Welcome back to The Morning After. Hope you had a great weekend and are ready for 2021. (I know I am.)
Today we’ve gathered the latest tech news from the last few days and several end-of-year pieces on the biggest stories of the year. But first, Hyundai could give up on the new Internal combustion engines.
The company has only just made and launched its first electric car, but it is apparently ready to move forward quickly and leave the old engines behind. Korea Economic Daily sources claim Hyundai closed its research center’s internal combustion engine design department sometime this month. While there will still be a few workers left to refine existing engines, the rest will focus on EV-related work.
Electrification is “inevitable,” new research director Chung-kook Park reportedly said in an email, and the transition will help produce cars that “will dominate the future market.” Park is probably right. In Hyundai’s home country of South Korea, the sale of pure combustion engines is to be banned by 2030.
-Mat Smith
The unveiling is now planned for spring 2022.
Final Fantasy fans were promised more information about the next installment in the RPG series before the end of 2021. Unfortunately, this announcement and the game have been postponed. “The last time we spoke, I promised to get more information on Final Fantasy XVI sometime in 2021,” wrote producer Naoki Yoshida on Twitter. “However, I regret to inform you that I cannot keep this promise as the complications of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic have delayed the development of the game by almost half a year.”
Don’t call it an excuse.
The last year for the iPhone and Mac manufacturer was marked by more than just a small course correction. In addition to pushing its M1 PC chips forward in more powerful setups, Apple has also gotten rid of the problematic keyboards found in recent MacBook generations and improved battery life across the iPhone 13 lineup.
The biggest change – the importance of which we will not see until next year – is product repairs. Apple will sell parts and manuals to customers who want to repair their iPhone themselves.
The Green Hill Zone kit is a nostalgia trip for Sega fans.
Lego
After nearly a year of work, Lego has announced that its Sonic the Hedgehog Green Hill Zone set will be available online and in Lego stores for $ 70 on January 1, 2022. The brick-based recreation of the game’s first – and most iconic – area includes minifigures for Sonic, Dr. Eggman (aka Dr. Robotnik), two creatures, and the phantom Ruby. Sonic won’t be darting around loops, unfortunately, but there is of course a Technic lever to start him (or other characters) along with Ring add-ons.
The move is taking place while the rumors of Apple AR headsets continue to circulate.
Apple
As rumors of its augmented reality headset mount, Apple has reportedly hired Andrea Schubert, director of AR public relations at Meta, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. In his weekly newsletter. “Meta was the market leader in headsets with Oculus, so this setting makes sense when Apple is about to launch,” Gurman wrote.
Schubert has been Communications Director at Metas Reality Labs and Comms Lead for Oculus with Meta since March 2016.
Apple’s potential AR headset is already the subject of all kinds of rumors. One of the most recent speculated that the headset might depend on another device like an iPhone or a Mac computer. Or it could be a standalone device with two 8K displays that could cost up to $ 3,000. And a third rumor, this one from Gurman, suggested it would play “high quality VR games”.
Add them to the list.
AMD and OnePlus have both withdrawn their physical presences at the technology event. While they didn’t provide detailed explanations, the move was clearly a response to the rise of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, like many other companies that have already pulled out of CES.
AMD was already ready to launch its 2022 products via livestream on January 4th. OnePlus announced that it will introduce the OnePlus 10 Pro in January and is expected to introduce the phone at CES. For now, Samsung, Sony and LG will be exhibiting in Las Vegas in a few weeks’ time. I take bets.
Basically: you are really cool.
Jinx and Vi are the sisters at the heart of Riot Games’ hit Netflix series Arcane, and they were brought to the spotlight from a line-up of 150+ League of Legends champions.
For Arcane creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee, the stars really couldn’t have been anyone else in League of Legends lore. “They already got our special treatment because we just really liked them,” Linke told Engadget. “So, if we had to think about it, which characters do we want to hold onto for many years to come? I think it was pretty obvious. “
America’s best-selling type of vehicle is equally popular when electrified.
The steady advances in propulsion systems over the past few years – along with the exploding demand for larger, electrified vehicles for the U.S. market – have resulted in a turning point in 2021: the advent of EV pickups and SUVs. 2021 could have been the turning point.
The biggest news you might have missed
Riot Games settles $ 100 million class action lawsuit for gender discrimination
Amazon’s ‘New World’ is one of the biggest money makers of the year on Steam
India’s version of “PUBG Mobile” introduces device bans for fraudsters
Xiaomi’s 12 series phones are among the first to feature Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chips
One of Samsung’s latest C-Lab projects is a smart guitar with LED guides
The three-wheeled Roadster EV from Acrimoto combines the strange with fun
NASA has finally launched the James Webb Space Telescope
Hitting the Books: Amiga and the birth of 256-color gaming
The best accessories for your new Xbox Series X or S
The best apps to download on your new smartphone
‘Forza Horizon 5’ made me a racing game fanatic
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team independently of our parent company. Some of our stories contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
