A look back at the global tech scene in 2021

The year 2021 marked the tipping point for many technological advances that would shape our understanding and interaction with the world to come.

Let’s take a look back at some of the year’s most significant technological developments.

The Beginning of the Metaverse

The announcement of Metaverse on November 24th was a significant event in the ever-changing world of technology. This was followed by Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement in October that Facebook would change its name to ‘Meta’ as part of the company’s transition from a social media platform to a virtual reality platform.

Metaverse is a concept of a centralized virtual world in which people and businesses interact with one another via VR headsets, and this platform lacks the usual physical boundaries that today’s social media platforms have.

The Metaverse has the potential to shape how people interact with one another in the ever-expanding virtual world.

The Crypto-Boom and the Global Chip Scarcity

The year 2021 was the year of cryptocurrency, with the industry growing from USD 24 billion to USD 63 billion in a single year, and the trend is expected to continue.

However, this boom, combined with the massive surge in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, resulted in the worst supply-chain issue in the computer industry’s history, affecting global computer buyers as well as every tech industry from chip manufacturers to car companies.

NFT stands for Non-fungible Token.

NFT is an Ethereum Blockchain function that allows a person to trade ownership of anything digital, such as images, drawings, music, and so on, with another person, but each NFT is unique, unlike currencies, which are fungible or identical.

NFTs have become a massive trend in digital art trading in a very short period of time, though the NFT market is still primarily a place where rich people, mostly for bragging rights, throw away their money to own something rather than NFTs being anything substantial.

Silicone made to order

The world’s largest technology companies have finally taken the step of designing their own custom SOCs for their own products.

Apple was the most successful in this venture; the second iteration of their custom silicon, known as the ‘M1 Pro’ and ‘M1 Max,’ set the standard for consumer-level computer efficiency and computational prowess, leaving other manufacturers in the dust.

Google, on the other hand, created their own mobile chip called ‘Tensor,’ which was used in their flagship mobile line-up and delivered impressive performance.

All of the other major phone manufacturers may enter the custom silicon game by 2022; Tesla has hinted at something similar in their upcoming phone release.

LG’s exit from the smartphone market

LG, a well-known electronics company, announced their retirement from the phone business in 2021, stating that they would focus more on home appliances and other electronic products.

To say the least, the company’s recent performance in the smartphone industry has been poor, with bad branding, questionable hardware and software choices, and a lack of reliability causing the company to fall significantly behind their competitors.

However, LG will always have a special place in the industry because of their constant pursuit of innovation, and they were the first to set trends for many of the smartphone features that are now ‘mainstream’ across the smartphone industry.

Let’s take a look at some of the first features introduced by LG to the market: capacitive touchscreen, dual-core processor, 1080p video recording, dual-rear camera, quad-core processor, double-tap to wake, mass-produced quad HD screen, dual-screen display, ultrawide camera, 18*9 display, triple rear camera, and so on. LG will be sorely missed.