The concluding part of our review of the top stories of the year covers the most popular stories from the tail-end of what has been another rather strange year.
Something you are going to hear a lot about in 2022 is MEC, Multi-Access Edge Computing, as 5G networks continue their rollout. Get ahead of the game by genning up with our introductory explanation.
We liked. "Last year’s M1 MacBooks delivered on Apple’s promises and got professionals’ attention, now the real Pro laptops are here. We’ll have to wait until 2022 and possibly M2 for pro versions of the desktop Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro to complete the transition from Intel and provide the full line-up by which to measure Apple’s professional credentials... Apple has been haemorrhaging professional support for a while now and excellent hardware is just the beginning of the fight back."
"The biggest step-change in camera design we've seen in a very long time," was our immediate summary of the frankly jaw-dropping DJI Ronin 4D. A camera we're very keen to see get a firm release date attached to it...
One that's only just been released and we're looking forward to getting our hands on. It has become quite clear that Sony is categorizing its offerings into low and high non-full frame and full frame devices. The a7iv is positioned as a “low end” offering in the full frame series along with the a7iii and a7c. And we're lucky to have it, Sony announcing that it was freezing production of the α7 II, α6400, α6100, and PXW-Z190 cameras as a response to the ongoing chip shortage.
Any camera is going to have a job to do to match up to the new Nikon Z 9, however. "Nikon held an online event today to officially launch its Z 9 mirrorless camera, and to say we were impressed is an understatement," we wrote somewhat breathlessly. Was originally shipping by the end of December but no confirmed release date just as yet.
The news that one of the worlds leading 3D realtime games engines, Unity , had brought one of there world's leading VFX outfits, Weta, set us off thinking about the metaverse once more. "The metaverse is not made of stars, but of technology," we wrote. "It's not like quite the start of the universe. It will take a lot of content, a lot of AI, a lot of computing power, a lot of bandwidth and a lot of innovation. But, quite quickly now, with gigantic new technology companies starting to enter the dance, we're going to see the first tentative steps towards a new kind of universe."
Not the first appearance of Panasonic's organic sensor, but the first recent confirmation we've had that the tech is still in development. "If the new sensor technology is what it's claimed to be, it might be not only a welcome update to Panasonic's output; it could be a genuine step forward in the state of the art," we reckoned.
Our own Simon Wyndham bought himself a MacBook Pro M1, engendering Mac-envy in a decent proportion of our reader base. What is it like? "Has it made me sit at my desk with my mouth open wide and my hands cupping my head like a Youtuber's Macaulay Culkin Home Alone poster lookalike pastiche with a big yellow arrow pointing at nothing in particular, and exclamation marks all over the place?" he asked rhetorically. "Erm, no. But it is very fast for most tasks and it has made my video editing life a lot more pleasant...No matter where I take it, I'll pretty much have workstation performance in a bag."