Computer history - 2022
Major computer events in 2022
On February 25, 2022, the Anonymous group declared cyberwar on Russia after it invaded Ukraine. Russia later declared Meta guilty of "extremist" activity and banned Facebook and Instagram.
The second version of USB4 was released on October 18, 2022.
On November 6, 2022, over $150 billion was lost in three days as the crypto exchange platform FTX announced it couldn't pay customers and declared bankruptcy on November 11, 2022. In addition to the failure of FTX, 2022 saw other crypto market failures and significant losses that contributed to more than $2 trillion in losses, according to CNBC. The founder of FTX (Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF) was later arrested on December 13, 2022, by the SEC. Many call 2022 the "crypto winter" and believe 2021 was the peak of all cryptocurrencies.
2022 computer and technology top terms
The following are some top computer and technology-related terms in alphabetical order that were introduced or popularized in 2022.
New computer products and services introduced in 2022
CompTIA introduced the Data+ certification in February 2022.
The Samsung Galaxy S22, S22+, and S22 Ultra were released in 2022.
Android version 13 (Tiramisu) was released on August 15, 2022.
Stable Diffusion was released on August 22, 2022.
Temu was founded in September 2022.
Apple released its new iPhone 14 models on September 16, 2022.
AMD released the Zen 4 on September 27, 2022.
LangChain, an app-creating framework that used LLMs (Large Language Models), was released in October 2022.
Linux kernel 6.0 was released on October 2, 2022.
Blizzard released Overwatch 2 as F2P (free-to-play) and as early access on October 4, 2022, without the PvE (Player vs. Environment) mode and a reduction of team players (now 5v5, not 6v6).
The ninth expansion pack for World of Warcraft, Dragonflight, was released on November 28, 2022.
Open AI released ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.
The OnePlus 10 and 10 Pro smartphones were released in 2022.
The weblog service pingback was released in 2022.
Google started Project Green Light in 2022.
Computer and technology-related events in 2022
Fortnite helped raise $144 million for Ukraine relief.
Microsoft announced that the online video editor Clipchamp had been integrated into Windows 11 on March 9, 2022.
On March 29, 2022, Sony announced it had merged PlayStation Now into PlayStation Plus.
In May 2022, the cryptocurrency LUNA experienced one of the biggest price crashes in the cryptocurrency market's history. The price of LUNA went from an all-time high of $116 on April 6, 2022, to $0.00008 by June 6, 2022.
Nielsen reported in August 2022 that streaming had surpassed TV viewing for the first time.
Jason Allen entered AI-generated artwork titled "Theatre d'Opera Spatial" into the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition and won first place.
Hackers caused a massive traffic jam on September 1, 2022, in Moscow with the Yandex Taxi app to summon several taxis to the same destination.
On September 15, 2022, the digital currency known as Ethereum changed from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake they called The Merge. This change reduced Ethereum's energy consumption by ~99.95%.
The United States White House unveiled an AI (Artificial Intelligence) Bill of Rights, a blueprint on October 4, 2022, aiming to avert harm caused by Artificial Intelligence.
Microsoft released the Surface Pro 9 on October 12, 2022.
Apple macOS, code-named Ventura, was released on October 24, 2022.
The United States Senate passed a bill on December 15, 2022, that bans TikTok on U.S. government-issued devices.
Dell released the XPS 8950 in 2022.
In 2022, the quetta, quecto, ronna, and ronto prefixes were added as an SI (Systems of Units).
Computer company events in 2022
Take-Two Interactive acquired Zynga for $12.7 billion.
Microsoft announced on January 18, 2022, that it intends to acquire Blizzard (Activision Blizzard) for $68.7 billion.
Block acquired Afterpay on January 31, 2022.
Akamai Technologies announced on February 15, 2022, that it had acquired Linode for approximately $900 million.
In March 2022, Epic Games purchased Bandcamp.
On April 25, 2022, the Twitter board agreed to a $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk. The deal later closed on October 27, 2022.
On May 10, 2022, Napster was sold to Algorand.
AMD announced on May 26, 2022, that it completed its acquisition of Pensando Systems for approximately $1.9 billion.
Broadcom announced its $61 billion deal to acquire VMware on May 26, 2022.
Google Pay features were migrated into the Google Wallet app in 2022.
Google announced on September 12, 2022, that it had completed its acquisition of Mandiant for $5.4 billion.
Corel was rebranded to Alludo in September 2022.
Fandom announced it bought TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot, and other brands for approximately $50 million in cash.
On October 5, 2022, Spotify announced that it had acquired content moderation tech company Kinzen.
In 2022, Surfshark merged with Nord Security, part of Tesonet, a venture capitalist with many different VPN (Virtual Private Network) brands.
TrekStor went out of business.
Security breaches and leaks in 2022
In January, a blockchain bridge called Qubit was exploited for $80 million.
The blockchain bridge Wormhole was exploited for $326 million on February 2, 2022.
Axie Infinity's Ronin blockchain bridge lost $615 million on March 29, 2022, due to an exploit.
In June, Harmony Horizon Blockchain Bridge was exploited for $100 million in altcoins.
In July 2022, an unauthorized third-party acquired information from some of Samsung's U.S. systems.
Twitter user records were shared for free on a hacker forum from in 2021. The records were stolen from an API (Application Programming Interface) vulnerability that stole over 5.4 million users' data. The data contained private phone numbers and e-mail addresses that were not meant to be public.
On August 4, 2022, Twilio became aware of unauthorized access to a limited number of customer accounts through a sophisticated social engineering attack. Using a phishing kit codenamed 'oktapus,' the attackers stole over 9,000 login credentials for over 130 organizations, including Authy, Klaviyo, MailChimp, and more, and an attempt on Cloudflare.
In August, food delivery firm DoorDash disclosed a data breach exposing customer and employee data linked to the recent cyberattack on Twilio.
On August 24, 2022, Plex announced it had been breached and that usernames, e-mails, and encrypted passwords had been stolen.
On August 25, 2022, LastPass announced that its development environment was hacked through a developer account, stealing portions of source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information.
The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) announced on September 3, 2022, that around 120,000 taxpayers who filed a Form 990-T had personal information inadvertently exposed on its website.
The moving company U-Haul disclosed that on September 7, 2022, customer information, including names and driver's licenses or state identification numbers, was stolen.
Revolut announced in September 2022, that it was hacked and had the data of 50,000 of its users compromised.
A hack on Uber happened in 2016 where hackers downloaded the names, e-mails, and phone numbers of 57 million app users, along with 600,000 driver's licenses. The hack went undisclosed until 2022, when the hackers testified that they agreed to sign an Uber nondisclosure agreement. Instead of disclosing the hack, Uber wrote it off as a bug bounty.
In September, gaming company 2K confirmed that its customer service and help desk support had been compromised. The hack included e-mail addresses, gamertags, and console information.
Kim Kardashian agreed in October to pay $1.26 million to settle for failing to disclose she was paid to promote a crypto asset on her Instagram.
The crypto service Binance announced on October 7, 2022, that it had an exploit that took $570 from its customers. It was later able to recover all but $100 million.
LastPass announced in November 2022 that an attacker could access customers' information because of its prior security breach in August 2022.
Beginning December 2, 2022, Rackspace hosted Microsoft Exchange servers encountered a security incident and suggested customers migrate to Microsoft 365.
Computer-related TV shows and movies released in 2022
The Bitcoin: Digital Gold documentary was released in 2022, where Torsten Hoffmann gave an update to his past two documentaries about bitcoin.
COIN, a documentary covering the story of Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase, was released in 2022.
The documentary series Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech was released in 2022. The TV series covers the history of the rise of big companies like Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.
The Artifice Girl, a movie about an AI (Artificial Intelligence) program designed to trap online predators that went beyond its original purpose, was released in 2022.
The YouTube Effect documentary about YouTube, was released in 2022.
The Apple TV mini series WeCrashed, about the rise and fall of WeWork, was released in 2022.
Discontinued products and services in 2022
ManageFlitter service was discontinued in January 2022.
Twitch ended the Friends feature on Twitch on May 25, 2022.
On May 1, 2022, Amazon announced it had retired Alexa.
Microsoft announced on June 15, 2022, that it's discontinuing the Internet Explorer browser after 25 years in favor of Edge.
In June 2022, Meta (Facebook) announced that it would discontinue its consumer versions of the Facebook Portal and focus only on the business versions.
On June 20, 2022, Drobo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in California.
YouTube Go was discontinued in August 2022.
The social networking service Snap announced on September 1, 2022, that it would cancel Pixy, Zenly, and Voisey projects.
Google announced it would shut down Google Hangouts in November 2022.
On September 29th, Google announced it would shut down Stadia in January 2023.
Comcast shut down the revival of G4 TV and the G4 network again on October 16, 2022.
Due to a lack of development and enhancements, the open-source Atom text and editor was retired on December 15, 2022.
Epson announced it would end all laser printer sales globally by 2026.
Nikon and Panasonic announced they'd be discontinuing and no longer making future compact digital cameras because of the popularity of smartphone cameras.
Computer pioneer deaths in 2022
Stephen Wilhite passed away on March 14, 2022 (Age: 74).
Robert Krakoff passed away on April 26, 2022 (Age: 81).
Peter Eckersley passed away on September 2, 2022 (Age: 43).
Frederick Brooks passed away on November 17, 2022 (Age: 91).