CES 2012 isn’t until Tuesday, but companies are already lining up with new productannouncements in an effort to get heard before the PR noise reaches a defeaning child-likeshriek. Here are some that jumped out at making 2012 a landmark year for blinking plasticstuff.Gorilla Glass 2

Corning, not just known at tupperware parties, will be unveiling version 2.0 of itsworld-famous glass that’s used in many cell phones to keepthem from shattering during gorilla attacks. Not much has been said about what’s newhere, but after considerable internal analysis, we’re guessing that GG2 is going tobe weaker and scratch more.iLuv Smashbox Pro Speaker Case

People can stop being annoyed that every good set of portable speakers is made solely foriDevices. iLuvbrings the love with the Smashbox Pro Speaker Case that works with iPhones and iPods, theSamsung Galaxy S and other MP3 players. It may not be a one-stop solution for all phones,but it’s a start. Given the company’s name, we’re hoping these also comewith a gender-agnostic vibrator.New Google TVs

LG, Samsung, Sony, and Vizio are launching new TVs based on the GoogleTV platform. Despite some setbacks -- most recently Logitech dropping the Revue andpublicly dissing Google TV as a failing effort -- Google has scored some big names tohopefully inject some life back into the beleaguered platform. No doubt everyone is scaredout of their minds by the coming Apple TV, sothey’re backing Google’s horse, hoping it’ll be another Android. Onlytime will tell if it’s a decent race and not a long, winding path to the gluefactory.LG Announces Z330 And Z430 Ultrabooks

No one doubt the future of laptops looking a lot like the MacBook Air, and LG’slatest’s got it beat in the skinny department. The 2.67-pound 13.3" Xnote Z330 iswafer thin -- 0.57” (14.7 mm) thick compared to the 13-inch Air’s 0.68”(17 mm). The Z430 is slightly thicker than the Air, proving you can’t win them all.They’re no slouches under the hood either, with either an i5 or i7 CPU, 8 GB of RAMand up to a 550 GB HDD (with an optional 16 GB or 128 GB of SSD). Until prices areannounced, we won’t know if they also took a planer to the Air’s price.Despite their influence over the whole spectrum of gadgetry, Apple isn’tattending CES since it stopped doing product announcements at trade shows, evenspecifically Mac-related ones.That has some predicting big names like Microsoft willfollow suit, in an effort to distinguish itself from the crowd. CES has a lot of coolstuff, but it’s increasingly looking like a bunch of dudes schlepping wares out ofthe back of covered wagons. Continue Reading

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