It’s now this much closer to your coffee table — or, replacing your coffee table. Lenovo today announced the Horizon is available for preorder and is expected to ship in late June. Prices start around $1,700, right in line with what Lenovo indicated in January.

In case you missed the news around CES time, this is a 27-inch, all-in-one “desktop” that can be propped up or laid flat on the table, and is geared toward game playing in addition to regular old computer activities. And in case its size didn’t give it away, the Horizon is meant to be used in the home, not on, say, an airplane tray, although Lenovo points out that it includes a built-in battery so it can be easily moved around the house.

The multi-finger touchscreen PC is running Windows 8 and comes with an Intel Core i7 chip and Nvidia GeForce graphics capabilities. Lenovo says the customized games include Raiding Company, Draw Race 2 and King of the Opera from Ubisoft, as well as Monopoly from Electronic Arts.

I played a quick game of air hockey on the device back in January, and I’ll admit that it was pretty fun. And it’s easy to see why some families might like a tabletop PC for game playing and picture browsing.

But this is a behemoth of a device, and it’s not alone in the big-screen market. There’s also the Sony Vaio Tap 20 and the Toshiba Excite 13 — a much smaller tablet, but one that is, again, meant for the home.

And as we know, PCs are hurting a bit these days. It’s likely going to take more than giant screens to fill the giant gap in the market.

Here, via  Nieman Journalism Lab’s Justin Ellis, is the full-page thumb-in-the-eye Dish ran in the Times’ Sunday “A” section today. As Ellis notes, some people still see value in print ads.

It’s unclear whether this approach is actually working with consumers, but each year at CES there are a handful of new cameras at least worth eyeing, if not buying. Here are a few we picked out:

Polaroid’s Android-Based Camera

Polaroid, a brand once synonymous with innovative imaging (it now operates under the parent company PLR IP Holdings), is joining Nikon and Samsung with what I initially called a “smartphamera” (it didn’t stick). Basically, this is a camera that marries some of the better features of a point-and-shoot with a touchscreen and intuitive mobile operating system. In the case of this camera, it’s running Android’s Jelly Bean 4.1 OS.

The camera comes standard with a 10mm-30mm interchangeable lens kit. What’s more interesting is that the sensor is built directly into the lens instead of the camera body. Polaroid hasn’t said what the exact sensor size is, but it captures 18.1-megapixel images. It has a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen display, as well as tactile shoot and manual control buttons on the top of the camera body.

The camera — which, by the way, has been given the forgettable name “iM1836” — will sell for $349 with the lens kit. This is less than Samsung’s offering, but more than Nikon’s Android camera. It will hit the market sometime in the second quarter of the year.

Canon PowerShot N

With the newest point-and-shoot in the PowerShot line, Canon veered away from the standard design of cameras like the S100 and S110, and decided it was hip to be square.

Okay, maybe slightly more rectangular than square. The PowerShot N measures 2.4 by 3.1 by 1.2 inches, and has a tilt-up LCD screen in the back that can be adjusted up to a 90-degree angle for better viewing. Canon has pointed out that it’s even small enough to wear around the neck using a lanyard (look, Ma, no hands!), but while it’s certainly lighter and more comfortable than a big-bodied DSLR, no one is going to mistake this for a fashion pendant.

The PowerShot N captures 12-megapixel images, has an 8x digital zoom and offers 58 different scene selections for the Instagram-lovers out there. And it has Wi-Fi capabilities for sharing photos to iOS or Android mobile devices using Canon’s CameraWindow app. It’s expected to hit the market in April, and will cost $300.

Fujifilm X100S

Here’s one of the big-ticket cameras from the show: The updated Fujifilm Finepix X100 fixed-lens camera, for pros or photo “enthusiasts,” now called the X100S.

The X100S has the same, vintage-y body of the X100, along with a 2.8-inch LCD view panel on the back, but what sets this camera apart is its speed. It focuses in .08 seconds, and shoots six frames per second in RAW format. It can capture a handful of good photos faster than you just read this sentence. It boasts a 16.3-megapixel, CMOS II (or, large) sensor and captures full 1080 HD video at 60 frames per second.

Like the Fujifilm Finepix X100, it has a Fujinon 23mm fixed-focal lens (equivalent to 35mm), with the rear lens packed into the body, which is what helps keep this professional-level camera so slim.

Ready to wince at the price? It’s $1,300, and will be available in the U.S. in March. But at least it’s not as pricey as the camera Fujifilm unveiled at last year’s show, the $1,700 X-Pro1.

Maybe some of you will buy them, after all.

And, if not those, there’s a very good chance you may be buying some kind of TV in the near future, says Frank N. Magid Associates. The research shop polled consumers in November, and found them more likely to buy a new set than any time since 2002. It also found that TV purchases have been ticking up in the past couple years. (Click to enlarge.)

So what does that mean? The safest conclusion to draw here is that as the economy has crawled out of the Lehman Brothers hole of 2008, people have gotten more interested in dropping cash on a flat screen.

The more interesting takeaway, though, if you believe the data, is that the replacement cycle for TVs is actually decreasing. And that people are more interested in new TVs as they add new features.

If that’s the case, then some of us should rethink our assumptions about the TV of the Future. Lots of folks (including myself), assume that we’re headed to a world of dumb, cheap TVs, with lots of inputs so that we can smarten them up with Apple TVs, Google TVs, Rokus, whatever.

The basic theory: Technology moves fast, and there’s no reason to spend a lot on TV features that will be outmoded soon, because you’re going to hold on to your set for a long time. Better to spend much less on an Internet-connected box, and upgrade that one periodically.

But if we start upgrading our sets as often as we swap out our PCs, then it’s a different ball game.

The Oculus Rift gaming headset actually transports you into that world.

The headset, created by Palmer Luckey, has built-in virtual reality technology that, along with custom-made game software, makes the wearer feel as though he or she is literally living in a video game.

The Rift headset has been in the works for a couple years now, but was one of the most buzzed-about items at CES this week, where the minds behind Irvine-based Oculus were giving private demos. I managed to try it out just before I left Las Vegas. While it may have been the last gadget I saw at the show, it certainly wasn’t the least.

I sat in front of a large computer monitor that showed Epic’s Unreal Engine-powered Epic Citadel, a first-person shooter game that’s used for demos across different devices. The Oculus Rift was fitted on my head, a controller was shoved in my hands and the game world that had been in front of me on the monitor was suddenly all around me.

I could turn from side to side, or 360 degrees, and I was still immersed in the world inside the video game. (It occurred to me as I was sitting there that for days the Oculus guys had the fun of seeing reporters enter their suite, put on these giant goggles and roll their heads around while they interacted with virtual people.)

By “walking” forward, or propelling myself with the controller, I could approach gun-toting characters within the video game, stare at them and walk through them. I could look up at the sky and down at the cobblestoned ground and see snow falling around me.

The Oculus Rift is not a computing device itself. It doesn’t have any high-powered processors in it and the games aren’t streaming inside of it. It’s simply the lens that’s putting you into that gaming world (although the tech is far from simple).

Also, cold water time: It’s not yet available to consumers. This was a Kickstarter project that initially set out with a goal to raise $250,000. It raised $2.4 million instead. The current asking price for the Rift is $300.

Right now, the company is working on getting thousands of kits into the hands of developers, to ensure there are games that work with the Oculus Rift. CEO Brendan Iribe, who joined Oculus from cloud-based game service Gaikai, declined to specify when it would hit the consumer market, except to say it’s something the company will be working on over the next several months.

But, based on my brief interaction with the Oculus Rift, I’d say this is something that should excite both consumers and console makers. While motion-sensor products like the Kinect have breathed some new life into consoles and are making games more immersive, the Oculus Rift takes it a step further and makes virtual reality, well, a reality.

(Top photo courtesy of Evan Ackerman of Dvice.com.)

As I write this, I’m struggling to think of one standout product from the show, but there are few that got my attention. Here are my faves, not because they’re bound to be the next big thing in tech but because they were completely different, utterly ridiculous and hilariously funny — products that made me go WTF.

YotaPhone

Let’s face it: Regardless of operating system, most smartphones today look the same. A black or white slab with a touchscreen on front, maybe some buttons below it and a camera on back — yawn. That’s why a handset from a little-known Russian company caught my eye.

YotaPhone is an Android Jelly Bean smartphone with a 4.3-inch, 1,280 by 720-pixel touchscreen on front, and a 4.3-inch E Ink display on back. Though you can use the second screen to read e-books, that’s not its primary purpose. Instead, Yota COO Lau Geckler told me in an interview that it was designed to address several problems: Personalization, notifications and battery performance.

You can interact with the YotaPhone like any other Android device using the front screen. But by swiping from the top of the display to the bottom with two fingers, you can throw any image to the back display. Some examples Geckler showed me were sending a snapshot of Google Maps for easy reference when heading to a meeting or using it to display your boarding pass.

This frees up the front screen so you can do other things, like check email. YotaPhone has a funny side, too. When taking pictures, the back screen will display the message “Smile for the camera!” Another cool aspect of the E Ink display is that it doesn’t drain the battery.

Yota will make an API available to third-party developers, so they can write apps utilizing the back screen. Geckler said the company is talking with carriers to bring it to the U.S., and plans to launch the phone at the end of the year. Pricing will be comparable to other high-end Android smartphones.

iMusic BodyRhythm

I literally stopped in my tracks when I came across the iMusic BodyRhythm and started giggling like Beavis and Butthead (yes, I’m mature).

The accessory, which looks like an inflatable vest (or as AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac called it, a toilet seat), goes around your neck and can give you a massage to the pulse of your music.

Using the iPhone app, it can hook up with your phone’s music library and, using a syncing algorithm, it will transform every beat from the song into a patting motion on your neck and shoulders. There’s also a mode that displays an onscreen drum set, where you can also control the pace of your massage by tapping on the drums.

iMusic BodyRhythm CEO Uwe Diegel, a former concert pianist, is launching the project on Kickstarter.

Minime

Love your child or significant other so much that you can’t bear to be away from them? No problem. Minime will create a plush toy or iPhone case with your loved one’s face printed in 3-D.

Prices range from $20 for a large plush toy or an iPhone case to $10 for a small keychain accessory.

All you have to do is send a photo to the company, and Minime will take care of the rest. Not creepy at all.

iHip “Snooki Couture” Headphones

Snooki Couture … yeah, no.

That’s the message CBS and its CNET technology site have managed to send today, by banning a Dish Network device from a CES award competition.

This one isn’t a huge deal, but it’s an interesting one, because it shows just how annoyed the TV networks are with Charlie Ergen and the moves he’s making to shake up, if not blow up, their business.

The story: Last year, Ergen’s Dish introduced “The Hopper,” a DVR whose features include the ability to auto-forward past ads. TV programmers, including CBS, aren’t happy about the gadget, and have taken Dish to court.

This year, Dish used CES to roll out a new version of the gadget, which might also tick off the TV guys. But the reviewers at CNET seemed to like it, describing it as “cutting-edge stuff” that “helps Dish make a strong case that its HD DVR is the most advanced out there.”

That was Monday. Yesterday, CNET announced that the new gadget was up for a “Best of CES” award the website oversees. But today comes word that the device got the boot, due to the lawsuit.

Here’s CNET’s statement, which it has also appended to its original review:

The Dish Hopper with Sling was removed from consideration for the Best of CES 2013 awards due to active litigation involving our parent company CBS Corp. We will no longer be reviewing products manufactured by companies with which we are in litigation with respect to such product.

Dish, in turn, says it is “disappointed” with CNET/CBS’ call.

But it’s hard not to detect a bunch of “this is the best publicity we could have asked for” glee in the satellite guys’ press release. It comes packed with links to reviews, Tweets, photos and other material that make it easy to construct a post just like this one.

Here’s Dish CEO Joe Clayton’s statement. Kind of imagine him and his PR folks high-fiving as they hit “send” on this one:

We are saddened that CNET’s staff is being denied its editorial independence because of CBS’ heavy-handed tactics. This action has nothing to do with the merits of our new product. Hopper with Sling is all about consumer choice and control over the TV experience. That CBS, which owns CNET.com, would censor that message is insulting to consumers. DISH is not afraid to stand up for consumer rights and we think that Hopper with Sling will do well, despite the network’s questionable actions. We have had a long, productive relationship with CNET’s editorial staff and we look forward to continuing that relationship. We welcome their unbiased evaluation and commentary of our products and services.

But after last year’s necessity-driven visit to the Lost and Found turned up more than just tech, I had to go back to see what this year would bring.

It did not disappoint.

The Lost and Found was a hot spot for Wi-Fi hotspots this year, said Jerri Gray, the control center supervisor at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Also: Phones. “Lots of iPhones have been turned in. Lots of phones, period,” Gray told me. “And one iPad, so far.”

And then Gray disappeared for a minute behind the glass bank-teller panel she spoke to me through. When she returned, she had a small manila envelope in her hand. She shook it out onto the tray in front of me.

“Someone lost their teeth again,” she said.

Gray went on to tell me that the LVCVA Lost and Found has more than a 50 percent success rate when it comes to returning items to conference-goers.

She and a few others staff the booth 24/7 year-round, with extra workers on hand during CES. When it’s possible to identify the owner of an item, they’ll send letters in the weeks after the conference to try to track him or her down.

The best lost item of CES 2013 is straight out of “The Hangover”: $2,000 in a satchel, along with a foreign license that made it difficult for Gray and her team to contact the owner.

She assigned a staffer the overnight shift over at South Hall, where the satchel had been found, in case the man came back for it. He did, and reclaimed his $2,000.

He was very happy, Gray said.

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Thing is, the biggest debuts haven’t been the stuff you’ll find on Best Buy shelves. It’s the stuff powering the stuff on those shelves. That is to say, it’s the processor guys’ day in the sun, as some of the largest names in the components industry are pushing more powerful chips in the new year, with sights set directly on mobile devices.

It’s telling of a sea change when Qualcomm — hardly a premier consumer electronics company by any stretch — takes over the keynote reins from Microsoft, the longstanding CES headliner of the past 12 years. That brought Qualcomm’s big debut of the night, the new Snapdragon 800 and 600 series of quad-core mobile chips, which will see a boost in graphics and general performance upwards of 75 percent compared to its current chip line.

More-powerful, less-energy-sucking chipsets: It’s the exact direction the chip industry is headed, brought on by the influx of smartphones, tablets, netbooks and Ultrabooks over the past five years. These days, consumers expect a high-performance smartphone capable of running the latest graphics-heavy apps while still delivering a battery charge longer than a handful of hours.

Nvidia, a California-based chipmaker long known for its graphical processing prowess, has done well for itself in the low-power consumption arena in recent years. The company’s Tegra 3 chips are found in a number of high-end Android smartphones currently on the market, and on Sunday, Nvidia unveiled the Tegra 4 line of chips, which aims at even more power and lower energy consumption than its predecessor line.

Nvidia, Qualcomm and others have used the past few years to get the jump on Intel — the veritable Goliath of the chip industry — by licensing chipset architectures from the British ARM Holdings company, which specializes in low-power chipset designs. Samsung, too, uses the ARM-based architecture, and on Wednesday it unveiled the Exynos 5 Octa line, an eight-core mobile chip, again aimed at mobile devices.

Intel’s problem: The company has long specialized in producing the latest and greatest in powerhouse processors, and has dominated the desktop market doing so. But as we slowly transition from a desktop-centric world to a mobile-centric one, Intel has struggled to adapt as quickly as some of its competitors.

Of course, Intel wants to escape that image and regain share. That’s the impetus behind Intel’s mobile-centric Atom series in recent times, and the new “Lexington” and “Bay Trail” chips that debuted at CES on Monday.

Don’t get too excited quite yet, components nerds. As is the case at most every CES, all the stuff we’re seeing unveiled is still rather vaporous, not hitting the market until the second half of 2013 at the earliest.

For now, we’ll have to make do with current-gen power expectations and performance, and see which chip giants actually make good on their promises come next Christmas.

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I’m talking about phablets, of course — the smartphone-tablet hybrids featuring screens five inches or larger. The big displays make them great for viewing videos, Web sites and documents, but it comes at the price of comfort and ergonomics.

Yet, they’re making a big splash at International CES.

On Monday, Huawei introduced the “world’s largest touchscreen smartphone,” the Mate, an Android Jelly Bean device with a 6.1-inch touchscreen. ZTE debuted the Grands S, the “world’s thinnest” smartphone with a 5-inch display. Meanwhile, Sony offered up the Xperia Z with a five-inch full-HD screen. And the list is only expected to grow as the year goes on.

The emerging category largely began when Samsung released its Galaxy Note smartphone and, more recently, the Galaxy Note II. The latter has a 5.5-inch, 1,280 by 720-pixel touchscreen, an integrated stylus and features like multi-window support that takes advantage of the large display. But it’s also 5.95 inches tall by 3.17 inches wide. For comparison, the iPhone 5 measures 4.87 inches tall by 2.31 inches wide.

“People have a preconception that it’s too big,” said Younghee Lee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile communications sales and marketing team. “People were making fun of it, but as multimedia, ebooks, Web browsing on phones become more popular, a bigger screen is a natural evolution.”

Clearly, there is some demand for that. Samsung said it sold more than 5 million Galaxy Note II’s worldwide in the first two months after it was released. Of course, such numbers raised the eyebrows of competitors. LG followed suit with the poorly executed Intuition, and now we have all these newcomers.

It’s gotten to the point where some are going so far as to call 2013 the year of the phablet. Barclays predicts that the market for these devices will quadruple in value to $135 billion in three years. ABI Research estimates that more than 208 million phablets will ship worldwide in 2015.

“We definitely see the phablet growing significantly over the coming years,” said Joshua Flood, senior analyst at ABI Research. “More and more consumers wish to engage in activities other than calling or texting on the smartphones. A big driver for phablets is watching videos, Internet browsing and video calling on their mobile device.”

But before we go claiming phablets as the next big thing, it’s important to ask the question: For whom?

For device manufacturers? Sure. But for consumers? Not so much.

“We certainly see more vendors going after it, but I still believe the opportunity is small because of the compromise the device delivers. It’s too big for a phone, too small for a tablet,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.

Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research, added, “Companies can continue to push the boundaries. But at some point with today’s display technology, there’s going to be a point of diminishing return in terms of the size of the device and there continues to be a challenge to manage ergonomics. That’s not to say we won’t see more phones in the upper five- or six-inch range, but clearly at some point, you’re no longer designing for one-handed operation.”

And that’s the thing to remember. As much as there is demand for consuming more multimedia content on mobile phones, the importance of design and usability cannot be overlooked. I’d love to consolidate my smartphone and tablet into a single gadget, but I’m not willing do so at the expense of design.

I don’t doubt that phablets will appeal to a certain segment of consumers, and I do believe they’re here to stay. But as far as mass consumption and this being the year of the phablet? Well, call me skeptical.

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Tim Hamilton/Flickr

Surprise — part of his appearance actually made sense. Since leaving office, Clinton has been a major proponent of aiding the developing world, especially in disaster- and poverty-stricken nations like Haiti, where citizens don’t have the same access to the creature comforts of the first world.

That’s where the Samsung pairing comes in. The South Korean conglomerate sells hundreds of millions of smartphones globally each year, and has been one of the leaders in the race to dominate the low end of Android-powered mobile devices.

Efforts to get those phones into the hands of people in impoverished rural areas, Clinton said, should be a priority in world humanitarian efforts. For many, the cellphone is the first — and only — point of entry to having a bank account, or to standardize commodity food prices across their particular region.

Big business agrees with Clinton on focusing on the developing world for growth — just with a different incentive in mind. As smartphone tech becomes cheaper and more widely available, millions of first-time users will start regularly accessing the Internet via mobile device, especially in Asia and South America. While smartphone penetration continues to reach record highs in the U.S., international markets remain the major area for potential growth.

That wasn’t all the president wanted to talk about. In light of the recent Newtown, Conn., school massacre and subsequent assault weapon debates springing up in its wake, Clinton addressed the need for greater gun control in the U.S., especially considering the nation’s high death rate.

“I grew up in a hunting culture, but this is nuts,” he said, citing the gun-related deaths occurring since the assault weapons ban — which Clinton helped to pass in office — expired in 2004. “Why does anybody need a 30-round clip for a gun?”

So, yeah, it got a bit political. But he’s the 42nd president of the United States; tech conference keynote or no, he can pretty much do what he wants.

(Image Credit: Tim Hamilton/Flickr)

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Don’t really know what it all means, do you?

It’s okay. You’re not dumb. You might be well-informed on tech topics. You might even be a member of the tech industry, you might even have been gushing tweeting about these very TVs during CES press conferences this week. And still you might not be able to decipher that jumble of letters and numbers.

Certainly the latest spate of acronyms spouting out of the mouths of TV makers is enough to confuse a potential customer. So after hearing a few different electronics manufacturers tout an arsenal of new super-duper high-def TVs over the past couple days, I tried to imagine what a conversation with that average consumer would entail:

Hey, Lauren! I’m looking to buy a new TV this year, and was wondering about all these new super-duper high-def ones, or one of those OLED TVs. Any recommendations?

Hi. I’m glad you asked, although I’m not an expert on TVs. Like many people, I buy a new TV only once every seven or eight years or so. That said, I do follow these products and trends for my job, so I might be able to answer some of your questions.

Cool. So what’s this 4K stuff I’ve been hearing about? Is it the same as Ultra HD?

4K is the same as Ultra HD, or UHD as some TV makers call it. It’s basically a super-high-definition TV display. 4K refers to the number of horizontal pixels, or, nearly four times the now-standard HD display resolution of 1080p.

To get really granular, that means the pixel “density” is greater than it is on a standard HD TV display. TV makers like to say that means there are no gaps in the pixels, because I know a lot of people that sit there watching their HD TVs saying, “Honey, let’s talk. I really think the pixels gaps have become a serious problem.”

Gotcha. I’m hearing a lot about OLED, too. How are you supposed to say that, and what does that stand for?

Some people say Oh-El-Eee-Dee, as you did, and others say Oh-Led. OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode.

Organic, huh? So it’s like organic food … it costs more, and it’s supposed to be better for you?

You’re half-correct. The “organic” light-emitting diodes are made up of a complicated chemical material that is electroluminescent, meaning that the material itself is what’s giving off the light (unlike backlit TVs, in which the light is shining from behind the screen).

Do these TV screens really look that much better than my HD TV?

Well, OLED TVs are supposed to offer better contrast in colors on the screen. They’re also supposed to have better viewing angles, so if you have multiple people sitting in your living room, everyone will get the same picture quality, without any shadows. Then again, if your friends are the kind of people that come over and complain about bad viewing angles while they eat your food and drink your beer, you might want to get new friends before you get a new TV.

Ultra HD TVs make everything look super crisp, and sometimes even give the illusion of depth without 3-D technology. Ultra HD TVs look a little bit like living picture windows — especially when you’re watching the endless loop of lush green scenery, ski slopes, seaside villas and bubbling waterfalls that the manufacturers are showing on the screens right now.

Can I get a TV that’s both 4K and OLED?

It’s technically possible. At CES this week, Sony Electronics showed off a prototype TV set that claims both features. But that TV set also had, shall we say, technical glitches on stage. So there’s still some work to be done.

What about 3-D?

What about it?

That’s all I’ve been hearing about before this, it seems.

Right. TV makers were making a big 3-D push at CES just a few years ago, thinking that was the best way to sell TVs. It wasn’t, as it not-so-suprisingly turned out. But 3-D hasn’t gone away; it’s now more of an ancillary feature with TVs. So, “smart” Internet connected TVs, and now these beauty-queen displays, are supposed to be all the rage, and 3-D just happens to come along with some sets.

Will I still need to wear those dorky glasses if I get a TV with 3-D?

Yes.

I’ll stick with 4K, then. Will I have to take out a second mortgage on my house to finance one of these TVs? 

It depends on how much your house is worth. But, seriously, these TVs are big and expensive. Remember what HD TVs cost when they first hit the market? It’s like that.

LG Electronics currently has an 84-inch 4K TV on the market that costs $19,999. Sony’s 84-inch 4K Ultra HD TV sells for $25,000. Samsung is promising an 85-inch ultra high-definition TV by this spring, and while the company hasn’t confirmed the price yet, there’s a good chance it will also be in the $20,000 to $25,000 price range.

Eventually, the prices will likely come down, just as they did with HD TVs. Sony is planning to ship smaller models this year that might be more “attainable” as the company said, but that’s all relative. Vizio also has 55-inch, 65-inch and 70-inch 4K models in the works, and Vizio is known for being more affordable than some other high-end TV brands.

If you go the OLED route, you might catch a bargain: LG’s 55-inch OLED TV will arrive in the U.S. in March, and will cost “just” $12,000.

In either case, I’m not a financial advisor, but I wouldn’t recommend you go into serious debt for the sake of a better TV screen.

Hey, I got a loan!

Never mind.

So, I can totally get one of these new sets in time for the Superbowl, right?

Unfortunately, no. It’s safe to say — as with many of the gadgets shown off this week at CES — that these sets won’t become available until later this year or next year.

Case in point: Samsung showed off a dual-view OLED screen at last year’s CES, with the hope of bringing it to market by the end of 2012. That didn’t happen. But it might this year.

I’ll just wait until then. I’m sure there will be plenty of 4K TV shows and movies out by then.

Probably not. Sony said on Monday that it will launch a 4K movie download service this summer, and will offer a few titles sourced from super high-resolution masters, like “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Total Recall” and “The Karate Kid.” Because you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Ralph Macchio’s high kick in 4K.

But otherwise, this asterisk on LG’s website best sums it up:

*No “ultra high definition” or “4K” content is currently available. No broadcast or other standard currently exists for “4K” or “ultra high definition” television, and the 84LM9600 may or may not be compatible with such standards if and when developed.

You’re such a Debbie Downer, Lauren. Have you ever seen that “Saturday Night Live” skit? Debbie Downer?

Yes. Back when TVs were dumb, and weren’t super-HD. The skit was still funny.

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The former Microsoft exec turned gaming entrepreneur didn’t rent out a hotel ballroom or hire Big Bird or Maroon 5 to get the attention of the press. In fact, as far as we know, Valve’s only presence at the show was a small private booth for meetings, and an interview with The Verge.

But since many covet Newell and his quirky company, when he speaks, everyone listens as if it were videogame gospel.

Valve is popular for producing mega hits like Half-Life and the Portal game series. It also gets huge props for Steam, its consumer-focused PC games-distribution platform (referred to by the rest of us as an app store).

This preamble is to help you better understand why it was a big deal when Newell said yesterday that Valve is building its own hardware that will essentially be a gaming and media hub for your whole house.

This isn’t some half-baked Kickstarter idea. With an estimated valuation of $3 billion, and more than 50 million users (in comparison, Xbox Live has 40 million), Valve has the money, the distribution system and the clout to try something outrageous.

And what Newell described to The Verge yesterday is a little out there.

He confirmed that the company is building a “Steam Box,” which will be a game and entertainment server for the home that can be used by eight TVs and eight controllers at one time.

For the average consumer who likes to stream Netflix to their TV, this will come off as pretty abstract stuff, especially when you hear more details.

First, it’s going to be built on the Linux OS, which is not exactly mainstream. Second, if not done absolutely correctly, hooking it up to multiple TVs sounds like a networking nightmare. Third, Valve says it will be inventing new types of controllers “that use a lot of biometric data.”

In July, Newell was interviewed onstage in Seattle, where he elaborated on this topic. He said touchscreens are “short-term,” and that your tongue is one of the best mechanical systems to your brain. “I don’t think tongue input will happen, but I do think we will have bands on our wrists, and you’ll be doing something with your hands, which are really expensive.”

In other words, we’re talking really sci-fi stuff here.

Generally, what’s interesting about Newell’s desire to build something on Linux is that he believes it is a hedge against Windows 8. Increasingly, operating systems have become locked down, where the OS maker, like Apple, owns the software distribution on the device, like the iPhone and the App Store. That’s happening on laptops and computers, as well, which is a threat to Steam.

On multiple occasions, the former Microsoft executive has disclosed his disdain for the software giant’s new operating system.

In the interview with The Verge, Newell put it bluntly: “Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business … When I started using it I was like ‘oh my god …’ I find [Windows 8] unusable.”

Newell can say pretty much whatever he wants. Valve is a privately held company with few or no investors, so there’s no pressure for a public offering or a sale. Clearly, if he wants to preannounce something, he will.

In addition to laying out some of the Steam Box’s specs and confirming its existence, he also discussed pricing. The boxes, which will be built by partners in some cases, will have three tiers, he said. The low-end device will start at $99. A midrange device could cost around $300, and the high-end device could be even pricier.

But when a Steam Box will be released remains a mystery. Presumably, to be competitive with the next generation of consoles from Microsoft and Sony, it would be expected around the end of this year.

To get some feedback on what Valve’s plans mean, I asked Pete Hawley, co-founder and chief product officer of Red Robot Labs, what he thinks. Although he’s creating a location-based games platform today, he previously worked at PlayStation, and just a month ago told me during a conversation that he thinks Valve will win the next console war.

“I think this news is huge,” he said. “Gabe and Valve are building something amazing here.”

Hawley also said that while the experience Newell describes today sounds futuristic, he could easily imagine the box appealing to a wide audience, ranging from everyday users who want to stream movies through a browser to the most hardcore gamers.

“The openness and ‘hackability’ is there for those core users that are more heavily engaged — the creators. I think you’ll see some users that absorb content, plugged into the TV like a traditional console,” Hawley said. “Others will run servers, create content, have their own store, push to multiple screens, etc., etc. I think its flexibility in that sense is really interesting.”

One daunting challenge, which Newell acknowledged in the interview, was getting Steam’s current content to work on Linux. This summer, Newell mentioned wanting to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux. Valve will also have to work on a way to get the content to work with a game controller. Since most of the titles today run on PCs, they use a mouse and a keyboard. As Newell told The Verge, “the problem to solve is how to interact with a Web browser, how to get all the games to support controllers, and how to make it all seamless.”

In the meantime, Valve has developed a feature called Big Picture, which allows you to connect Steam to your TV. Big Picture is designed to be used with a traditional game controller, but also supports a keyboard and mouse.

Here’s Valve’s video explaining Big Picture, which may also provide a sense of how Steam Box will eventually work:

Already available as a post-paid option, the carrier announced today at International CES that it will start offering its Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan with no annual contract. Customers can sign up starting tomorrow, and the cost is $70 per month. The plan includes unlimited voice, text and data.

Unlike the company’s previous $70 prepaid unlimited plan, data speeds won’t be reduced once you reach five gigabytes. There will also be no overage fees.

“Simply put, consumers want their data to be blazing fast, without limits and without overages. With our new Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan, that’s exactly what we’re giving them, and for the first time, we’re offering it without an annual contract. Other carriers want to lock customers in; we’re going to earn our customers’ business with an amazing 4G experience every day,” said Mike Sievert, chief marketing officer for T-Mobile USA, in a statement.

Prepaid plans have increasingly become an attractive alternative to long-term contracts. You pay full retail price for a smartphone, but in return, you’re not tied down to a long-term contract. T-Mobile’s prepaid handsets range from the entry-level T-Mobile Prism for $150 to the high-end Samsung Galaxy S III for $550. Customers can also bring unlocked devices like the Nexus 4.

There is an asterisk to this whole deal, though. T-Mobile’s “4G” network isn’t a true 4G LTE network like Verizon’s or AT&T’s. Instead, it’s 4G HSPA+; T-Mobile won’t launch its LTE network till later this year.

Recently, the carrier entered into an agreement with MetroPCS to combine its wireless operations. If approved, the deal would help T-Mobile expand its LTE network quicker than if it were to go it alone.

Struggling behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, T-Mobile has been looking for new ways to attract customers.

In addition to the new unlimited prepaid plan, T-Mobile revealed today that it will include 4G connectivity as a standard and free feature on select notebooks, tablets and Ultrabooks. The first machines to support the new 4G Connect feature include the HP Pavilion dm1 and Dell Inspiron 14z Ultrabook; T-Mobile will continue to add devices throughout the year.

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And then Steve Ballmer showed up.

The Microsoft CEO couldn’t stay away from the evening’s big event, after leading the charge for the past 12 years. About 20 minutes into the event, Jacobs brought Ballmer onstage to talk about all the “cool stuff” Microsoft is doing, running on Qualcomm’s chipsets.

But despite being onstage for only about five minutes, Ballmer stole the show. It turned into a pitch for Microsoft, as the CEO showed off a slew of smartphones running Windows Phone software and the latest tablets running Windows 8.

Sure, Qualcomm debuted some new chip lines and touted a few videos with a cutesy CGI dragon. But that took a back seat to Ballmer hawking his Windows gear.

I assume that inside the Qualcomm strategy team’s planning meetings, the idea went something like “let’s make this a ‘passing of the torch’ sort of thing!”

Too bad for Qualcomm it didn’t play out that way. Even in a post-Microsoft CES, Ballmer still owned the night.

Check out the video below — courtesy of Geekwire — for Ballmer’s stage time:

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But while the prices may still be high, the ways inside are starting to shift. Instead of relying on VC bankrolls, some smaller outfits are taking funding straight from you, the people who want to buy their products in the first place.

How? Simple. The rise of Kickstarter, the privately owned crowdfunding platform company that debuted a little under three years ago, has democratized the fundraising process for thousands of would-be entrepreneurs. Pitch an idea for a prototype invention or service on Kickstarter.com, and the people can vote yay or nay with their wallets. It’s socialized venture capital 101, and it has been a boon for the relatively unknown creative tinkerers. And many have found their way to Las Vegas for CES this year.

Take the Hapifork, for instance, one of many small, goofy gadgets debuting at CES this week. In order to better control your eating habits, the fork will send slight vibrating jolts to you, the eater, if you’re scarfing down food too fast. The premise is so silly, it’s hard to believe the product wasn’t pulled from the pages of The Onion.

The iMusic Body Rhythm manages to trump the Hapifork in the department of the asinine. It literally looks like an electronic toilet seat cover, which you’re supposed to wear like a life vest around your neck. Plug it into your MP3 player, and the vest vibrates to the beat of whatever song you’re listening to. This, my friends, is frivolity unhinged.

But that’s the thing. Though I may think it’s ridiculous — and I’m sure I’m not alone in that thought — you, the masses, have already spoken. Folks are backing the Hapifork, the Body Rhythm, the Kogeto Dot iPhone camera and other wacky products in droves, using the Kickstarter platform. The people get to decide whether or not these pursuits are worthwhile.

While that grassroots popularity is important, it’s only half the battle. There’s still value in getting the item in question onto hallowed CES ground. It’s the event where distributors and retailers walk the floor, deciding what items may make it onto the crowded shelves of their stores in the coming year. It’s where big companies go to see what the little guys are doing, and how they can potentially work with them. It’s a breeding ground for partnerships, partnerships, partnerships. No Kickstarter campaign can offer that sort of networking value.

So yes, all roads still lead to Rome (or rather to the Bellagio, in CES’s case). It’s just that now those roads may be paved with the dollars and support of the many, rather than the few — no matter how crazy the idea.

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Yesterday, Ergen’s Dish Network used the gadget show to unveil several new improvements for its “Hopper” service, including one that will certainly upset the TV networks: A feature that will let Dish customers watch any show they’ve paid to see, on any device they want, when and where they want to watch it.

If this seems like a pretty basic concept, it is. And it’s one the rest of the TV industry has been trying to roll out for the past few years.

The difference: The TV networks and the pay-TV providers working on “TV Everywhere” schemes have been arduously hammering out an assortment of deals, which means that some subscribers to some TV services can watch some shows under some conditions but not others.

Ergen, on the other hand, seems to have simply gone ahead and rolled the feature out, without asking Time Warner, Comcast or anyone else for permission. And he and his employees seem happy to go to court.

“We’re trying to be at the forefront of existing technology,” Dish CEO Joe Clayton told Bloomberg. “If that means some lawsuits, OK.”

This sounds a whole lot like last year, when Dish put its thumb in TV’s eye by rolling out a DVR that automatically skipped ads on some programs. That freaked out the networks, for obvious reasons, and some of them ended up taking Ergen to court a few months later; the case is still working its way through the system.

In theory, if Ergen wins either fight, it could be a big deal for the TV ecosystem. But I’m not sure how much consumers actually care about either outcome. After all, it’s pretty simple to fast-forward through ads on your own. And while the notion of being able to watch a new episode of “The Office” on your iPad without paying extra would be nice, it’s an incremental improvement. Not a game changer.

My hunch is that in both cases Ergen is less interested in the feature than in the leverage he thinks it will give him if gets to use it. I can imagine a scenario where Ergen gets to keep the ad-skipping feature, but disables it in exchange for a break on programming fees. Same for the TV Everywhere stuff.

But no need for me to speculate about this stuff. We’ll be able to ask Ergen himself when he appears at our D: Dive Into Media conference in February. If you want to hear his answer in person, sign up here.

At the International CES in Las Vegas, Cisco just announced its collaboration with AT&T in a new home-security product. Dubbed AT&T Digital Life, it’s essentially an in-home security and control service that will give its customers control of in-home security cameras, window and door sensors, locks, thermostats, lighting and other things, from a smartphone, tablet or PC. It also sort of fits with that “Internet of Everything” marketing message Cisco uncorked late last year.

Cisco’s role is building the hardware and providing some back-office provisioning for the applications. AT&T plans to roll out the service in eight markets in the U.S. by March, with as many as 50 more markets to follow this year.

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Now Walmart says it has solved that one, more or less, with software that will let most users handle the “disc to digital” process at home.

Walmart says that, starting this month, users can start storing copies of some of the movies they’ve already purchased on DVDs, using Macs and PCs and its Vudu.com movie service.

You’ll need a computer that still has an optical disc drive for this. So, if you’re working on, say, a MacBook Air, you’re going to have to dig up an older PC, or forage for an external drive.

And you’ll still need to pay for the privilege of using Walmart’s cloud: $2 to convert a standard DVD or Blu-ray, or $5 if you want to convert a standard DVD into an HD copy. That may turn off some people who believe that paying extra for digital copies of stuff they own doesn’t make any sense.

Also note that while many of the big studios, including Sony, Warner Bros, Fox (which, like this site, is owned by News Corp.) and Paramount are in, not all of their films are available for digital storage and playback. So in some cases this will still be a moot point.

Still, the notion of hauling your discs to a store in order to move them onto the Internet made zero sense in 2012. Nice to know that Walmart has caught up in 2013.

Walmart has made other strides, as well. It recently started letting Android users download digital copies of their movies on their devices, instead of requiring them to stream them. And it says that, next month, Apple iOS users will be able to do the same.

Walmart is pushing the service in conjunction with UltraViolet, the Hollywood + tech consortium that’s trying to push movie ownership via a system that’s supposed to let users access any film they buy, on any device. And since Disney isn’t an UltraViolet member, that means none of this applies to Disney and Pixar films, which means a key demographic that would value having multiple copies of the same movie — parents with kids — won’t get as much out of this as Walmart would like.

Still, when Walmart rolled this thing out last March, it looked DOA, and UltraViolet backers have conceded to me privately that it has underwhelmed them, too. Maybe the retailer has done enough to give this thing a second chance.

Instead, Acer said the seven-inch Android Jelly Bean tablet would cost less than $150, and is designed for new tablet users or for families looking for a second device for their children.

Price will be the key differentiator between the Iconia B1 and devices like the $199 Nexus 7. Acer President Jim Wong also cited the tablet’s true Google experience as a benefit over more “sandboxed” tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook.

But there are trade-offs for the cheaper price. For example, the touchscreen only has a resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels — the same as the original Kindle Fire — and the front-facing camera is just 0.3 megapixels.

It will also only come in an eight gigabyte model, though there is a microSD expansion slot. Powering the device is a dual-core 1.2GHz processor from Mediatek.

AllThingsD’s Lauren Goode and I got a chance to check out the Iconia B1-A71 yesterday, and it definitely looks and feels like a budget tablet. Pixels were much more visible, compared to something like the Nexus 7. The plastic chassis and electric-blue edges almost made it feel like a toy — although to be fair, one of the Iconia B1’s target audiences is children.

The tablet is also aimed at first-time tablet users, particularly in emerging markets. As such, the Iconia B1 will launch first in South America, starting next month. Meanwhile, North America will be part of a “phase two” rollout that may include this device or another tablet similar to it.

With the arrival of such devices as the Nexus 7, iPad mini and Kindle Fire, Acer has struggled in the tablet market — a point that Wong doesn’t deny.

“We want to come back to tablets, and we want to do it aggressively,” said Wong in an interview with AllThingsD. “Creating a low barrier of entry to the seven-inch tablet segment is one way we can do that.”

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Nvidia, the company responsible for much of the guts inside modern smartphones, tablets and desktop PCs, unveiled “Project Shield” at International CES in Las Vegas on Sunday evening, a prototype portable gaming system built atop the Android platform.

It’s something of a multimedia mish-mash. Imagine tossing an Xbox controller, a five5-inch 720p display, the guts of a powerful quad-core tablet and a wireless speaker box into a blender, then cranking it up to “frappe.” The result is Nvidia’s foray into creating an out-of-the-box consumer-facing product, Project Shield.

The device casts a wide net. It runs media like HD movies and music, while also running apps like Hulu, Netflix and Internet radio services. It can play PC games. It will run any Android games in the Google Play store.

In other words, it’s competing with smartphones, tablets, handheld systems like the Wii U — everyone.

Consider this: It’s hard enough for an industry player to do well in just one of these spaces. Apple and Samsung are duking it out for smartphone dominance, while Apple continues to clean up in the tablet arena. Consoles and dedicated gaming hardware is still a battlefield split among giants like Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, yet console sales are declining in recent years, and the dominant players are beginning to experiment to fight for share.

So where does Project Shield fit in? Does Nvidia focus on marketing it toward one of these verticals, or all of them? Or is this something new entirely?

For now, at least, Nvidia can focus on one thing: Finishing it. After all, it’s still a just a prototype.

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This year, the Chinese computer maker is going big. Literally.

The company is wagering that consumers will want a giant, 27-inch, 17-pound “table PC.”

Called the IdeaCentre Horizon, this Windows 8 table PC (table tablet? coffee-table computer?) is running on a third-generation Core i7 processor with Nvidia GeForce graphics. It has a full HD, multi-touch touchscreen display with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. There’s a 720p front-facing camera for Web video chats.

It’s also adjustable, so it can be propped up and viewed in different modes.

With customized games from Ubisoft and EA, and compatibility with joysticks and other accessories, Lenovo is clearly trying to target the game-playing crowd in addition to average consumers, some business users, and 6’7″ basketball players.

Lenovo is calling this the world’s first “table PC,” which may be the case, and it is a whopper of a computer. But it’s not the first attempt at a big touchscreen device aimed at family time around the coffee table. Who could forget this ridiculous 65-inch Android tablet?

There’s the Sony Vaio Tap 20, reviewed in full here by my colleague Bonnie Cha, which is a 20-inch all-in-one PC screen with a kickstand. And last summer Toshiba launched the Excite 13, a 13-inch tablet designed primarily for use in the home — which The Wall Street Journal’s Katie Boehret thought was great for entertainment, but concluded that bigger wasn’t always better.

The Horizon is expected to ship this summer, and will cost $1,700.

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While that remains to be seen (I’ve only spotted about a dozen in the wild), it hasn’t stopped device manufactures and app developers from getting into the fitness-tech game.

Case in point: More than 220 companies will showcase their health-and-fitness products at International CES next week — a 30 percent increase over last year’s show, according to Consumer Electronic Association CEO Gary Shapiro.

Companies include Fitbit, Polar, and BodyMedia, which plans to introduce a waterproof patch. An Ohio startup called HealthSpot will be at CES showing off its HealthSpot station. Described as an “ATM for healthcare,” users will be able to walk into one of theses kiosks at a pharmacy or grocery store, input their symptoms and chat with a board-certified doctor via video conferencing for further advice.

“It’s definitely an active category at CES,” said Shapiro in a phone interview. “Health is everything, and technology can play a major role in making people more responsible and bringing healthcare costs down.”

Consumers have already seen tech as a more affordable solution and motivator for sticking to an exercise regimen and meeting their goals. A recent study by the CEA showed that more than half of online consumers used some kind of fitness tech in the past year, and analysts at Forrester Research expect usage to increase from the low single-digit millions to 10 million by the end of 2013.

“In order to be well, you need information and feedback, and that’s always been crucial, even before the digital era,” said James McQuivey, analyst at Forrester Research. “Now there is tech that can collect that data reliably and at a low cost.”

This tech includes more traditional devices like heart-rate monitors and pedometers, and newer tech, such as fitness video games, smartphone apps, and connected scales.

Brands like Nike and Jawbone have also brought attention to wearable devices, which use sensors to measure your activity, calories burned, how well you sleep and more. The collected information is then transfered to an app or Web dashboard where you can view your progress, set goals and share results with a larger social network.

Nike says it’s this social interaction that’s attracting users to devices like the FuelBand. “People have always wanted motivation to be active, and now that same feeling of being on a team or training for your first 10K can happen daily through socially enabled, connected experiences like Nike+,” said Ricky Engelberg, experience director of digital sport at Nike.

Even so, I have my doubts about whether wearable devices will catch on. I had the original Fitbit , and while achieving my goals and earning new badges kept me motivated for a few weeks, I soon grew tired of having to take it on and off.

McQuivey agrees, and says wearable tech won’t be a trend, even if “a particular device from a particular vendor” might prove to be popular. But he does believe that fitness tech will continue to grow, and that the bigger challenge won’t be design but what to do with the data.

“The health implications of the data we’re collecting are tremendous,” said McQuivey. “We could meaningfully improve our understanding of many major diseases just by amassing this data in a central place where researchers and companies can have access to it. … But, so far, no one company has that database or even the beginnings of it.”

Shapiro had similar thoughts. “We’re shifting toward smaller, cheaper devices in a matter of months, and they’re getting better all the time,” he said. “But once they’ve gathered information, what do you with it? That’s where we still need progress. There are holes in the system.”

Perhaps one of those 220 companies at CES will have the answer. But I suspect that coming up with a solution that’s universal and doesn’t invade a person’s privacy will be debated for years to come.

International CES officially kicks off on Jan. 8 and runs through Jan. 11. AllThingsD will be in attendance starting on Sunday, so check back then for all the latest news and analysis.

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