our first and only look in 2021 at the combination of Google’s new Wear and the best of Samsung’s Tizen.
The Apple Watch Series 7 launched in September, with Apple deciding to make changes on the design front – but it didn’t come sporting the flatter look that had been rumored earlier in the year. We received two new case sizes, more screen estate and a fast-charging feature; but, in fairness, it was a modest upgrade to the king of the smartwatches. Based on what was delivered with the 7, it looks like the Apple Watch Series 8 could be the device that sees more radical changes.
Outside of the big-hitters, Whoop – a favorite of elite athletes – returned with its fourth-generation wearable. Built around sleep and recovery, it added the ability to track blood oxygen and skin temperature to the mix. You even had the option to wear the wearable somewhere other than around your wrist, inside garments such as compression shorts and sports bras.
In addition, Amazon snuck out the Halo View, a cheaper version of its Halo fitness tracker, which came packing a display to show off basic fitness stats; it has clearly been designed to compete with the Fitbits, Xiaomis and Huaweis of this world.
October to December: Pixel Watch chat returns, Facebook’s Meta smartwatch and Oura’s third coming
The Oura (Third Generation) smart ring(Image credit: Future)
The tail end of the year still saw plenty of opportunity for manufacturers to get in on the launch action – and there was definitely plenty of rumor-mongering, too, about what could be on the way.
First to launch in this period was Motorola, with its Moto Watch 100. Unlike its previous Moto smartwatches, this one didn’t come packing Google’s Wear OS; it came with a proprietary OS on board instead. Zepp also swelled its ranks with three new smartwatches: the GTS 3, GTR 3 and the GTR 3 Pro. The trio signalled the arrival of Zepp’s new OS, which added an app store with the view to offering third-party apps for the first time.
Huawei wasn’t done for the year either, launching the Huawei Watch GT 3 with design elements grabbed from its Watch 3 and its HarmonyOS software. Away from watches, Oura unveiled its third-generation smart ring, building on its sleep and recovery tracking features with an SpO2 sensor plus new women’s health-tracking features, too.
Then there have been the tasty rumors of what’s to come. First, Meta’s first smartwatch, which will allegedly arrive with a front-facing camera – if that solitary leaked image proves genuine. There’s also talk of the Google Pixel Watch, with multiple reports suggesting it could land in 2022, with alleged images from Pixel Watch marketing material also surfacing. This is one rumor we anticipate could run all the way through 2022.
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