Ces

Belkin has unveiled what it says is the world's first "handheld home theater" case for the iPad tablet. The Thunderstorm is a form-fitting case that protects the iPad the same way other cases do but has a large stereo speaker along the side edges of the iPad. Belkin displayed the $199.99 case at Unveiled, the first of CES' sneak-peek events Sunday night. The loud crowd at the event at Mandalay Bay made it hard to gauge the sound quality of the Thunderstorm, but the speaker was so loud it shook the tablet computer.

It's a distressingly common scenario: You've successfully landed in your port of call. Your luggage, however, has hoofed it somewhere else entirely. Trakdot, a tracking device showcased at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, aims to make the snafu more bearable by knowing where your bags ended up.  The black and orange, GSM-equipped gadget is slightly larger than a deck of playing cards and powered by AA batteries. The idea is to chuck the Federal Aviation Administration-approved appliance into checked suitcases --it's programmed to power down once the aircraft it's on reaches certain speeds.

Kicking off a day of TV announcements at CES, LG said its 55-inch OLED HD TV, the first big screen set of its kind, will make its way to the U.S. in March for $12,000. OLED, which stands for organic light-emitting diode, is considered one of the next steps in TV technology as it provides clearer images than other display technologies. OLED technology also allows manufacturers to produce thinner TV sets. The LG model, for example, is 0.16 inches thin. LG announced its OLED HD TV set earlier this month and began taking preorders for it in South Korea.

LAS VEGAS -- Fisher-Price is saying "game on" for kids exploring the nexus between virtual and physical play as it furthers its entry into that golden in-between space. Running from about $20 to $50, its new age-appropriate line of Apptivity products for kids from infant to preschoolers include, essentially, Otterbox-infused cases that are both kid-proof and kid-friendly and related activity apps. Although calling them cases really doesn't quite do them justice. FULL COVERAGE: CES 2013 For the tiny techie, there are six new interactive nursery rhyme apps that can be used in conjunction with the Laugh & Learn Apptivity Storybook Reader -- a sturdy hard-case, book-shaped cover that will turn the pages of the nursery rhyme app when opened.

Amid the big and small ideas floating around at a Sunday evening media preview at CES 2013, Lenovo and 3M seemed to hit the sweet spot in terms of bringing a big idea closer to reality while still capturing our imagination.  The two companies demonstrated table-top PCs that allow multiple users. It's a relatively new form factor, although it's one that people have been dreaming about and showing off in beta for years now. Indeed, I can remember one Microsoft executive showing off a table-top PC during a talk at the UC Berkeley three years ago.  FULL COVERAGE: CES 2013 Although there are key differences in the approaches by both companies, each product points to the way that touch interfaces, thanks to tablets and smartphones, are coming to dominate computing and expanding the types of forms it takes.  I'll start with Lenovo's IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC. This product is clearly aimed at consumers.

LAS VEGAS -- Huawei said Monday that its 6.1-inch-screen Ascend Mate has the largest display of any smartphone on the planet. The Chinese company announced the device and its smaller sibling, the 5-inch Ascend D2, at CES. Huawei CEO Richard Yu said that besides having large displays, the two phones are also more durable than their competitors. To make his point, Yu held one of the phones over a tank and poured a pitcher of water on the device. Yu then walked back to the center of the stage, boasting about the phones' toughness before dropping the device.

That's not Mom nagging you to quit scarfing your meal so fast. It's your fork. Specifically, a “smart electronic” Hapifork, designed to vibrate in diners' hands when they chow too quickly. Florida-based creator Hapilabs has also made a similar spoon. Revealed at the CES showcase event “Unveiled” on Sunday, the tech-filled set of utensils are fitted with sensors that track how often they're placed inside someone's mouth. Too many lip trips in too short a time span -- say, three in a single minute -- causes the handle of the fork or spoon to gently pulsate.

LAS VEGAS -- Great. Just what I wanted to hear. That Panasonic Viera TV I bought last year? The one that I had to sell one of my kidneys to afford? The one I paid a bundle to have mounted on the wall above the fireplace in our living room?  My friends at Panasonic want me to know that old Viera is toast. A brick. Yesterday's headline. Not worth the paper it's printed on.  This harsh reality was delivered at the Panasonic news conference at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show on Monday.

Satellite TV provider Dish Network is doubling down on its legally edgy bet on a powerful new digital video recorder. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, Dish announced an updated Hopper DVR that not only can record a full week of prime-time programming from the four major broadcast networks, but also can stream shows to remote viewers through the Internet and transfer recordings to an iPad for viewing offline. The company had already drawn lawsuits from those four networks, which claimed that the Hopper's automatic recording (dubbed "PrimeTime Anytime")

3:42 p.m . : The Consumer Electronics Assn., the organizers of CES, kicked off the annual technology convention Sunday afternoon with a discussion of technology trends to watch in 2013. Among them: the growth of connected devices; the increasing importance of data; better screen resolutions for TVs, smartphones and tablets; and improvements in gesture and voice control.  FULL COVERAGE: CES 2013 Shawn DuBravac, chief economist of the electronics association, also singled out the "post-smartphone era," in which 65% of mobile use is now for non-communication -- a swift change from just a few years ago, when talking on the phone was the main purpose of having a mobile phone.