Tech Roundup: CES 2017, Nokia 6 & More

Apple's iPhone turns 10 this January 9. It never ceases to amaze me how far we have come with smartphones in a span of just 10 years. The iPhone still continues to define Apple to this day, even as Google's Android has gone ahead and conquered the world with its myriad choices. Here's to better and smarter phones in 2017!

• Zika virus-carrying mosquitoes found to be increasingly resistant to insecticides, worrying industry and mosquito control experts, reports Wall Street Journal (paywall).
• Tuticorin-based industrial plant in Tamil Nadu, India becomes world's first zero-emissions plant; uses carbon dioxide emissions from a coal boiler to make soda ash and other valuable chemicals.
• A huge 5,000 sq km iceberg is set to break away from Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica, NASA warns.
• Researchers discover a new human organ called Mesentery, previously thought to be fragmented structures in the digestive system.
• Voice controlled smart devices become the rage at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017; Amazon's Alexa comes out top edging Google Assistant, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana in the four way race.
• Japanese insurance firm lays off Fukoku lays off 34 employees and replaces them with IBM Watson Explorer AI.
• New malware targeting Macs causes computers to freeze and crash by either creating a flood of draft emails, or opening iTunes multiple times without closing.
• A record 63 billion Whatsapp messages, including 7.9 billion images and 2.4 billion videos, were exchanged on New Year's Eve.
• Samsung launches Gear S smartwatch app for iPhone.
• Nokia shows off its first comeback smartphone Nokia 6, an Android Nougat running handset exclusive to China.
• Troubled automative upstart Faraday Future unveils its first electric car FF 91.
• Sony's new 4K OLED TV emits sound from screen, thanks to a new technology called Acoustic Surface, thereby eliminating the need for speakers.
• Apple senior management takes a salary hit as sales of iPhone, iPad and Mac decline in 2016, the year it posts impressive increase in revenue from App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iTunes purchases.
• Chipmaker Intel acquires 15% stake in HERE, the mapping software Nokia sold to Audi, BMW, and Mercedes for over US$ 3 billion last year.
• Samsung weathers costly US$ 5 billion recall of Galaxy Note 7 smartphone; on track to post its highest quarterly earnings in three years with revenue coming from semiconductor and display businesses.
• Struggling Berlin-based online music company SoundCloud warns it may run out of money by end of this year if its subscription service SoundCloud Go doesn't gain traction with customers; Google reportedly looking at a possible acquisition for US$ 500 million, reports Music Business Worldwide.
• Popular Twitter-based real-time news application Breaking News, owned by NBC, shuts down after not being to "generate enough revenue to sustain itself."
• Apple planning its first retail store in Samsung's home turf South Korea.
• Twitter's Vine to be shut down on January 17 and replaced with Vine Camera; new app will let users record 6-second looping videos and post them to Twitter or save them offline.
• Online retailer Amazon to open its first physical bookstore in New York City (at Columbus Circle, Manhattan).
• Google acquires Swedish company Limes Audio to improve online voice quality.
• Twitter China head Kathy Chen leaves after just eight months in latest executive exodus.
• Google search app for iOS brings Gboard integration (no separate app required).
• Apple iOS 10 is now installed on 76 percent of all active devices.
• Microsoft launches a cloud platform for connected cars called Connected Vehicle Platform that lets car makers use Azure cloud to power their connected-car services.
• LinkedIn and New York Times apps removed from Apple's Russian and Chinese App Stores, the former for failing to keep its data within the country's borders.
• Popular Indian digital wallet startup PayTM gets Reserve Bank of India's permission to start its own digital bank.