2022 年预测：科技飞轮越转越快，新一年又将走向何方

7. The price of Bitcoin may exceed US$100,000. In 2022, the price of Bitcoin may exceed the US$100,000 mark, breaking the current record high of US$69,000. Although the cryptocurrency market is known for its volatility, people's interest in Bitcoin is increasing day by day. The widespread adoption of digital cryptocurrency should boost the price of "the most widely held digital currency" (Bitcoin). In addition, the price of the Avax token will more than double from the previous historical high of $146 to $300. 8. Meta or the acquisition of a game studio Facebook parent company Meta Platforms will acquire a major video game franchise and the studio responsible for this franchise. In addition to providing a large-scale game to promote the sales of Quest 2 VR headsets, Meta will also use this acquisition to position Quest as an alternative to Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony game consoles. 9. YouTube may launch an NFT market YouTube will launch a market for creators to sell NFT (non-homogeneous tokens). YouTube has always been a pioneer when it comes to providing a way to make money for its video creators. Moreover, as the company faces more competition from other social networks, the first launch of the NFT market may give YouTube an advantage. 10. Activision Blizzard may appoint a new CEO Activision Blizzard (Activision Blizzard) CEO Bobby Kotick (Bobby Kotick) will become the chairman of this "emergency" video game publisher, a prestigious high Guan will replace him as CEO. One of the potential candidates for this CEO is Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar, who is expected to resign after Discovery completes the acquisition of Warner Media next year. Activision Blizzard may also choose a woman to serve as the CEO, partly in response to allegations of "sexual harassment and workplace discrimination" the company faces. And Sarah Bond, vice president of Microsoft Games Group, and Laura Miele, chief operating officer (COO) of Electronic Arts (EA), are two potential candidates. 11. Instagram may launch a children's version application In September this year, Meta's photo-sharing platform Instagram once announced that it would suspend the development of the "Instagram children's version" service. Previously, the plan was strongly opposed by users and legislators, but Instagram did not completely kill the idea. Given that Meta needs younger users to survive (Zuckerberg recently stated that serving young people will be the company's "North Star"), and Meta insists that its Messenger Kids product is a success. For this reason, Instagram is likely to relaunch the "Instagram for kids" service in some form later in 2022. 12. Amazon may increase the price of Prime members Amazon will increase the price of Prime members (US$119 per year in recent years). In order to prove its rationality, Amazon may use the fresh food service Amazon Fresh to talk about it, and launch more movies and sports shows on Prime Video. The big background will be inflation and the tightening of global supply chains. 13. Uber food delivery platform under investigation by FTC The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will investigate the way food delivery companies such as DoorDash and Uber Eats treat restaurants and riders. In recent years, there has been a wave of consolidation in this field. The market power of DoorDash and Uber Eats has increased significantly, causing restaurants to complain about high fees and deceptive business practices, and workers are also dissatisfied with their wages and benefits. 14. The formation of an Amazon employee union is expected to be the first labor organizer to win the effort to form an Amazon employee union in the United States. This is also due to Amazon's recent national settlement agreement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In order to overturn this result, Amazon will file a complaint with the NLRB. In Europe, corporate office communications software startup Slack and other companies have complained about Microsoft. This is strikingly similar to the antitrust regulation that Microsoft faced more than 20 years ago, when Microsoft was accused of using its Windows operating system to usurp the market position of Netscape's web browser. 15. Snowflake will make a $2 billion acquisition of cloud data warehousing software company Snowflake will make at least $2 billion in acquisitions to fill the gaps in its product lineup, which is the software used to build and manage machine learning models. Possible candidate companies include DataRobot, Dataiku, and H2O.ai. M&A will help further strengthen Snowflake's business. Currently, the company is already the fastest growing supplier in the data warehousing field. Data warehouse is a field designed for fast information retrieval and analysis in the database industry. 10 major emerging technology predictions 1. Metaverse In 1992, Neal Stephenson (Neal Stephenson) coined the term "metaverse" in his novel "Snow Crash." Enter the persistent virtual world. People can meet up there, flirt, play games, buy and sell things, and do many other things. In 2022, it refers to the integration of video games, social networks, and entertainment to create new immersive experiences, such as inviting you to your favorite song at an online concert. Games such as Roblox and Fortnite are paving stones for this emerging media. Facebook has renamed itself Meta to seize this opportunity - and also to divert the attention of the outside world from its other troubles. 2. Virtual influencers are different from human influencers in that they will never be late when taking promotional photos, get drunk at parties, or grow old. This is because virtual influencers are computer-generated characters. During the "Double Eleven" period this year, the virtual beauty expert "Liu Yexi" turned out to detonate the Internet. Up to now, "Liu Yexi"'s Douyin account has published 5 videos with over 8 million fans. The leading celebrity abroad is Miquela Sousa, people like to call her "LilMiquela. This fictional 19-year-old Brazilian-American has 3 million followers on Instagram. Virtual influencers have set off a boom this year. Capital has rushed into the game, and we can look forward to its development in 2022. 3. Brain-computer interface In April, Musk said on Twitter that a macaque is really using a brain chip to play video games through telepathy.” His company Neuralink implanted two sets of tiny sets in the monkey’s brain. Electrodes. The signals from these electrodes are transmitted wirelessly and decoded by a nearby computer, allowing the monkey to move the racket on the screen in a ping-pong game with just mind. Neuralink hopes to test its equipment on humans in 2022 so that paralyzed people can operate computers. Another company, Synchron, has been approved by U.S. regulators to begin human trials on a similar device. Its minimally invasive neuroprosthesis is inserted into the brain through a blood vessel in the neck. In addition to helping people with paralysis, Synchron is also exploring other uses, such as diagnosing and treating neurological diseases, including epilepsy, depression, and high blood pressure. 4. The new year of VR fitness is coming soon. Many small partners will be full of fighting spirit and make detailed exercise plans, hoping to exercise more, but they lack motivation. Virtual reality (VR) headsets allow people to burn calories while playing games. They can hit or split various shapes coming from their faces, or twist their bodies to avoid thick obstructions. During the epidemic lockdown, gyms closed one after another, and the powerful low-cost headset OculusQuest2 was released, making VR fitness more popular. An upgraded model of this headset and new fitness features will be launched in 2022. Will the killer application of virtual reality be fitness? 5. Telemedicine consultation with wearable health trackers has become commonplace. This May change the outlook of wearable health trackers such as Fitbit or AppleWatch. They are currently mainly used as fitness trackers, measuring steps, running and swimming speed, heart rate during exercise, etc. But analysts at consulting firm Gartner said the line between the consumption and medical use of such devices is blurring. Smart watches can already measure blood oxygen saturation, monitor ECG and atrial fibrillation. The new version of AppleWatch that is expected to be launched in 2022 may have new sensors that can measure glucose and alcohol content in the blood, as well as blood pressure and body temperature. RockleyPhotonics, which provides this sensor technology, calls its system a "wrist clinic." Regulatory approval of such functions may take some time, but at the same time, not only users, but doctors will also pay more attention to data from wearable devices. 6. Quantum computing, an idea that only existed on the blackboard in the 1990s, has developed into a sky-high price competition among governments, technology giants, and startups: using the counter-intuitive properties of quantum physics to build a new type of computer. For certain types of mathematics, quantum computers can outperform any non-quantum machines that can be built to quickly process operations involved in cryptography, chemistry, and finance. But when will there be such a machine? One way to measure the power of a quantum computer is its number of qubits. In October of this year, the Pan Jianwei team of the University of Science and Technology of China successfully developed the 66-bit programmable superconducting quantum computing prototype "Zu Chongzhi 2.0". At the same time, it successfully developed the "Nine Chapter 2" quantum computing prototype. IBM hopes to achieve 433 qubits in 2022 and 1,000 qubits in 2023. But existing machines have a fatal flaw: the subtle quantum states they rely on can only last for a period of microseconds. It will take many years to improve this. However, if at the same time existing machines can be made useful, then quantum computing may become a commercial reality sooner than expected. 7. After an extraordinary year of space travel, space travel has high hopes in 2022. In 2021, a series of efforts funded by billionaires will send civilians into space. In July, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic reached the edge of space before Jeff Bezos’ blue origin. Both billionaires completed a suborbital journey in their own spacecraft. In September, Elon Musk’s SpaceX carried four passengers for a multi-day orbit around the earth. All three companies hope to send more tourists into space in 2022. In this year, the number of paying passengers entering space is expected to exceed the government hired security for the first time. It is not expected to fly again until the second half of 2022, and commercial services will begin in the fourth quarter. Blue Origin plans to increase flights, but it has not yet stated the time and number. SpaceX has reached an agreement to send tourists to the International Space Station. 8. Courier drones took longer than expected to take off, but the new rules that will take effect in 2021 will allow drones to fly higher and higher in 2022. Irish startup Manna has been delivering books, meals and medicines in County Galway, and currently plans to expand its services to other parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Google’s sister company Wing has been testing delivery in the United States, Australia and Finland, and it will expand the shopping mall home delivery service to be launched at the end of 2021. Bulgarian startup Dronamics will start using winged drones to transport cargo between 39 European airports. The question is, will the development of the drone express industry accelerate or decelerate? 9. Electric "flying" For a long time, the "flying taxi" has been called the "electric vertical take-off and landing (evtol) aircraft" in this emerging industry. It is no different from a pipe dream in people's eyes. Now it is more and more like real Up. Several companies located in many parts of the world will step up test flights in 2022, with the aim of getting their aircraft certified for commercial use within the next year or two. California-based Joby Aviation plans to build more than a dozen five-seater aircraft with a range of 150 miles. The goal of Volocopter in Germany is to provide air taxi services for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Other competitors include Ehang, Lilium, and Vertical Aerospace. Watch out for the sky. 10.3D printed bone transplantation For many years, researchers have been exploring the use of 3D printed biomaterials to create artificial organs. The ultimate goal is to extract some cells from patients and create fully functional transplanted organs, solving the problems of long queues, matching tests and the risk of rejection for organ transplants. There is still a way to go to make fleshy organs. But bones are not that difficult. Two startup companies Particle3D and ADAM hope to print out bones that can be implanted into the human body in 2022. Both companies use calcium-based minerals to print and tailor the bones according to the patient's CT scan. Particle3D's experiments on pigs and mice found that within eight weeks after the transplantation, bone marrow and blood vessels began to grow inside the implant. ADAM said that its 3D printed implants will stimulate the growth of natural bones, and at the same time, they will gradually biodegrade and will eventually be replaced by the patient's bone tissue. If all goes well, the researchers said that blood vessels and heart valves will be 3D printed next.