Plus: if you go down in the woods today, you might find a lost AirTag | Why would you want to get physically 'shot' in VR? | The Galaxy S22 Ultra could make me green with envy
Created for techradar.com@quicklydone.com | Web Version
We've nearly made it through another year – 2022 is looming large, and soon 2021 will be behind us. Fingers crossed we can make it to the end of an eventful 12 months without the internet going down again…
It tells you something that Amazon Web Services crashing yet again this week, and taking whole chunks of the web with it, isn't even worthy of its own slot in this newsletter. There's something weird going on there – either that's a very badly-designed system, or there are some gremlins in the works, but let's hope it gets permanently resolved soon.
With the CES 2022 tech expo approaching, a couple of the interesting things that have been teased in advance of the show feature in this week's newsletter. I do like the craziness that CES brings with it every year, but sadly the TechRadar team won't be attending this time as the threat of Omicron increases (big names including Facebook and Nvidia have also announced that they won't be at CES in person).
Fear not though: over the last couple of years we've become well-versed in covering such events virtually, so we'll still be reporting on CES in depth, and bringing you all the big news and product announcements with our usual wit and verve.
It's just a virtual flesh wound… The Owo Game haptic vest (Owo)
There are two stories from the upcoming CES show that got me intrigued this week. The first was the weird T-shirt you can see being modeled above, which won a coveted CES Innovation Award. (I say coveted – there are a lot of winners, but at least it provides an easy source of copy for us lazy journalists).
The Owo Game haptic vest takes VR immersion to another level, allowing you to feel every bullet wound, punch, and even – apparently – insect bite. I'm intrigued by the concept, but do I really want to experience the sensation of a bullet both entering and exiting my body, and the feeling of blood and organs leaking out of me, even if it is virtual?
I don't think I do – but I also don't think I could resist the temptation to try this thing out at least once.
A render of a green Galaxy S22 Ultra created by LetsGoDigital (LetsGoDigital)
I've never told anyone this, but the one smartphone I wish I could have owned but never did was the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge in emerald green. It was one of the standout mobiles of its time, thanks to its immense power and a display that curved around the edges of the body, which was, at the time, a real revelation.
However, I might soon be able to get my hands on something even better – Samsung could be bringing out the Galaxy S22 Ultra in a similar green shade, and given the fact that Galaxy S devices have been at the top of our best phones list for a long while now, I think we can safely assume that this will be another great device.
The only question is whether it will actually appear, as phone variants are often tested, and leaked, but never see the light of day. Or, it could be announced, but not for Western markets… so I won't get my hopes up too high just yet.
I've long been perplexed as to what Google has been planning since it spent billions of dollars to acquire Fitbit – the company's Big Thing is data, so surely it only bought Fitbit so that it could harvest more data about the fitness activities of its users, right?
With that in mind, it made sense to keep the Fitbit brand and devices separate from Google's own hardware; so when I saw this leaked watch face that showed Pixel smartwatch software using the Fitbit logo, I was surprised.
But then again, maybe it makes sense. For many, Fitbit is the name in fitness tracking, so a tie-in isn't the worst idea in the world. Perhaps the Pixel Watch, the rumored wearable from Google, could use the Fitbit software to appeal to fitness fans, while being offered at a higher price point justified by advanced new features.
Those fitness smarts would certainly be an attractive extra feature that would distinguish Google's watch from the Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch Active ranges.
Then again, what this leak purports to show is an early build of the software, and in later versions the Fitbit logo was nowhere to be seen – so perhaps Google will take elements of Fitbit's health monitoring, and incorporate them into an upgraded Google Fit platform.
Whatever happens, I just hope Google launches this watch soon – goodness knows we've been talking about it for long enough.
Look, this isn't me saying I have anything against The Sims – some of the pieces we've published on it have shown me that it's an incredibly vibrant and important space. I just don't understand it.
I played it once for about 15 minutes, and it just seemed like a poorer version of my life, and given that this was when I was about 14, that's saying something. But the news that you might be able to upload a photograph of yourself and have AI turn it into an accurate portrayal of your likeness in the game sounds like a good thing, right?
Apparently not. Our Computing Writer Jess Weatherbed makes it clear that she likes to mod her character, and mod a lot, so it's more about the eye-candy for her.
She writes "…a huge appeal of playing simulation games is the work that goes into them. Making things 'easier' doesn't feel like it fits, but I'm prepared to eat my words on that. If it works well, then I might kill a few hours using the feature to turn my neighborhoods into a celebrity-filled utopia, but I'll certainly go back to creating my own, overly modded characters after that gets tiresome."
I really like LG Display, the TV-focused subdivision of the electronics behemoth – it feels like the goal of the people working there is simply to see what weird and wacky stuff they can create using OLED technology.
As someone who was the editor of OLED News at one point in his career I can appreciate their dedication to the cause, and LG Display has shared a couple of its new and 'exciting' concepts, which it'll be unveiling at CES, with our US Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff.
I put exciting in square quotes above because I'm not entirely convinced by these contraptions: three screens bent around a static bike (LG calls this immersive, but it's not – put screens in front of me and to either side if you want me to feel immersed, not above my head), and a huge curved display in front of a chair a pod-like setup.
The latter looks the most intriguing – the idea of sitting in a chair that moves in all directions, with a screen that will flex in order to keep its image in your field of vision sounds cool, but how would it perform in real life?
Thankfully I don't have to answer these questions, as these are just concepts for now. Maybe they'll come to fruition in the future, but right now all they show us is that flexing, bending TVs are cool – and we already knew that.
There are two reasons why I've included this piece in the newsletter this week, in which our Homes Editor Carrie-Ann Skinner writes about how she lost her Apple AirTag in a forest as a result of trying to save herself a bit of money.
First, it's a great read. Imagine the pain of losing something that's designed to stop you losing things because, quite reasonably, you didn't spend the same amount of money as the tag itself costs to buy an Apple-approved holder for it.
It makes sense to me that a silicone holder from Amazon should do the same job as Apple's version – it's just about making it the right shape, surely?
Not so, as it turns out, which leads me to my second reason for loving this piece. It's not cost-ineffective for Carrie to go back and use her iPhone to find the tracker, as it was lost many miles from her home.
I've had sleepless nights thinking about how badly I want to go and rescue it. I can't stop thinking about that poor little piece of tech, alone and cold in a forest, hoping to be reunited with Carrie, and bleeping mournfully in the hope that it'll attract the attention of a passing iPhone user.
I had a couple of other choices this week for the final science sign-off of the year. I was considering researchers claiming that they'd managed to quantum-entangle an animal, but then I realized that it was better if you read about it yourself, because I'm pretty sketchy on the principle.
But it's this black box recorder for our planet that's really piqued my interest. When built it'll be the size of a school bus, and it'll be placed in what's thought to be the safest location in the world – a desert in Tasmania.
The box will suck in data from all over the world, recording temperature and ocean acidification data, along with information on land use, military spending, energy consumption and human population growth, among other things. It will also scrape news headlines and social media posts.
The idea is not just that, should we wind up destroying the Earth, anyone who's left will be able to learn what happened; it's also very much about focusing our attention on what we're doing to our planet right now, and helping mankind to avert a future catastrophe.
This is from the editor
While lots of people are shutting down over the Christmas break, TechRadar never sleeps, and we're going to keep bringing you all the big tech news, including more coverage of the build-up to CES, as well as a whole host of round-ups and retrospectives of the past year, so stay tuned over the festive period.
I'm particularly excited about our Tech Resolutions series – each of the team members will be outlining what they're looking forward to achieving in the coming year with the help of technology, so look out for those articles going live over the next few days.
Thank you for reading, and for being such great supporters of the Week in Review this year. And to those of you who've emailed me, your messages really have meant a lot… talking of which, please do email me (including 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line) with your favorite tech moments of the year. Full disclosure: I'm appearing on TV on December 29 to talk about the year in tech, so your input will be super-helpful. And please do encourage your family and friends to subscribe to this newsletter – it's the Christmas gift that keeps on giving, and it won't cost you a dime!
I'll see you all again on New Year's Eve – and you'll also be meeting some of TechRadar's editors and writers, who'll be sharing their own highlights from the past year.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
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