The Consumer Technology Association predicts the tech trends of the year to come in its annual opening of CES. Jeff Porten shares the thrust of the talk and provides commentary.

In which Adam Engst finally hops on the HomeKit bandwagon for real and gets totally sucked in, installing smart outlets, controlling motorized shades, and adding some Flic buttons. 

Apple has announced some of the ways it will be using the $100 million it committed toward projects in its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, which will invest in education and businesses for people of color.

CES launches into unknown territory by holding its first-ever entirely virtual event, leading Jeff Porten to wonder whether it’ll be a disappointment compared to in-person. But the first batch of gadgets he has seen have some interesting contenders for your attention.

Over at Wired, Lily Hay Newman focuses on the potentially massive harm done to US cybersecurity by the mob of rioters who stormed and then occupied the US Capitol.

Facebook is unhappy with the enhanced privacy requirements that Apple recently unveiled. Apple will soon require that apps ask for and get explicit consent from their users in order to track them across apps and sites—and that’s a good thing. Apple has already added detailed privacy disclosure requirements. Let’s dig into how Apple’s new rules will enhance your privacy.

Do you find yourself having to go back and forth when trying to identify a compatible meeting time with a group of people? Doodle has long been a good solution for this problem, but the When2Meet service is faster, easier, and free.

In keeping with our tradition, we’re going to take off the last few weeks of 2020, which this year means staying safe with our immediate households and scheduling virtual gatherings with our extended families. You can expect the next email issue of TidBITS on 11 January 2021. Thanks for reading TidBITS, and we hope you’ve found our content useful, accurate, and enjoyable!

Discerning Mac users will be hard-pressed to find a satisfactory monitor, but the LG 27UK850-W is close enough and not too expensive.

Just because you once shared access to your Apple devices or accounts doesn’t mean you necessarily want to keep on sharing, especially if a relationship change means that you no longer feel safe with that person. Apple has published clear, sensible instructions for reviewing and revoking shared data and device access.

Josh Centers chronicles the latest battles revolving around the App Store, including Facebook joining Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple, a group of big-name publishers signing on to the Coalition for App Fairness to pressure Apple and Google, and Apple making the Brave browser put its crypto wallet away.

Apple has released a pair of surprise updates to a pair of older operating systems, iOS 12.5 and watchOS 6.3, to bring COVID-19 exposure notification capabilities and an important security fix to older devices.

In yet another feature-focused update to Apple’s entire stable of operating systems, the company introduced support for various new products and promised technologies, including Apple Fitness+, the AirPods Max, the Apple ProRAW image format, and more.

For users of Apple’s laptops, one screen isn’t always enough. Xebec aims to solve that problem with its Tri-Screen, an accessory that attaches to the back of the laptop lid and has screens that slide out on the left and right. Julio Ojeda-Zapata took a look.

Years into its campaign to overhaul its mapping data, Apple has closed out 2020 with more-detailed maps for Canada along with a slew of new features.