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A lot has happened in the tech world since our last general update. This time we’ll highlight a few of the more recent developments.

Previously known as the Consumer Electronics Show, it happens near the beginning of the year in Las Vegas. Tech companies come and show off their new technologies, new products, and what we can expect from them in the future. It’s a great way to catch up on a lot of technology quickly, which is why you’ll see coverage from all of the major tech magazines and news sites. This year was no different and you can find lots of articles on the most (or least) interesting products and technologies.

Robots were all over the show. Home robots from LG Electronics (https://www.tomsguide.com/home/smart-home/lg-cloid-robot-just-stole-the-show-at-ces-2026-heres-everything-it-can-do) really stole the show! Two arms with 5 fingers each and AI vision for a starting price of about $20,000. For a good run-down of what was presented there, check out https://www.cnet.com/news-live/ces-2026-news-live-updates/.

You had to know I’d bring it up! Every major supplier of Artificial Intelligence engines has made lots of changes over the past few months. I’ll discuss a few of the highlights.

OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Health, a language model specially trained on health-related topics. OpenAI’s terms of service says that the conversations between you and ChatGPT Health are private. They will not be used for further training nor will they be sold to third parties. It can connect to many healthcare providers and gather your lab results, doctor’s notes and so on. You can have secure conversations with it about your health. More info at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/01/08/everything-about-chatgpt-health-you-need-to-know/

Built specifically for the healthcare industry, this product has some impressive early adopters: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health to name just two. This is intended to give healthcare workers access to knowledge engines tailored to their world and help with evidence-based reasoning. More information is available at https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/openai-launches-chatgpt-healthcare-several-large-health-systems.

Similar to the OpenAI offering, Anthropic has also offered an AI tailored for the life sciences which connects Claude to other scientific tools and sites like PubMed. More information is available from Anthropic’s announcement at https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-for-life-sciences

Anthropic also introduced Cowork - a special version of Claude Code that is meant for the rest of us that don’t code. Originally it was only available to those who had the $100/month paid accounts but they have made it available to $20/month account holders, too but only on Apple Macs for the time being. You could use it to organize the files on your computer or your Inbox. It can work with MCP servers which are programs that allow AI applications to use other services like Slack and Box.com, so the number of services that it can work with is almost unlimited (see and search at https://mcpmarket.com/). Some people have used it to automate some of their daily tasks like reviewing their calendar and To-Do lists. Of course, you have to trust the AI to only do what it’s been instructed to do and to keep its work private. For more info, see https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/cowork-for-claude-can-tap-into-a-folder-on-your-computer-and-organize-its-contents/

Google’s Gemini is the easiest to track because every month they post their updates at https://gemini.google/gemini-drops/. In January of 2026 they introduced several new abilities. Gemini can control your Chrome browser and do web-based tasks for you. Gemini is available across the gamut of Google consumer products and can provide personalized assistance as well as updates to their Veo video generation tools. That’s just a few updates from this month.

I have only just brushed the surface of recent advances in technology but I wanted to show you what I consider to be some of the highlights. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, my intent is to help you understand the basics and equip you to search for more detailed information.

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