CES

The Consumer Electronics Show always generates a blizzard of hype, endlessly repetitive announcements of world-changing new products and a few real gems. This year's hype/news ratio is worse than usual, but it's not always obvious why, or what real innovations got buried.

Here’s a short list of the things worth talking about at CES in 2012, at least in the mobile realm.

Tech vendors put way, way too much effort into keeping product plans secret until they can maximize hype and sales with carefully timed announcements. So why do they suck all the interest out of cool announcements by acting offended that anyone wanted to know?

You really want to know what's coming? Ask Julian Assange.

The robot zone at CES offers several impressive mechanical assistants, but can the same technology that powers your Roomba really match a human when it comes to something personal like a back massage?

If you want to know what it's like to experience CES for the first time, here's a glimpse of the experience along with some advice if you decide to attend the show.

Microsoft hasn't confirmed, but reports predicting it will debut Windows 8 and an ARM version of Windows both at CES this week. Coincidentally, CEO Steve Ballmer's keynote is at 6:30 Vegas time.

CES will offer a lot of insights into the 2011 plans of many technology and entertainment companies. Has the trade show become more about creating brands than showcasing cutting edge technology? If so, is that good or bad?

CES will be all about tablets. Microsoft may be showing the same old Windows 7 options, but Motorola may have Honeycomb (the tablet-optimized release of Google's Android) and HP may have a tablet version of webOS. Will one of them steal the show?

Before this month's CES, I wrote that the netbook doesn't have to die. It seems a little strange, but there were those who said that this netbook was a doomed class of product, destined to get larger and more expensive until it merged with the laptop.

I've been working my way through the video and text reporting notes I collected at CES, and I'm ready to announce my choice for my favorite product at the show -- the Ford Work Solution. In this package, it's a little larger than the average consumer gadget, weighing in a something over 4,000 pounds.

I'm sitting down at the end of the first day of the Computer Electronics Show with a head that's close to spinning with all the products I've seen aimed at mobile enterprise users (and, to be fair, all those that are aimed at other markets entirely).