10. Nothing Ear (1)
2021 was the year of the wireless earbuds. Handy for on the road but also during work at the office or at home. However, you do want noise reduction if the situation calls for it. The Nothing Ear (1) rocked the market with its price of only one hundred euros. That was unprecedented. Not only because good wireless earplugs with noise cancellation cost at least double that, the quality is also very good for that price. There is also reportedly a smartphone on the way from Nothing, we are curious. These earplugs taste like more.
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9. Hyundai Ioniq 5
Of all electric cars that we tested in 2021 passed the Ioniq 5 from Hyundai the highest score (8.7). Not derived from a fuel model but completely redesigned as a fully electric car. The tight Ioniq 5 therefore has a lot of interior space. You can also charge extremely fast at speeds of over 200 kW. And even bi-directional charging. This is the future.
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8. Cable-cutting
For the first time, the largest cable operator in the country, Ziggo, also offered a internet-only subscription. Promptly stood the cable-cutters to leave television as it has been for decades and switch completely to streamers and apps.
This also brings new challenges, because the choice is big. Netflix, Videoland, Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+, NLziet, Discovery+, Mubi, Pathé Thuis, YouTube Premium, the offer does not stop there and will continue to grow in the coming year.
2021 was also the year of optical fiber. At KPN, the counter had already reached three million households by the middle of the year and it then picked up the pace again. Ziggo responded with the roll-out of gigabit-internet, but is only possible with downloads that offer high speed. In any case, there is still something to choose from.
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7. Metaverse
In an ultimate attempt to brush up on his bad name, Mark Zuckerberg renamed his company all Meta, the new parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus, er, Meta Quest. He also announced that he was fully committed to the metaverse. ‘Zuck’ thinks that the internet will eventually become a virtual world in which we will communicate, work and play with each other wearing glasses.
We have Meta’s vr platform Horizon Worlds tested and it was pretty nice, but it all feels mostly like a lightning rod for the endless series scandals and controversy surrounding the social media giant. Moreover, the metaverse has been around for a long time. What about games like Fortnite, Minecraft and Roblox? And remember Second Life yet? Nice try, Zuck. Perhaps a new CEO would have been a better idea than a new name.
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6. Right to repair
Was at tech last year e-waste a point of attention, by smartphones without adapter to sell, this year the focus shifted to ‘repairability’, the extent to which you can repair a smartphone or computer (yourself). Two shining examples are the Fairphone 4 and the Frame Laptop.
The Fairphone is the world’s most sustainable smartphone from the one and only Dutch smartphone brand. The Fairphone 4 received the maximum score from the right-to-repair advocates at iFixit. The Frame Laptop is a modular Windows laptop that you can repair and upgrade yourself. Hopefully it will appear in Europe soon.
These products may not be for everyone, but they have a major impact on the industry, as evidenced by Apple’s announcement of its… iPhone repair tool for end users and Dell’s laptop concept Project Luna.
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Bright 25 of 2021
Numbers 11 to 15: E-bikes, vouwtelefoons, bluetooth-trackers, ransomware, Bo Burnham.
Numbers 16 to 20: Squid Game, Dune, Windows 11, Xbox Game Pass, pro-smartphones,
Numbers 21 to 25: Clubhouse, NFTs, social media, smart doorbells, new chips.
In the coming days you will read the rest of our tech annual overview. Follow the updates here.
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