This week saw a host of announcements from tech firms out at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

TechRadar has been there in force, bringing you the latest news and hands on reviews of all the hottest kit.

Read on for this week's most popular stories on TechRadar…

The new Motorola Xoom Android tablet has been announced in Las Vegas with a glut of next-gen technology stuffed inside.

After first being pseudo-debuted by Google, the new Motorola Xoom (odd name aside) features a 10.1-inch (1280x800 resolution) display along with Android 3.0 Honeycomb as well.

As expected, it's a dual-core beast, running the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor meaning the Xoom can pump out 1080p video with aplomb, according to Motorola.

It also comes with a 5MP rear camera, and a 2MP forward-facing sensor for video chat, as it appears Apple seems to have actually re-ignited interest in video calling, although it makes far more sense on a tablet.

Toshiba will have a range of glasses-free 3D TV prototypes on show at CES, one of which clocks in at 65-inches making it the largest glasses-free 3D TV to date.

If that's a little large for your liking, there's also a 56-inch sample on show. Both employ an LED-backlit panel with a 4096×2160 pixel resolution.

These TVs will use Toshiba's Cevo-Engine, which allows for a high level of picture processing in order to run the glasses-free 3D on the enormous screens.

Google has finally decided to up how seriously it is taking a flaw in its Android system that sends messages to the wrong person in a user's phonebook.

The issue was reported back in June 2010, but Google has now decided to move the problem up to 'Critical' status, meaning a patch is likely to be imminent to the Android system to resolve the issue.

The problem is virtually undetectable to the user until alerted by someone else, because though the message is sent to the wrong number, it still displays as being directed to the correct recipient in the inbox.

The Carphone Warehouse is attempting to show how wallet-friendly the humble mobile phone has become – by offering one for just 1p.

It's not strictly as easy as finding a few pence in your wallet and equipping your family with new Alcatel OT-209's though, as you'll need to buy £10-worth of credit at the same time.

It's no iPhone-botherer, let's be honest; this is a feature phone in every sense of the phrase with a rounded plastic design, small screen and big buttons, although it does pack a colour screen and FM radio.

HTC's inevitable foray into the tablet market looks imminent after the Taiwanese firm trademarked the HTC Scribe name.

The trademark application was filed for a 'handheld wireless device, namely a tablet computer' and the assumption is that this device will see HTC joining the Android-powered iPad rivals' race.

The application doesn't give away much more than the name of the device and the date of the filing (Boxing Day, if you're interested) but we'd imagine it will be running Honeycomb and therefore have a high resolution screen and dual-core innards.

The Consumer Electronics Show is like a giant ice cream sundae – it's big, wildly colourful, takes some real effort to get through and is a delicious mix of different ingredients. All covered in a glitzy Las Vegas sauce.

So what's hot at this year's show?

The technology trends at CES 2010 included: 3DTV, ultra-skinny HDTVs, motion-controlled gaming (Kinect and Sony's PlayStation Move had yet to launch), not to mention early tablet prototypes, digital cameras, camcorders and iPhone-controlled Wi-Fi helicopters.

Many of the same key themes apply to CES 2011 and what you'll see here tends to dominate the technology year ahead. So here are our hand-picked highlights of this year's electronic expo...

The tablet-friendly Android 3.0 OS is one of the stars of CES 2011.

You'll find it running on a number of new tablet devices that hope to chip away at the dominance of Apple's iPad.

The tablet market is poised to explode. Here's a handy run-down of who is doing what…

Laptop graphics have always been something of a joke performance wise. Nvidia and AMD do try, but cramming all those millions of transistors into a low-power, compact package just leads to massive expense and an inability to upgrade.

Wouldn't it be perfect if you could simply use a standard external graphics card to power your laptop's 3D graphics?

The good news is that you can. The suitably technical-sounding PE4H is just that; a passive PCI-e x16 to x1 adaptor, which enables you to plug an external graphics card into a laptop's ExpressCard slot. Currently we're only aware of it being available from the Taiwanese firm www.hwtools.net for around $100 including shipping.

Fraser Speirs is talking about changes caused by his school's radical shift in technology deployment.

Every pupil at Cedars School of Excellence, in Greenock, Scotland, is now armed with an iPad, creating an environment a world away from the typical 'computer room', and providing the potential for seamless integration of technology and traditional teaching.

The iPad project arose from day-to-day demands within the school. As Head of Computing, a dozen iMacs were fixed in Fraser's classroom, and a dozen MacBooks were available for booking; but with teachers increasingly wanting to provide pupils with web access, pressure and demand grew.

With laptop sales continuing to rise – up by 43.3 per cent in the first quarter of this year alone, according to Gartner – it would appear that more and more of us are riding the technology wave.

Keeping up to date with the latest advances in laptop computing enables us to work longer, faster and, generally, for less. The good news for gaming is that this relentless march of technology means it's no longer necessary to own a dedicated gaming laptop to enjoy the odd game now and again.

Of course, PC gamers who are serious about their entertainment will still benefit from pricey GPU technology – particularly if they're going to be playing cutting-edge games – but these days even netbooks are capable of keeping you amused.

We've been talking about the Blackberry Playbook tablet for months now, but only now at CES in Las Vegas have we been able to have a proper play with it. And boy is it impressive.

Of course, we're no strangers to Chrome OS here on TechRadar, but this is the first time we've been able to play with a near-ready (or perhaps even ready) build on a netbook.

Toshiba's flagship lenticular 3D TV is a 65-inch model, and it's joined by a 56-incher and a 20-inch unit. With no glasses needed, you can view from almost any angle and still get the 3D effect.

We're not entirely sure who Scan Computers is aiming to exact its vengeance upon with this rig, but by the numbers the 3XS Vengeance is producing it's a pretty safe bet it's going to manage it.

This is the first full PC we've seen to actually put the new second-generation Intel Core platform into context. You'll have read just how good this Sandy Bridge platform is by now, but until you actually see it in a machine, it's tough to quantify

The original Milestone certainly wasn't one of the prettiest or most elegant Android phones, but for those unable or unwilling to adapt to the touchscreen way of life, it provided a rare and welcome QWERTY option.

Things have changed over the last 12 months, with the arrival of Android powerhouse HTC on the QWERTY scene with its excellent HTC Desire Z. Has Motorola's design team got what it takes to compete?

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