It’s that time of the year when tech companies from around the globe gather in the glam city of Las Vegas to show off their latest gizmos and gadgets. The Consumer Electronics Show 2019 is just around the corner and before the four-day tech fest begins, Apple has put a giant billboard on display at a hotel near the Las Vegas Convention Centre (LVCC) that takes a direct shot at Android’s security features..

“What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone,” Apple’s display advertisement, which is made to rhyme the famous wordplay “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” near the LVCC says. Below the message is a link to Apple’s website wherein the company talks in length about the privacy features that its devices- iPhone and the Apple watch– offer. This includes features like FaceID, Apple Pay and the health-related data collected by the Apple Watch.

Apple, has traditionally, never maintained a strong presence at CES. The company, however, has been more like the elephant in the room. Apple’s biggest rival, Google, on the other hand, has focused on introducing products around their virtual assistants– Google Assistant. This year, the Cupertino, California-based company, has made a statement by displaying an ad that takes a shot at its rival’s security features.

To recall, Google faced flak last year, owing to its extensive tracking of users’ location data and its data harvesting techniques (hello Australia). Amazon, on the other, which is also scheduled to display products centered around Alexa, too had a number of dubious moments last year with the latest case being– Amazon sharing 1,700 Alexa recordings of a man with a stranger. And now, Apple has placed its billboard directly opposite to the LVCC, where Google and Amazon, are going to display their virtual assistant– Google Assistant and Alexa– based products during CES 2019, which begins tomorrow.

Google, in turn, has decided to strike back by using an opposing colour scheme to highlight its own presence at the LVCC. Unlike Apple, which used white letters against a black backdrop to convey its message, Google used a white background to highlight Google Assistant’s wake word– “Hey Google” at the convention centre. According to the folks at The Verge, the Mountain View-based company covered a part of the LVCC’s parking space to showcase its Google Assistant-powered products.