As we roll into 2022, most of us have become accustomed to reading or hearing technological buzz words such as NFTs, Metaverse, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Ethereum 2.0, Augmented Reality and a slew of other jargon.

While some people seem to take to these novel concepts like ducks to water, many of us are left scratching our heads.

If you don’t consider yourself particularly tech savvy and understanding new technologies isn’t exactly second nature to you, you are not alone.

Here, we're going to sift through the noise and give you a layman’s explanation of some of the key technologies that are part of the new tech landscape.

Non-fungible Tokens

Almost everyone would have heard of the term non-fungible tokens or NFTs. This is the buzzword everywhere nowadays, be it on the news or all across social media. It seems like every other day that a Gen Z kid becomes a multi-millionaire by selling NFTs. But what does that even mean? And what in the world is a bored ape?

Before we have a go at explaining the concept to you, maybe we should let Microsoft take a crack at it. Here’s what Microsoft has to say about NFTs “a trust framework in which identifiers, such as usernames, can be replaced with IDs that are self-owned, independent, and enable data exchange using blockchain and distributed ledger technology to protect privacy and secure transactions.”

If that went over your head, we don’t blame you, the concept can be a little hard to wrap your head around. Basically, an NFT is a digital token that you can own, buy, sell or even use as your profile picture on Facebook.

It doesn’t always have to be an art work, but that’s the most common manifestation of it at this time. Any digital asset, be it a piece of music, digital art, etc. can be registered as an NFT.

If you own an NFT, others cannot use that same asset lawfully and the owner of the NFT can always be verified thanks to the unique digital certificate registered in the blockchain.

NFTs may become how we identify people on the internet and in the Metaverse. This is a good segue into the next technology – The Metaverse.

The Metaverse

The Metaverse is probably going to be the first and most popular implementation of immersive reality. Most of us have watched Sci-Fi movies where people are plugged into headsets and are living in alternate, conjured up alternate realities while their bodies are actually just hibernating in some kind of human pod, well, the Metaverse may actually be one step in that direction.

Effectively, The Metaverse is a digital reality that you can connect to via various smart devices, be it phones, computers, wearables, VR headsets, etc.

You will be able to do everything and anything on the Metaverse which you would do in real life without having actually being there. The Metaverse has received so much hype due to Facebook’s tunnel vision obsession with it.

Mark Zuckerburg expects many activities that we currently do on our devices to move to the metaverse. No more Zoom, but immersive meetings in Horizans. No more Fortnight, but immersive and real shootouts in virtual reality where you can feel a hit. No more static 3D slots on your phone to play at UK casinos with free spins, but actual entry into a virtual casino with other like-minded people.

Flying Cars

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here – it is very unlikely that there is going to be traffic jams above your head in 2022. However, flying cars have finally started to take off in 2022.

While companies such as Aeromobil have their sights set on producing a flying car that is road legal, some companies such as Jetson have already put their first flying cars on sale.

With a price tag of $92,000, the Jetson One makes a fantastic new toy for the fairly affluent who also happen to have a pilot’s licenses. The Jetson One can reach a top speed of 63 mph and offers an endurance of 20 minutes. Jetson One is powered by eight electric motors and even has built in LiDAR sensors that help avoid collisions with terrain. What’s more? If things go south, you can blast out of your Jetson One in a rapidly deployed parachute and watch your $92,000 quadcopter go up in flames with a birds-eye view.

Don’t think the Jetson One is going to take off? Well, you should know that the company have reported that there are all sold out for 2022 and are working on deliveries promised for 2023. 

In CES 2022, Japanese company SkyDrive unveiled their flying car SD-03. The company plans to launch an air taxi service by 2025. The company announced that they are working hard on developing highly stable electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles and cargo drones.