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.

Canadians love knowing more about the terrible things that happen in the world, which is why Drex and I talked about the tragic and terrible stories that were the most searched terms — according to Google — in 2014.

We also discuss what might be coming at International CES, happening in Las Vegas next week.

You can hear the whole thing here.

The 25 best inventions of 2014

Time’s annual list of the year’s best inventions starts with a real-life hoverboard, similar to the one Marty McFly used in Back to the Future Part II. But not everything on the list is so frivolous. Also included is the Mangalyaan, the spacecraft from India that is currently orbiting Mars that cost less than the budget for the film, Gravity.

The BMW i3 electric car, on a couple of my holiday gift guide lists (this one and this one), also makes an appearance here. As does the superbanana, a strain of banana that is enriched with vitamin A developed for African communities, where up to thirty percent of kids under the age of five are at risk of going blind.

There are also some questionable inclusions. Does an edible wrapper really qualify as a best invention, I wonder? Or a cooler that includes a blender and USB charger?

Consumer Electronics Show 2015 is next week

I won’t be in Las Vegas for CES, but will be watching the live streams and press conferences from the comfort of my own desk chair. Next week I’ll run down the trends to watch in the coming year.

What Canadians searched for online in 2014

Yesterday, Google Canada unveiled its list of the things Canadians were searching for in the past year. The analysis comes out of more than two trillion searches that were done globally in 2014.

Robin Williams was the topic most searched in Canada. With Philip Seymour Hoffman (at #6) and Joan Rivers (at #8) it’s clear that we pay attention when someone famous dies.

The only other names in the top 10 list were Jian Gomeshi (#9) and Jennifer Lawrence (#7). And if you think Lawrence was being searched because of her Oscar nomination, you haven’t been paying attention to events on the Internet.

As for the top 10 Canadians being searched, last year Rob Ford topped the list. He was pushed to #2 by Gomeshi this year. No surprise there; collectively, we just love a train wreck.

But of the top 10 Canadians, six were athletes (tennis player Eugenie Bouchard, snowboarder Mark McMorris, freestyle skier Sarah Burke, figure skater Tessa Virtue, and hockey players Jonathan Toews and Jean Beliveau).

And the top two trending events were World Cup and Winter Olympics (Wimbledon was #6). Most of the rest of the events list were all disasters: Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, ebola, Ukraine, the shooting in Ottawa, and the shootings in Moncton. Whether the Scotland referendum and the Toronto election were disasters depends, I surmise, on your perspective.

Most watched YouTube videos of the year

Google also owns YouTube, and recently released a list of the top videos watched in Canada in 2014.

Jimmy Fallon’s lip sync battle with Emma Stone was at the top of the list. Jimmy was also at #6 with will.i.am — the two appeared in drag — and the music video for Ew! making fun of teenager social media culture.

And the seventh edition of the segment celebrities read mean tweets from Jimmy Kimmel Live was at #2 on the list. (What is it with guys named “JImmy”?)

BuzzFeedYellow’s video (#5) shows Americans eating, for the first time, Canadian snacks including poutine, maple sugar candy, and Nanaimo bars.

But my favourite video from last year was an online spot from Always, the feminine hygiene brand. Introducing the hash tag #LikeAGirl, this video shows just what it means to do something like a girl. For a guy with a seven-year-old daughter who is capable and competent and amazing, and who I want to stay that way forever, this is everything.

On Boxing Day I spoke with Squire Barnes, sitting in for Jon McComb, about the year in video games. We were going to talk about the best games of the year, but got a bit derailed by topics including hackers ruining Christmas for PlayStation and Xbox players, and the state of the game development industry in Vancouver.

I did manage to mention Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, Assassin’s Creed, The Crew, Halo, and Towerfall.

Listen here.

I visited Drex in studio this week, and spent a good chunk of my time there talking about tech gifts for the holidays, as well as giving away a bunch of things, including:

• ActionCamBlast Action Camera for GoPro
• Woojer wearable subwoofer
• PlayStation Experience collector’s pack with water bottle, reusable bag, and t-shirt
• Walking Dead, season 2 for PS Vita (thanks, Telltale)
• NHL 14 and FIFA 14 for PS3 (thanks EA Canada)
• Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor for PS4 (thanks, WB Games)
• Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris on Steam (thanks, Square Enix)
• Destiny’s The Dark Below expansion for PS3/PS4 (thanks, Activision)
• Forza Horizon 2 and Storm Island expansion (thanks, Microsoft)

Nice to meet the affable Drex in person, I must say. Listen here.