Twenty-eleven is about over and as we conclude our end-of-year articles it'southward time to look dorsum at some of the most relevant stories of 2022. We'll do a brief recount of tech happenings in six categories: Desktop CPUs and Graphics, Hardware Industry, Devices and Components, Software, Gaming, Mobile Computing and The Web.

It's been quite an eventful year that's for certain. We hope you enjoyed our daily acceleration of PC applied science news and analysis equally much as we've enjoyed bringing it to y'all. Without farther ado, here'southward our take on 2022.

Desktop Processors and Graphics

Intel remains unchallenged in near every segment of the microprocessor market. Their 2nd generation Core processor lineup was recently expanded with the arrival of 3 new Sandy Span-Due east parts for the enthusiast market, priced from $555 to a bone spooky $990. They provide up to six cores with a dozen threads, but from a price / value perspective, they're not necessarily a better buy than the already awesome Core i7-2600K.

Meanwhile, AMD's much ballyhooed FX brand relaunch was pretty disappointing, with Bulldozer struggling to compete well enough with the Core i5-2xxx series. Like previous years, the company has been left with no option but to reply with more than affordable products. What's more interesting is that ARM and its partners continue to gain terrain in the microprocessor market place as smartphones and tablets go on to rise in popularity -- not to mention upcoming support for the architecture in Windows eight.

In the discrete graphics market it was a close fight between Nvidia and AMD, but the quondam still reigns supreme in terms of marketplace share. AMD just unleashed their side by side-gen 28nm graphics products last week and took home the crown for fastest single-GPU offering. We're eagerly awaiting for Nvidia's response next month.

Hardware Manufacture, Devices and Components

This year saw the debut of Intel's high-speed Calorie-free Height interconnect, but so far only Apple has implemented across its products as Thunderbolt, while Sony tried a different approach with their Vaio Z notebooks. HP nigh dismissing its PC business concern unit of measurement despite its leading global position in terms of sales, was a huge story that didn't settle for months. Other technologies gaining terrain include USB 3.0, which comes standard on most computers these days, as well as SATA III 6Gbps for internal storage.

And speaking of storage we're a trivial disappointing that SSDs haven't reached mainstream pricing nevertheless. Prices are coming down, all the same, and with manufacturers hedging their bets on flash storage for their Ultrabook offering we can just imagine the trend volition continue into 2022. Plus, the hard disk drive shortage and price hikes triggered by the floods in Thailand are a real opportunity for SSDs to finally take off in a big style.

The PCI Express iii.0 specification was completed nearly the end of 2022 simply compatible products are not expected to get in until the offset quarter of 2022, starting with the Radeon Hard disk 7970.

Software

On the software side, Apple tree released its next major operating system update with Mac Bone X Lion 10.7 and Microsoft started previewing Windows 8. The latter will introduce an all-new start screen that gets rid of icons in favor of big tiles which can be customized to show live data or launch applications -- taking a strong cue from the Metro UI used in Windows Telephone 7.

This twelvemonth as well saw an explosion of app stores for mobile platforms and the transition of this model -- popularized by Apple with iOS -- into the desktop. Although undoubtedly a bulk of desktop users yet utilize more traditional channels to get their software, such as a developer's website or a downloads portal, we now accept curated app stores for Mac Bone X and Microsoft will exist launching the Windows Shop next year along with the public beta of Windows viii.

Microsoft

Google, Apple, and others

Gaming

Although some of our virtually anticipated game releases for 2022 wound upwards being duds on some level (Brink, Crysis 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Homefront, to proper noun a few), there were nonetheless a few gems worth playing -- similar Skyrim, for example.

Digital distribution platforms connected to gain massive popularity, so much that EA couldn't resist jumping into the game with Origin. Meanwhile, deject-gaming service OnLive hasn't become a major histrion yet but it's taken a few steps in the correct management with its Android and before long to be launched iOS clients.

As far as consoles are concerned Sony and Microsoft continued to aggrandize upon the PS3 and Xbox 360'southward capabilities through incremental updates. Only Nintendo announced its next-generation console, the Wii U, but details remain few and far between. The excitement over motion controlled gaming has waned a bit due to a lack of interesting titles. That said, now that Microsoft's Kinect has made the jump to PCs nosotros're eager to find out what uses developers will come up up with for the much-hyped peripheral.

Mobile Calculating

Netbooks have lost their lure to only become smaller, entry-level notebooks, while other categories are only seeing small-scale spec bumps -- and in some cases slight price hikes as the ongoing HDD shortage takes its price on PC makers. Simply if you are looking into the ultraportable market, a new breed of devices has emerged. Intel is pushing the Ultrabooks as thin and light systems with plenty of power, fast SSD storage, long battery life, and a price that won't intermission the banking company. They're essentially the Windows version of Apple tree'southward MacBook Air and they're supposed to accept over the notebook market place in the coming years. For now we're seeing a showtime generation of devices, with plenty more to come.

When it comes to smartphones and tablets information technology was definitely a busy twelvemonth, marked by a flood of releases from all the large name manufacturers and furious litigation among a bunch of them. Of notation is the contempo release of Android 4.0, also known every bit Water ice Foam Sandwich, which was built to finally unify the tablet and smartphone feel. Apple had another stellar twelvemonth with iOS v and new versions of its smartphone and tablets. RIM, on the other hand, can't seem to catch a break and the filibuster of its BlackBerry ten platform isn't helping matters.

The Web

The past year was a eventful one in many aspects for the security manufacture, with high profile cyber-attacks and data breaches. Some were targeted and financially motivated, while others are believed to exist government-sponsored attempts to steal classified data. Quite a few of them were carried out by so-chosen hacktivist groups in protest of a particular event, to push companies into getting serious when information technology comes to securing client information, or perhaps only wreak havoc like the infamous LulzSec.

Anonymous became the face up of hacktivism in 2022 and their influence even trascended to the real world as the Occupy protesters adopted the group'southward rhetoric and Guy Fawkes mask.

Beyond hacktivists, social networks played a big role this year in empowering ideas and uniting people around various causes. They were widely credited with helping citizens from Tunisia to Arab republic of egypt to Libya organize movements to overthrown their oppressive governments.

Meanwhile, the friendly folks at the media manufacture were as busy as ever lobbying for anti-piracy legislation and (naively?) trying to mold the Internet into something that fits their archaic business organization models instead of the other way around. Information technology remains to be seen if the controversial Stop Online Piracy Deed (SOPA) or anything similar it gets passed into law adjacent year but we seriously hope it doesn't come up to that.

The Twelvemonth of Hacktivism

A Year of Great Loss

Lastly, 2022 was also a year of bang-up loss in the tech industry. Apple founder Steve Jobs, after years of health problems, finally succumbed to cancer at the early age of 56 -- less than two months afterwards stepping downward every bit CEO. He will certainly exist remembered as a tech visionary and ane of the most influential people in business organisation.

Other tech luminaries who left us in 2022 include C programming linguistic communication creator Dennis Ritchie, the male parent of artificial intelligence John McCarthy, and other top executives that played a function in creating some of most influential technology companies in the world: IBM'southward John Opel, Xerox PARC's founder Jack Goldman, Motorola's Robert Galvin, Fairchild Semiconductor's Julius Blank, and Sony's Norio Ohga, to proper noun a few.