Byron Smith, national correspondent

If you go by the displays covering hundreds of thousands of square feet at the Las Vegas Convention Center and The Venetian Hotel, you will soon be able to make your own children’s toys at home on your 3-D printer, you can see and control everything in your home (including the cat) from your phone and your tablet/phone will have a neon, self-designed and produced (see 3-D printer, above) cover that you can squeeze to set off the built-in alarm or pepper-spray anyone in range.

Do you want a tablet – by the way, few laptops will be left – with finger-grips on the back or textured so you won’t drop it? Do you want your watch to vibrate when your phone rings so you don’t have to pull it out of your pocket to see who is calling – just check the caller ID? Do you want to wirelessly broadcast everything you look at from the mini-cam that is imbedded in your sunglasses? Do your earbuds have super bass built in to vibrate and mini-massage your skull bones from the inside out? Do you need a refrigerator that will sound an alarm when the milk goes bad, the lettuce wilts or the yogurt molds?We may only be six months away from having all of your bodily functions transmitted by Verizon and monitored at a Xerox call center (maybe, in the USA).

Need to track your child to school or your spouse to work? Sure there are lots of “tracker” units, but for real security, choose from dozens of hovercraft with cameras wirelessly controlled and monitored from – again – your phone. Got great videos on your phone to share with the family, broadcast them directly to your 110”, 3-D, flat-screen, wall-mounted television. Need to have your fingernails done ASAP with Seahawks logos – use your TAT’Z fingernail machine to apply it to them in 10 minutes at home; or have a wine tasting and fingernail deco party with the gang and do a portrait of each child on separate nails.
Or, if “crowd-source” funding works, wiring your house will be a thing of the past - almost everything will be connected via Bluetooth technology, controlled (again) from your phone. Too busy to watch your infant/elderly parent sleeping from the mini-cam mounted by the crib/bed, your watch/phone will alert you from the thumbnail-sized sensor in their diaper when they “make a urine” or poop.

These are real items, as were the prototypes of more exotic items offered by over 200 Asian companies in one banquet hall looking for US distributors, and sharing grilled Nathan’s hotdogs to seal the deal.