The big story in the tech world all week is the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. At last year’s show little smartwatch maker Pebble was a big star. This year’s event has seen an explosion in wearable technologies and a new, sophisticated-looking watch from Pebble, called the Pebble Steel, has just been unveiled to the world. But there are still big questions about whether consumers are interested.

Tomorrow, the International Consumer Electronics Show kicks off. But today, the swarms of company reps and entrepreneurs arrive in Las Vegas. And there’s already buzz on several topics. One of those is the internet of things. But not the idea of a toaster that can communicate with the fridge. We’ve been talking about that since last year. This year, it’s about exactly how all of our devices will communicate.

All this week Marketplace Tech has been talking to people about big tech issues in the coming year. Today, a discussion of online privacy. An apparent casualty last year was the idea of truly private and secure email. And it’s Friday, which means it’s time to play Silicon Tally, our weekly tech news numbers game.

In New York City this week it’s out with the old mayor and in with the new guy — Michael Bloomberg is being replaced by Bill De Blasio. And one of the things the new mayor will be looking at is the taxi of tomorrow:  A fleet of green Nissan vehicles that launched this fall, fitted with some custom technology absent in the usual yellow cab. And today we hear from Dave McClure, founding partner at the Venture Capitol firm 500 Startups, about what kind of software everyone everyone will be using this year. He says to expect more growth in messaging apps around the world.

All this week we’re talking to guests about big tech trends in the coming year. January 1, the Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act goes into effect in Illinois. This limits how police can use drone surveillance (they’ll need a warrant). Today we hear from Chester Wisniewski at the cyber security firm Sophos abouton a growing number of organizations tracking people as they do their shopping. And it’s New Year’s Eve, so of course it’s almost time for New York City to do it’s big ball drop. Technically, it’s not a ball as much as a geodesic sphere weighing around 12,000 pounds. And there’s plenty of Technology in the thing.

Today, the North American Open Chess Tournament wraps up in Las Vegas. Worth mentioning because the game of chess and computing have long been connected. Marketplace Tech hears from a former chess champion who used his knowledge of the game to create a company called Pegasystems. And here’s some news that will probably make your week less productive. The Internet Archive recently posted a huge trove of vintage console video games from the 70s and 80s.

As our regular listeners know, New York is where Marketplace Tech lives. And while the evidence that NYC is a legitimate challenger to Silicon Valley isn’t hard to find, any conversation about a home grown technology industry must still include that comparison. And senior editor of Quartz Zach Seward joins us to play Silicon Tally.

By now, the tech world is familiar with transparency reports from companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook. The reports detail a number of metrics, like how many law enforcement requests have come in for email data. The takeaway from Google this year was that government snooping is way up. Now, just before 2013 draws to a close, the world is getting a new set of reports from older tech companies like Verizon and AT&T. 

The idea of turning a blog into a book is nothing new, but Kevin Kelly, author and former editor of Wired magazine, has gone all out for his new book, Cool Tools. It’s based on the idea of an old catalog, called the Whole Earth Catalog. It’s big, colorful, and it features scannable QR codes attached to many of the nearly 1500 descriptive entries so that you can buy an object you like with a click of the smartphone.