I love to ride bikes. And I’ve spent a meaningful percentage of my life working in big cities. But I’ve only rarely gotten around urban environments on two wheels. Maybe that’s because bicycles, when you’re not on them, can be a burden. They’re big and bulky, are difficult to meld with other means of transit (such as subways), and aren’t always welcome in offices. They’re also at risk of being stolen if you leave them outside, regardless of how
While the work from home push and a lack of in-person socializing created a culture obsessed with other people’s rooms, 2022 found Zoom users further embracing virtual backgrounds.
While Zoom has had some variation on virtual backgrounds since 2016, it’s steadily added features like support for video backgrounds and slideshow backgrounds, and last year rolled out support for automatic background blurring. (Competitors like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams also have simi
For all of its breakthroughs and advances, there’s a lot of really dumb stuff that goes on in the world of technology, and 2022 had more than its share of baffling moments, head-scratching decisions, and products that make you wonder how they ever made it beyond the first pitch meeting.
While there were certainly some breakthrough events this year, we couldn’t help but catalog the more ridiculous ones. Here’s a look at the dumbest tech moments of 2022 (with the
While 2020 and 2021 brought us plenty of apps that capitalized on the remote work boom, 2022 feels a bit like a return to normalcy.
The best apps of the year spanned a wide range of categories, including some surprising new ones. We’ve seen a boom in AI tools for creatives, for instance, along with more ways to take control of your content and privacy. Clever productivity tools haven’t gone away either, with several great new apps for getting things done.
As
It seems like a distant memory now, that moment when Netflix-and-chill started popping up in text messages and BuzzFeed posts galore. Partly, that’s because it was something like eight years ago—sufficiently far enough in the past to qualify as distant. More importantly, though, consumers have since been inundated with so many platforms and so much content that the idea of Netflix or anyone else being synonymous with the very concept of a streaming library now seems surreal; not
Judging from my Twitter feed, 2022 was a very noisy year for tech. We followed the Elon Musk drama, marvalled at the creations of generative AI, watched crypto markets tank and FTX implode, and (some of us at least) gazed deeply into the metaverse—and yawned.
Things could get more serious in 2023. More governments around the world may put checks on the tech industry’s power by placing restrictions on how it does business. The Supreme Court will decide whether social pl
The conversation about the metaverse continued in 2022, but much of the earlier excitement about the concept cooled. The metaverse, as it was described to many of us in 2021, is going to be something like the next big evolution of the internet: a virtual public space where you can work, play, shop, create, and hang with friends (their avatars). The websites and platforms we experience in 2D on our screens today will become immersive 3D destinations created within the lenses of new, wearable c
By just about any measure you can imagine, it has been a rough year for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The overall market cap of the crypto world has gone from $2.2 trillion at the start of the year to $867 billion in mid-December, a 60% decline.
But things sure didn’t look that dire back in January.
While it’s hard to believe, it was less than a year ago that we saw the “Crypto Bowl,” with exchanges shelling out up to $7 million for 30 seconds of
One of the nice things about the tech world is just when you think things have reached their peak, a new summit appears in the distance.
2022 had plenty of new tech, from smart watches that can call for help if you’re in an accident to art created by artificial intelligence that we all couldn’t keep from showing off to the world. And while some of the real treasures of 2023 won’t be unveiled until CES in January (or later), there are already several things that
Can you separate a piece of art from the person that created it?
Earlier this year at the Colorado State Fair, Jason Allen submitted a piece called Théâtre D’opéra Spatial into the “digitally manipulated photography” category.
The scope and imagination of the piece stunned the judges. The three silhouetted figures in the center of the frame are eclipsed by a sci-fi scene packed with out-of-this-world detail. And as a result, the piece be