Google Announces Best of Play Store 2022 List
On December 1, Google announced the Google Play Store Best Apps, Best Games, and more for 2022. The best app is Dream from WOMBO, which allows anyone without basic knowledge to use AI to create artwork. Users can choose an art style or upload a photo, and Dream’s AI will create beautiful art illustrations based on the user’s description. The Google Play editorial team awarded Best Game to Electronic Arts’ Apex Legends Mobile; it also won Best Game by Android users and Best App by Android users to BeReal. two new awards were added to the Play Store Best of list this year, Best for Chromebooks and Best on Play Pass, and you can see the full list here.
Belkin Launches AirPods Cleaning Kit
Belkin launched an AirPods cleaning kit on December 1 that is designed specifically for AirPods (from the first to the third generation). According to Belkin, the product not only cleans the earwax that builds up on AirPods over time, but also restores the original sound of the headphones without damaging them. The kit includes a cleaning brush, wax softener, cleaning gel and microfiber cloth. Priced at $14.99, it is now available on the Belkin website!
Apple Allows Sharing of Digital Car Key Features to Pixel Users
Apple announced on December 2 that iPhone users can share their digital car keys from Apple Wallet to Pixel phone users via text, email and third-party chat applications. Apple said it is working with Google and plans to extend the ability to receive digital car keys from the iPhone to Android phones 12 and above. Apple is also working with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and others to establish an industry standard for sharing digital keys across platforms.
Password management tool LastPass suffers another data breach
In a December 1 blog post, the CEO of password management tool LastPass said that hackers recently accessed LastPass’ third-party cloud storage servers and gained access to some of its users’ critical information. LastPass had a source code breach in August this year and admitted that hackers had accessed LastPass’ internal systems. This data breach is also related to the August intranet data breach, where hackers used the information they obtained last time to gain access to user data again
Cyberpunk 2077 sequel is expected to start pre-production in 2023
On December 1, Kicinski, president and co-CEO of CD Projekt, said at a conference on third quarter 2022 earnings that pre-production of a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, internally codenamed Orion Project, is expected to begin in 2023. But the sequel will need to complete all the DLC for Cyberpunk 2077 before it officially enters the production process, Kicinski also said that the Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Shadow of the Past is in the final stages of development. In addition, Kicinski also mentioned that after the success of Cyberpunk: Edgewalker, CD Projekt plans to create more tie-in film and television content.
On December 1, gossips said that the new TMSC Arizona plant, scheduled to open in 2024, will offer a more advanced process. The original new Arizona plant will mainly produce 4nm chips, while people familiar with the matter revealed that the new plant will be upgraded to a more advanced process. Another source said that Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees earlier that Apple will have plans to purchase chips from TSMC’s new factory.
On November 30, a score record of a Mac with an unreleased ARM model chip appeared on Geekbench platform. The chip is a 12-core CPU with 3.54GHz and 96GB of RAM; the single-core is 1889 and the multi-core is 14586, which is expected to be the M2 Max chip. As a comparison, the M1 Max has a single-core score of 1700-1800 and a multi-core score of 12800.