14 gadgets we wish would be unveiled at CES

The hot new buzzword in consumer devices is "phablet": a mobile gizmo that, at about 5 to 7 inches, blurs the line between phone and tablet. Other than the 5.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Note, most phablets haven't taken off with consumers, who generally view the devices as awkwardly large phones.

The dream is a true phablet: A phone that can be stretched into tablet size and back again, with no glass at risk of shattering. No need to carry around, or even own, multiple devices!

Both startups and big vendors are interested in flexible, stretchable, and bendable screens. Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) lab techs are working on flexible Mylar screens, and a handful of university labs across the globe have developed prototypes of stretchable OLED displays.

Don't empty your gadget drawer quite yet, though. Those stretchable screens are in their early experimental days, and a handful of startups hawking bendable devices like e-readers never got their devices to market. - JP

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