Timeline of Technology: Week One
Nov 4 · 2 min read
The most interesting tech advancements compiled in one spot, plus my analysis.
- Google is almost certainly making a Pixel watch. The news was released this week and it is excellent for wearables. For a long time, Apple has been the king of wearable devices with the Apple Watch. Google (especially now that they have acquired FitBit) seems like they could bring some revolutionary advances to the wearable market. I doubt Google can surpass Apple with the lead Apple currently has, but this is good news for wearable technology nonetheless.
- AppleTV debuted this week. It’s much cheaper than all of the other streaming services and might potentially end up bringing down the cost of streaming services. As someone who is looking forward to Season 7 of The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, I really hope that Disney+ lowers their $20 monthly price to something more reasonable. I don’t see a lot of innovation here, but more competitors in a market is generally better for consumers.
- Some Mobile device improvements: a stronger charger cable, more 5G internet adoption, a patent for a wrap-around display, etc.
- AirPods Pro also debuted and the reviews say that they’re really good. Better earbuds are a great invention and hopefully, these will drop in price as manufacturing improves.
- The videogame ‘Obsidian Edge’ was released and it is fantastically good. It’s likely that we’ll spend a lot more time in the future on entertainment. Obsidian Edge is definitely well-made.
- Virtual Reality continues to slowly grow, with new games like Damage Control and headset updates. Not much news, though the Oculus Quest link to connect to a PC is rolling out, which makes the Quest pretty much the best VR headset on the market besides the Index.
- AlphaStar (Google DeepMind’s AI for playing Starcraft) wiped the floor with pretty much everyone, which is impressive because Starcraft is an extremely complex game with an open map and infinite possibilities.
- OpenAI released a program that plays Hide and Seek. The program became so good that it was able to exploit glitches in the physics of the game to win. An advancement towards truly creative AI.
- Google reached quantum supremacy, though this week many other quantum computing companies criticized the test. Essentially, the test proved that large amounts of qubits still function normally together, which was a worry about the technology. Overall, the race for advanced quantum computers is heating up.
- Microsoft earned a massive cloud computing deal from the Pentagon. The cloud computing market continues to expand.
Those are all the major news points from this week. Let me know if I missed anything or whether I should change up the format!
-Michael Soareverix
