It's a tradition that during second week of January, most of business related to the consumer technologies gather in Las Vegas for the CES. Here is the list of more interesting news.

1. Lets start with surprising announcement from Samsung and Sony that their new Smart TVs will support AirPlay. To clarify the confusion Apple announced that leading TV manufacturers will be integrating AirPlay 2 into their TVs.
2. Chinese EV startup - Byton - has shown their 49-inch screen. It doesn't sound special, except this screen is inside the car. I must admit, it looks gorgeous; however, I'm wondering how useful it is as well as how much it distracts a driver.
3. Speaking of screens, LG has presented first rollable OLED TV. You may ask why one would need to roll their TV screen. Beside the ability to hide the screen when requested, I don't have any other answer. This is not important when we look at this from technology point of view. If we can roll an OLED screen, that means we are really close from getting foldable OLED phones and tables.
4. HTC announced Vive Pro Eye. This is virtual reality headset with eye tracking built-in. Eye tracking allows developers to increase the quality of the games/applications. This can be achieved by using high quality assets for objects that are in front of player's eyes and lower quality assets for elements that are outside eye's focus area. Beside the visual aspect, eye tracking will add some new capabilities to the headset e.g. hands-free interactions. The price is still unknown, but the headset should be available in the second quarter of 2019.
5. Google assistance is getting momentum. It will be integrated with many new products including TVs, phones, speakers and even shower. I wish Siri had those capabilities.
6. Yubico presented the first Lightning security key for iPhones. Securing keys are now a standard for computers, but I have never heard of such solution for a phone. So now, if one needs to protect their phone even more, they have a solution that is even approved by Apple.
7. AMD announced the Radeon VII. This is first 7nm GPU and promises significant performance improvements over current AMD's flagship card - Radeon RX Vega 64. Also, with this card, AMD wants to compete with Nvidia's RTX 2080.
8. A lot of cars have been announced, including flying car, walking car as well as smart vehicles. I like to see cool technologies, but I hope that CES don't become an auto show.

Now, let's move on to other news. There was a lot of rumors regarding Apple. First we got a first "alleged" mocks of the new iPhone. We cannot see the from of the phone, but it's remored that Apple wants to move all the sensors behind OLED screen and remove the notch. I really like this idea, I got used to the notch, but still it is hideous. If those rumors are true, new iPhone might looks like Samsung Galaxy S10.
As we are on the topic of leaked photos, new iPad mini has emerged basically from grave. I thought the mini series is dead, but it looks like Apple still is considering small form factor. The future will tell who was right.

Also this week, we got a first real result of buying GitHub by Microsoft. Users can create unlimited private repositories for free. This is the feature I have been waiting for a long time. I know I can create private repositories for free on Bitbucket or GitLab, but anyone is on GitHub and if I want to start something privately and later on share this with others now, I can do this without switching between different repositories.

This week there is no list of interesting things. I suggest to browse the YouTube or your tech site of choice and check what else has been announced during CES.

This week Tim Cook sent a letter to Apple investors regarding new strategies after much lower than expected earnings in FYQ1 2019.
Apple was expecting lower ravenue, but it looks like actual numbers caught Apple off guard. Regarding to Apple, the main cause of this situation is weak demand in China. People there doesn't buy new iPhones. New iPhones are ludicrous expensive, and in China there are plenty of cheaper devices that have the same features. People there doesn't care whether they use iOS or Android because Chinese apps look and work the same way on both platforms, so it is really easy for them to switch platforms.
Also, if we add to this tense relations, because of "Trade War", between China and USA it's not a surprise that sells have been lower than expected.
China is one of the biggest markets in the world, high demand from there is really important, but Apple also reported weakened demand in some "developed markets", which indicates that either iPhones are too expensive or new features introduced in new models does not appeal to the customers.
Probably it is the combination of both. For a while Apple has been increasing the price of the devices without any breakthrough features. I used to wait entire year for iPhone's keynote and I knew I would see something revolutionary. Now, I simply don't care because Apple will again show the same "recycled" phone with higher price tag.
On the positive note, Apple has increased demand for services, macs, wearables and iPads. Also in other markets, including Poland, Apple reported record sells. Maybe higher that usual demand in Poland is the first step to opening the first official Apple Store here.

Now, moving on to other news. Image of the Samsung Galaxy S10 has leaked, revealing bezelless screen without a notch, but with camera cutout withing the screen. This is an interesting design, and if you only need front facing camera it makes a lot of sense.

Google has got U.S. regulatory approval to proceed with a radar-based motion sensor known as the Soli Project. This technology can make UI from Minority Report a reality.

Thats all from this week, now it's time for list of interesting things.

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Couple weeks ago I released a Halloween watch face for Apple Watch. I was more a joke, but people really liked it. Since then they asked me weather I'm going to do a Christmas watch face. I wanted to do one, but I didn't know whether I would have time or even an idea to create something cool. Fortunately, last week I found both and created this.
Originally I wanted to do something else, but it didn't look good and I would have to spend much more time on this to make it work. After this failed idea, I decided to do a watch face inspired by Christmas decorations made out of paper. Paper town and Santa plus some particle effects create a perfect combination. I'm really happy with the end result. Usually Christmas designs are fancy and festive, but I really wanted to keep it clean and simple. After all the watch face should not distract you from its main purpose, telling time.
So far people like it as well, but its to early to call is a success, that I will be able to tell after Christmas. If you want this watch face on your Apple Watch, check out this my GitHub repository.

From other news. Microsoft announced that it is working on new browser that is going to replace Edge. I have mixed feelings about this because it's just another browser that we, as developers, will have to support. On the other hand it will be based on Chromium, so maybe it will not be that bad.

Apple released the watchOS 5.1.2 with long anticipated ECG feature. It is out for couple of days now, but it's already saving lives. Well done Apple.

It took seven miles to pull over a Tesla with a seemingly asleep driver. I was actually wondering whether you can drive Tesla on autopilot when you are drunk. Fortunately you can't. Autopilot is amazing technology that improves every year, but still I don't trust it that much to let it drive the car practically without the driver.

Marvel released the trailer for upcoming Avengers 4 movie. Together with the trailer we got the full name of the movie Avengers: Endgame. I know it is just a trailer, but I'm already hyped.

And finally, here is the list of interesting things.

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During this week literally nothing happened. The only things worth mentioning are listed below.

1. Apple announced iPad Pro and Mac event for October 30th with really cool logo variants,
2. Apple started taking iPhone XR preorders in selected countries,
3. Google will start charging Android device makers a fee for using its apps in Europe.

That's really all, so if you are interested, please take a look at the following articles.

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Image credits: Apple.