International CES has wrapped, but there are still stories to tell. For instance how the startup Veveo’s schedule got even more jam packed with clients for its predictive software at the annual event, and how bad chip maker Qualcomm’s keynote presentation really was in the final judgment. Also, MIT has invented a new process of bending light on a computer chip, which means we’re a step closer to hologram televisions, biomedical imaging, and predictive or autonomous driving. 

One company you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be at a giant conference about the technology of the future: Polaroid. But the company has been around for 75 years, says CEO Scott Hardy, and it plans to be just as relevant now as it was when it was making goggles for World War II fighter pilots. How? Fotobars, for one. But the company also just released a new iM1836 camera that runs Android Jelly Bean and can upload the shots you take with the help of WiFi. Meanwhile Engadget’s senior reviews editor Dana Wollman says that despite all the 3D hype of recent years, television manufacturers at International CES this year are touting not 3D, but 4K TVs. Also, when it comes to weather mapping, what’s Australian for “hot”? The color purple. Now that temperatures got so sweltering, meteorologists had to add a new shade of heat. 

Google just created the biggest Free Wi-Fi network in Manhattan, blanketing the Chelsea neighborhood with outdoor access for two years. The company says it’s just being neighborly — but will other internet service providers be mad? Meanwhile, International CES is usually known for televisions and smaller gadgets, but one of the big themes this year at the big event in Las Vegas is the self-driving cars of the future…and the present tech that looks towards autonomous vehicles. 

International CES was created a generation ago…is it still relevant in the digital age? At least one man doesn’t think so — he said as much in Reuters. But you can still find some impressive gadgets there. Tech reporter Queena Kim discovered a smart fork; but there are also plenty of giant 4K televisions to be ogled. Meanwhile, the battles over television content continue. HBO Go battles Netflix by inking a deal with Universal, while Time Warner makes a deal with Roku. 

These short January days mean it is what season? Skiing, you say? How about electronics. An annual circus of gizmos gets under way in Las Vegas this week. The Consumer Electronics Show is a festival of both hype and innovation. And imagine leaving your house keys sticking out your front door — and not noticing it for a year and a half. Experts at Google discovered and have now fixed a dangerous security flaw that might have allowed bad guys to steal private customer information for 18 months.

There’s the government’s official employment and unemployment report today, but what about prospects for the kind of jobs you do online? Elance, a company that uses the web to fix up freelancers with jobs has a 2013 forecast with a bold prediction: One out of four college students in this new year will earn money through online jobs. If we said there’s a machine that makes music by itself, you’d be unimpressed. But what if there’s a robot that will improvise music along with you?

We check in with a mother in Massachusetts who drew up an 18-point contract listing the rules her 13-year-old son would have to live by if he got a nice new phone. Stuff like: put it away in public, and don’t use it to lie or cheat. And digital photography has been, to say the very least, a challenge for the first instant photo company, Polaroid. Now, the company is testing out a new business model: Physical stores where you go to get prints of the digital photos on your smart phone, while you wait.

A recent piece by New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called “Robots and Robber Barons” took a look at a question we are familiar with: Are robots eating our jobs? Krugman stops by to share his take on automation, technological change, and the future of the work and wages in America. 

Instead of a  new digital trend for this New Year, how about getting rid of an old one before it hurts more people? There’s an argument that the era of anonymously creeping around the internet being a jerk without consequence is coming to an end. And as we take stock of our lives to start a new year, here’s an unsettling question. What if all that’s left of us when we’re gone is what we did online?