Files from Samira Balsara
Semiconductor revenue increased 25.1 per cent in 2021, Netflix’s hit shows don’t retain significant viewership after their debut month, and a Chinese satellite grappled and pulled another satellite out of orbit.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Tuesday, February 1, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Global semiconductor revenue increased 25.1 per cent last year to a total of $583.5 billion, crossing the $500 billion thresholds for the first time. According to a Gartner report, Samsung Electronics regained the top spot from Intel, with a revenue of 31.6 per cent in 2021. Intel dropped to the number two position with a 0.5 per cent growth in 2021, the lowest growth rate among the top 25 vendors. The 5G smartphone market helped drive semiconductor revenue, with unit production reaching 555 million in 2021 more than doubling from 2020 numbers which were at 250 million.
According to new data, while Netflix releases original series on a regular basis, these series don’t retain a significant number of viewers after the first month of release. All of the 10 most viewed Netflix titles of 2021 among TV Time app users saw self-reported viewership in the TV Time app slow after being out for a month. For example, 73 per cent of the global TV Time app users who watched “Squid Game” did so in the first month following the release of the Korean show. In contrast, only 20 per cent of the total self-reported viewing that “Squid Game” had received in TV Time as of January 14 happened in the second month of the show’s debut. This pattern was also seen with Netflix shows like “Shadow and Bone,” “Fate: Winx Saga” and “Sweet Tooth.”
A Chinese satellite was seen grabbing another satellite and pulling it out of its normal orbit and into a “super-graveyard drift orbit,” according to an article from The Drive. On January 22, China’s SJ-21 satellite strayed from its regular orbit during daytime when observations are hard to make with an optical telescope. SJ-21 was then observed executing a “large maneuver” to bring it closely alongside another satellite, a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. SJ-21 then pulled the dead satellite out of its normal geosynchronous orbit and placed it a few hundred miles away in what is known as a graveyard orbit. This maneuver was seen by telescopes belonging to commercial space awareness firm Exoanalytic Solutions. This move raises questions and concerns about the potential applications of these types of satellites created to maneuver close to other satellites for inspection or manipulation and adds to growing concerns about China’s space program in general.
And now for something a bit different. With the metaverse moving into various different sectors, twin brothers Eric Klein and Evan Klein have launched MREIT, the first tokenized metaverse real estate investment group. MetaSpace Real Estate Investment Trust known as MREIT, focuses on virtual property acquisitions, virtual workroom development, leasing, management and sales of NFTs and rewards. The company works with architects, designers, real estate brokers, marketers, creators, and developers to make the metaverse more accessible for everyday investors. The Klein brothers’ goal for MREIT is to provide accessibility for users looking to get involved with real estate in the metaverse.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, if you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.