The annual and now all-digital Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, starts today.

• It’s a credit to the power of a tech show that brands are lining up to release something new.
• Yes, there are “only” 1,800 exhibitors compared to the 4,000 or so we see most years, but that’s still a decent result considering the virtue of virtual presentations hasn’t been completely proven.
• It’s great to tune-in from home, but tech conferences tend to be useful for the meet-and-greets.
• CES has partnered with Microsoft for an online platform hosting CES sessions, and limited keynotes to 30 minutes only, to get less hand-wavy announcements full of fluff, and detail.
• Keynotes include Sony, Samsung, LG, Microsoft, AMD, and the likes of Verizon in terms of heavyweights, and plenty more from Asus, Razer, TCL, and more.
• We’ve already seen Samsung and Sony 2021 TVs, JBL headphones, and HP launch new laptops: Envy 14, Elite Folio 2-in1 tablet, and new… earbuds. I’ve also got a section of the roundup below dedicated to LG Display’s fun new (and largely transparent) TV concepts, too.
• No surprises for what else we’ll see: even more TVs including 8K and HDMI 2.1 options, plus 5G, health tech, smart home, pet tech, sound, and so on.
• The problem: It’s always hard to know what will emerge from a CES showfloor to our homes, and what will be a breakout hit. There tends to be a lag from early prototypes rushed out to make a marketing impact by early January to the actual devices available to buy, and so real reviews are few and far between.
• In a virtual world, that may be harder again.
• But there’ll be an upside, too, as the Las Vegas show goes to La Casa: less exhausted tech reporters able to better understand (and interrogate) what’s going on, because they’ve had decent sleep in their own beds in the last 72 hours.
• This wrap of everything happening at CES will be continuously updated, and I’ll highlight as best I can, what matters.

🏃‍♂️ OnePlus Band now official, with specs and price (Android Authority).

📺 LG Display shows the future of OLED displays, with transparent OLED hidden in a bed, a rail-attached TV that can pivot, and at this year’s virtual CES, and an 88-inch 8K “Cinematic Sound OLED” TV. LG also showed off the present, too: a new 42-inch OLED panel, the smallest sized OLED yet, plus an apparent next-gen 77-inch panel that’s 20% more efficient, and brighter. Note this is LG Display, the component maker, not LG the consumer electronics brand — we’re yet to see LG’s 2021 TVs (Android Authority).

🔜 Xiaomi Black Shark 4 launch teased with battery and fast charging details (Android Authority).

📉 2021 could be the year smartphone prices are finally kept in check (Android Authority).

👩‍🍳 “Here’s why everyone should own a cheap Android tablet” — it’s perfect for cooking, and more versatile than a Nest Hub (Android Authority).

🍎 iPhone 12 component costs are $431, up 26% up on the iPhone 11, which explains why the charger was left out of the box (9to5Mac). The switch from 7nm to 5nm production doubled the cost, and the switch from LCD to OLED also added costs. The iPhone 12 ($799) cost $100 more than 2019’s iPhone 11 ($699).

🚗 Apple/Hyundai set to agree electric car tie-up by March, says Korea IT News (Reuters).

⛔ The deplatforming by tech of Trump and the far-right continues: Now payment processor Stripe bans Trump campaign (Axios), GoFundMe has returned funds raised for the travel costs of Trump supporters to the January 6 rally in DC (BuzzFeed), and Parler lost AWS and Twilio and is now offline (The Guardian). And, it appears Parler was built on WordPress and not properly secured, and all images posted retained EXIF data, so lots of personal and identifiable user data is being retrieved and posted online (Twitter).

🚄 NVIDIA hints at RTX 30 laptop graphics launch on January 12th (Engadget).

🕶 Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 Smart Glasses can show up to five virtual displays (Engadget).

🚗 Ford and Nissan will cut vehicle production due to a (non-specific) chip shortage, wider car industry badly impacted (The Verge).

🔴 Researchers have a new idea that’s passed lab tests for converting methane into rocket fuel on Mars (Interesting Engineering).

🥺 Here are all 70 puppies competing in Puppy Bowl XVII (EW).

🔦 “Why do lasers have a “grainy texture” on the light that they produce?” (r/askscience).

TikTok memes are becoming mainstream*! 

• *Which I gauge for how aware of them I am, despite not being on TikTok.
• Also, this meme comes with a warning that you may never get the song out of your head.

Lubalin, a 30-year-old musician in Montreal, has had two Internet Drama songs explode in popularity and well, here’s the first, and here’s the second (or on Instagram, if you prefer: here and here.

• Part 3 is the most hotly anticipated trilogy release in many years.

Also, don’t think I’m forgetting the usual good memes, just ignore the grammar

Thanks,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor