With recent murmurings of chip shortages easing in 2022, one could be forgiven for imagining some sort of promised land where prices return to the lower levels once remembered.

Unfortunately, that idea will have to be consigned to the land of rainbows, pixie dust, and affordable housing in major cities, because while the situation may ease, that doesn't mean it will stop growing.

For Gartner senior analyst Ben Lee, the relief slated to arrive in the middle of 2022 is not a lowering of absolute prices, but a slowing in the rate of growth.

The semiconductor chip shortage that is hamstringing the production of products ranging from cars and computers to appliances and toothbrushes will extend into 2022 and potentially beyond that, according to Matt Murphy, CEO of Marvell Technology.

“We’ve always gone through cycles of ups and downs, where demand has exceeded supply or vice versa,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said at the recent Code Conference in Beverly Hills. “This time, it’s different.”
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Su said that while she expects the first half of 2022 to be “likely tight,” the second half will be less severe as manufacturing capacity opens.

If you have an old phone, an alarm system or an ankle monitor, your tech could stop working properly next year.

In 2022, everything from your old phone to your alarm system could stop working as service providers turn off 3G networks in the United States.

Kami Griffiths has a perfectly fine phone. It’s your standard Samsung Galaxy smartphone with all the important apps, a decent camera, and a screen big enough to watch videos. It’s so fine, in fact, she’s had it since 2016 without ever feeling the need to drop hundreds of dollars on an upgrade.

Come next year, though, Griffiths won’t have a choice. That’s the current deadline for when the only cellular network her phone can use will shut down forever.

All the major cellphone carriers—AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile—are planning to shut their older 3G networks in 2022. Like millions of people in the United States who use 3G phones and other 3G devices, she will have to buy a new device if she wants to text, make calls, or even reach 911.

When these deadlines roll around, Griffith’s own phone could be the least of her problems. Griffiths, who is an executive director and co-founder of Community Tech Network—a nonprofit that focuses on digital literacy in San Francisco—is worried that the group’s clients, a mix of mostly older adults and low-income residents, will find themselves either without a working phone, or could struggle to figure out how to use a new device.

“It’s going to be very difficult for them. They will not be happy,” said Griffiths, who notes older tech users have a harder time figuring out new devices. “If it works fine, they don’t want to change a thing.”

Why Is This Happening? 3G network technology has been around in the United States for two decades. Verizon launched the first 3G network in the nation in 2002, and 4G has been around since 2010. In 2019, carriers started slowly rolling out 5G networks and soon the big companies were launching 5G smartphones. Now they need to focus their resources on building out those newer networks, while saving money on maintaining the older ones.
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“The reason the carriers would like to get rid of old legacy tech is to free up that wireless spectrum,” said Ian Fogg, vice president of analysis at mobile analytics firm Opensignal. “If you switch off older tech in most markets, most countries, your spectrum license allows you to use that with newer networks like 4G and 5G.”
When Do the Networks Shut Down? The shutdown dates start in January 2022 and are spread out throughout the year. At this time, the dates are all confirmed, and the carriers are proceeding as if they are set in stone. However, the Federal Communications Commission recently accepted comments from groups and people concerned about the shutdown, which could lead to a delay.

Researchers have unveiled a ground-breaking system that allows electronic devices to run without batteries for “an infinite lifetime”.

Computer engineers from Northwestern University and Delft University of Technology developed the BFree energy-harvesting technology to enable battery-free devices capable of running perpetually with only intermittent energy input.

The same team previously introduced the world’s first battery-free Game Boy last year, which is powered energy harvested from the user pushing the buttons. 

The engineers hope the innovative BFree system will help cut the vast amounts of dead batteries that end up as e-waste in landfills around the world. 

It will also allow amateur hobbyists and those within the Maker Movement to create their own battery-free electronic devices.

“Right now, it’s virtually impossible for hobbyists to develop devices with battery-free hardware, so we wanted to democratize our battery-free platform,” said Josiah Hester, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University, who led the research.

“Makers all over the internet are asking how to extend their device’s battery life. They are asking the wrong question. We want them to forget about the battery and instead think about more sustainable ways to generate energy.”

To run perpetually with only intermittent energy—for example the sun going behind a cloud and no longer powering the device’s solar panel—the BFree system simply pauses the calculations it is running without losing memory or needing to run through a long list of operations before restarting when power returns. 

The technology is part of a new trend known as ubiquitous computing, which aims to make computing available at any time and in any place through smart devices and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The research represents a significant advancement in this field by circumventing the need for a battery, and the associated charging and replacing that comes with them.

“Many people predict that we’re going to have a trillion devices in this IoT,” Dr Hester said.

“That means a trillion dead batteries or 100 million people replacing a dead battery every few minutes. That presents a terrible ecological cost to the environment.

“What we’re doing, instead, is truly giving power to the people. We want everyone to be able to program devices effortlessly in a more sustainable way.”
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The research was presented at the UbiComp 2021 conference on September 22nd.

Microsoft's new, flat-price version of its Office productivity software will arrive on Oct. 5—the same day Windows 11 begins rolling out, according to a company blog post Thursday. 

Microsoft previously emphasized that while its major focus remains in its subscription offering, Microsoft 365, it will release the onetime purchase Office 2021 for those who aren't ready to move to the cloud.

Office 2021 arrives in two versions: one for commercial users, called Office LTSC (Long Term Servicing Channel), and one for personal use. Office LTSC is available now, the post said, and includes enhanced accessibility features, performance improvements across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and visual improvements, like dark mode support across apps. It's meant for specialty situations, as opposed to for an entire organization, such as process control devices on the manufacturing floor that are not connected to the internet. 

Meanwhile, Office 2021 for personal use will arrive on Oct. 5, though Microsoft has not yet announced pricing information. 

Both versions of Office will be supported on Windows and Mac, and will ship with the OneNote app. They will also ship both 32- and 64-bit versions, according to the post. Microsoft will support the software for five years and said it does not plan to change the price at the time of release. 

In April 2020, Microsoft transitioned Office 365 into Microsoft 365, a subscription service that added more features to the suite of software tools, but required a monthly payment of $7 for an individual plan or $10 for a family of up to six people (that price will be increasing in March 2022). The company said that its focus will continue to be on the cloud, but it understands that not everyone is ready to take that step. While you can use Microsoft 365 apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel online for free with limited functionality, you'll need either a perpetual version or a subscription to take full advantage of their capabilities.
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Some wondered if Office 2019 would be the last perpetual version of the software since Microsoft 365 came along. But then, Microsoft announced its plan for a perpetual release of Office in a September blog post.