CES preview: What to watch at this year's gadget show

E-readers seem a safer bet. Amazon's Kindle and the Barnes and Noble Nook seem to have had a smashing Christmas. The former was Amazon.com's most gifted Christmas product ever, according to the company. And the Nook struggled to keep up with demand – with its current back-order date reaching into early February. (Of course, the apparent drought of Nooks could be due to a slew of orders or a crack in the manufacturing chain.) It's also uncertain how many contenders can fit in the ring at once, especially when the first big e-book device, the Sony Reader, has fought a mostly losing battle for attention.

The final prediction, which calls for a boom in tablet computers, comes pegged to Apple's much anticipated tablet – if such a thing exists. Apple has never made a peep about such a computer, but countless rumors and seemingly legitimate reports from The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and many respected analyst groups have convinced the industry that such a product is waiting in the wings. Some foresee rivals launching a preemptive strike against an iTablet. For example, the New York Times suggested that Microsoft may unveil and throw its weight behind a Hewlett-Packard tablet during the company's keynote tonight. But early announcements from Las Vegas point toward a different trend: netbooks, netbooks, netbooks. Of the new PCs coming out of pre-CES coverage, almost all fit into the pint-size category. Asus, Lenovo, and Intel have hyped their new netbooks and the chips which keep them chugging.

Check in on the Horizons blog this week to see which CES predictions came true and which might extend deeper into 2010. Also, let us know your tech forecast – or dream gadgets. Comment below or follow us on Twitter.

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