Each week, Farhad Manjoo, technology columnist at The New York Times, reviews the week’s news, offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Want this newsletter in your inbox? Sign up here.

Hello, readers! Usually in this space, my colleague Mike Isaac and I chat about the week’s tech news. But Mike is now fixing to become a big-time author. For the next few months, he’ll be out on book leave, which leaves me free to run this show on my own!

Strap in. Let’s talk about some of the big stories in tech this week.

CES Is Back, and It’s … Meh

It’s that time of the year — CES! The world’s largest technology convention is again taking place in Las Vegas, bringing thousands of nerds to see some really cool stuff that will probably never be released.

I kid, but that’s generally how this goes. CES used to be cool for all the new stuff companies unveiled there, but then it got so crowded that it didn’t make sense to put out your product in the torrent of announcements. Now the biggest companies skip the event, so we’re left with a lot of strange news from unheard-of companies.