There’s just over one day left of 2022 and we’ve all but exhausted our options for ‘best of’ lists. But there’s one more we thought we’d give you before 2023 graces us with its presence: the articles you, dear readers, cared most about this year.
From a billionaire who proved you can really buy happiness (or a place to shitpost) with money to some superyacht drama, here are 12 things you cared about most this year.
1. NASA’s Curiosity Rover and a ‘doorway’ on Mars
In May, NASA’s Curiosity rover took a photo of a Lovecraftian feature on the surface of Mars: a seemingly rectangular and shadowy opening in the planet’s exposed rock that looks as if it leads into the Martian underground. While the grainy black-and-white image may have had conspiracy theorists over the moon, it almost definitely doesn’t show the entrance to an underground alien society. Over the 10 years Curiosity has been doing its thing, it’s captured a number of pics, but this was the one that sent people into a spin. Oh, the James Webb Telescope got your love, too.
2. To the moon with Artemis 1
Staying in space and there was a lot of news this year about space, including but not limited to the long drawn-out launch of NASA’s Artemis 1. NASA’s Artemis 1 mission concluded with Orion’s immaculate splashdown in the Pacific Ocean a few weeks ago. Seemingly a billion years — and most assuredly a few billion dollars — in the making, the mission ended far too quickly for space junkies like us. But in those short few weeks, it managed to nail all its primary objectives. Artemis 1 was strictly meant as a demonstration mission, a way for NASA to test its new SLS megarocket and Orion spacecraft. An effort to return humans to the lunar environment. We learned a lot and we got some pretty pictures that are out of this world (sorry).
3. Elon doing dumb shit
Elon Musk made a bid for Twitter earlier this year, with the blue bird site confirming the deal on April 26. The on again, then off again, then on again deal, for a cool $61 billion (in Aussie terms), was sealed on October 28 when Musk walked through the company’s HQ with a sink to make a terrible joke. A lot has happened in the short two months that he’s been chief twit and while none of us like to admit we love to read what he’s up to, he continues to top our article counts day in and day out. But it’s not just his Tweeting, it’s also his space company SpaceX, his totally on its way Cybertruck, Tesla and the EVs that company makes, and his personality in general. What will 2023 bring for man who has too much time and money on his hands?
4. Joe Rogan doing dumb shit
Speaking of men on the internet, that whole Joe Rogan-Spotify saga happened this year, too. It all started when Spotify began removing songs by musician great Neil Young after he said he didn’t want his music appearing on the same platform as anti-vaccine podcaster Joe Rogan. The podcast in question disappeared for a brief moment in Australia, but was unfortunately reinstated. Rogan kept his face in the news cycle, though, one notable Just Joe Moment was when he got duped over a story about Australia banning home-grown food and another, more recently, was about schools and a furry.
5. Morning news briefing
Something we started only in August was a daily briefing of some tech news that has happened in the 24 hours prior. With Australians mostly sleeping while the global stories are dropping, we thought it was the best way to give you a quick rundown of things that may have been lost in the newsfeed. For those that don’t know, it’s titled ‘Tech News: 5 Things to Know in Australia Today‘ and there’s a new post every weekday before 9.30 am. For those of you that do know, thanks for clicking through, it’s great to see an idea the writers had received so well from you all.
6. You want a bargain
Every morning we republish a list of the best tech deals you can get that day. It’s proven to be a go-to source for nabbing something on the cheap by you folks. It’s not just our daily deals, however, Black Friday was a super popular deal-grabbing exercise for many of our readers, in particular, you wanted to know what was happening at JB Hi-Fi. Interestingly, this year Bunnings also snuck in as a go-to tech shop.
Speaking of buying stuff…
7. Y’all are still looking for a PS5
Unlike last year, we were all mostly out and about this year, but that didn’t stop you from trying to track down a god damned PlayStation 5. For the last few years, we’ve had a running article listing where you can nab a PS5. It’s proven helpful to many of you over the last few months. But despite the doom and gloom (and greediness of scalpers), an ‘influx’ of consoles is upon us and we look forward to an easy future for those of you yet to scoop one up.
8. Cars that vroom quietly
This year, Gizmodo Australia reviewed seven EVs, with our favourite being the Polestar 2. It wasn’t just the reviews, however, we chatted with Mitsubishi’s Aussie boss about why the company isn’t bringing a full EV down under and also picked the brain of a mechanic who specialises in EV conversions. It’s been a busy year and with the government now listening, we’re expecting big things in 2023 in the world of electric cars.
9. Boats that are big
It all started with news that the ship that would have become the world’s largest cruise liner was scrapped before it ever had the chance to take its maiden voyage. It was then followed by a bit of a wrap up of some big boats, then news that Disney was buying one, but all round, 2022 was a bad year to be a boat. But if we cast our mind back, we heard back in February that Amazon founder turned rocket-man Jeff Bezos wanted to prove that, with enough money, you really can move mountains — or at least, in this case, cherished bridges. It was all about the city of Rotterdam temporarily disabling its historic Koningshaven bridge so a luxury superyacht rumoured to have been commissioned by Bezos could make its way out to sea. Turns out it didn’t need to be moved. Oh, then there was the mystery surrounding the superyacht that had docked in Adelaide. We all became boat experts this year, who’da thought.
10. Medical breakthroughs
If you made it through 2020 and 2021 without catching COVID, chances are you got it this year. But while the virus itself didn’t get much air time this year, COVID-adjacent things did, such as the revelation that ‘COVID dick’ was real. You can read about that in your own time, but here’s a wrap-up of some kick-ass breakthroughs in the medical world this year.
11. Big love for Aussie telcos and NBN drama
I’m having déjà vu from last year, but we’re really not shocked – the internet and having a service provider are necessary evils. Whether it was Aussie Broadband making an acquisition, the underdog telco paying a fine and recovering from an Australia-wide outage, Optus getting hacked, Telstra kind of getting hacked, Telstra and TPG losing to Optus, Vodafone doing the bare minimum this year or NBN quietly capping heavy users, 2022 gave us a lot of telco drama. But, it wasn’t all goss, we focused a lot this year on bringing you the best NBN, 5G home internet and mobile plans out there, as well as tips on how to make your internet suck less.
12. Gadgets galore
Phone season started with Samsung in February, when we got the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+ and the S22 Ultra. Apple then released its budget-friendly iPhone SE 5G, Google followed with the Pixel 6a, then Apple came out swinging with its iPhone 14 range before Google proved once again it has a kick-ass phone in the Pixel 7 Pro. But it wasn’t just phones. Laptops for work, laptops for play, iPads, iPads, more iPads, monitors, bigger screens, really big screens, keyboards, headphones, earbuds, really good smart home stuff, really bad smart home stuff, and who can forget Dyson’s….thing. You name it, we covered it, you loved it.
Of course, there was a hell of a lot more, but these are the themes and articles that really struck with you, dear readers. Thanks for all of your support this year, we know you have more options than ever before and we’re so thankful you choose to spend your time with us. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2023.