Here’s what’s been going on in the world of technology in the first week of 2015.

Apple wins Christmas

Lots of people activated new smartphones and tablets over the holiday season. In data reported at the Flurry blog, more than half of the activations in the U.S. were of iPads and iPhones.

Cool stuff at CES 2015

There’s lots going on in the tech world in Las Vegas this week, with International CES underway. Here’s some of the most interesting things I’ve discovered in the early days of the trade show:

• Samsung’s SSD T1 is a solid-state hard drive with one terabyte capacity — enough for half a million photos or 20,000 high-quality songs — that is the size of a business card. (US$600)
• Nvidia’s is enabling auto-drive cars with the Drive CX, which aims to power multiple displays in automobiles, and the Drive PX, which is the center of a camera system that a car can use to build a model of the environment so it can self-navigate
• LG has a washer with a second washer built-in, and a new refrigerator that has a door within a door
• Samsung’s new clothes washer has a sink built-in
• Razer, known for its gaming hardware and peripherals, is getting into wearables with the Nabu X fitness band (available to insiders for only $20, and soon to everyone for only $50) and virtual reality with the Open Source Virtual Reality headset and development kit
• Wondershare, with North American headquarters in Surrey, have a new version of its TunesGo software, which is a companion app that cleans up iTunes libraries and lets Android users sync music from iTunes to their mobiles
• Ray Kurzweil may be predicting that solar energy will solve the world’s energy needs by 2020, but it’s still a ways away from being a practical solution for most of us. In the meantime, the WakaWaka Base is a portable solar power system that includes a 10,000 mAh battery pack and four LED lights, 5 USB ports to power devices
• Intel has committed $300 million over five years to get more females and minorities working in the technology industry; the initiative includes the company pledging to get full and equal representation at the executive level

Comet Lovejoy as seen from Earth

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait suggests we all get into dark sky territory so we can see this comet, which is bright enough and is passing close enough to Earth that we can see it with the naked eye. Plait says he was able to see the tail, too.

Best time to see it is about 9 p.m. Look towards the constellation of Orion. Lovejoy won’t be back for some 14,000 years.

This time-lapse animation, from Phil Hart, shows the comet’s movement.