TLDR 2022-01-06

CES 2022 is the first in-person CES in two years, but many attendees have still decided to stay home this year. This page contains live coverage of CES news, with photos, videos, and reports on many of the technologies introduced at the event. The page will be constantly updated during the event, so refresh it to see the latest news.

Google has announced plans to rival Apple's ecosystem integration at CES 2022. It will expand its Nearby Share feature to Windows PCs and allow its Fast Pair feature to work with Windows PCs, Google TV, Android TV, and Matter-compatible smart home products. Google will also introduce a feature similar to Apple's Spatial Audio functionality that will be able to use Android and Chromebook devices as audio sources, and add another feature that will allow users to unlock their Chromebook or other Android device using their Wear OS smartwatch. It is unknown whether Google will succeed in launching all of these features within the year.

H2 Clipper is a startup that plans to build airships that will use hydrogen to provide buoyancy and hydrogen fuel cells to power their engines. The project is still in its concept stage, but the startup plans to build airships that are faster, safer, and more efficient than its predecessors. The airships will cruise at about 175 mph for distances up to 6,000 miles. They will have a cargo volume of 265,000 cubic feet and will be able to carry up to 340,000 pounds of payload. There are still many hurdles to overcome before the airships will become a reality, one being that the US currently bans the use of hydrogen as a lift gas in airships.

Cymbospondylus youngorum may have been the first giant animal that ever lived on Earth. The new type of ichthyosaur was discovered in the Augusta Mountains of Nevada with a skull measuring 2 meters long. It existed around 246 million years ago. Ichthyosaurs dominated the oceans for about 150 million years, with some species stretching over 20 meters long. The new ichthyosaur was not the largest of its family, but it may have been the largest animal Earth had seen up until that point. A picture of the skull, with a researcher for scale, is available in the article.

Mizu is an API traffic viewer for Kubernetes that allows developers to view all API communications between microservices in real time. It features a simple and powerful CLI and support for HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, AMQP, Apache Kafka, and Redis. Mizu works with Kubernetes APIs without installation or code instrumentation.

This article details a software engineer's experience of working at Amazon. It includes an overview of the interview and hiring process and delves into what it is like working at the company. The experience could help inform others about the pros and cons of working for Amazon as an engineer, as well as provide clues on how to be successful in the company.

Meta was reportedly working on a custom operating system to power virtual and augmented reality headsets but suspended development in November. XROS development began in 2017, with more than 300 people working on the project. Canceling the OS will mean that Meta will have to continue to rely on Google's Android OS. XR development stopped after the project's team lead left to work on a similar AR OS project at Google. Meta is reportedly still interested in building its own OS.

Thammasat University, situated a short trip away from Bangkok, features the largest rooftop farm in Asia. It incorporates modern landscape architecture with agricultural ingenuity, a green roof, urban farming, solar roof, and green public space. The roof of the building mimics traditional rice terraces, forming cascading farm levels that absorb and store rainwater while using it to grow food. This article talks about the rooftop farm at Thammasat University and describes the technologies used in the project. It includes many photos of the farm and diagrams explaining how parts of the farm function.