The International Consumer Electronics Show kicked off on Tuesday with a dazzling array of high-tech gadgetry including ultra-thin laptops, snazzy smartphones, iPad rivals and flat-screen and 3D TVs.

A record 3,100 companies from around the world have staked out booths in the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center for the four-day event, displaying their wares over a space equivalent to more than 35 football fields.

Microsoft plans to bring its Kinect technology to bear on personal computers following its phenomenal success with the gesture and voice-recognition sensor in the Xbox 360 game console.

"I'm thrilled to announce that Kinect is coming to Windows on February 1," Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said in his final keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which opens in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

A backpack is handy for carrying things around but how about one that can also charge your smartphone?

That's the promise of Powerbag, a backpack equipped with a built-in battery that is one of the thousands of new products going on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which opens in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

As sleek new smartphones prepared to make splashes at the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, a California firm was out to prevent water from being the death of them.

Liquipel was showing off a clear coating a thousand times thinner than a human hair that shields smartphones outside and inside from damaging effects of water.

South Korea's LG Electronics, a leader in smart appliances, has hit on a solution to a common frustration -- how to chill canned or bottled drinks in less than half an hour.

A new refrigerator displayed by LG on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas promises to make drinks ice-cold in just minutes with a feature known as the "Blast Chiller."

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, seeking to expand its presence in the United States and Europe, unveiled the world's slimmest smartphone on Monday.

At 0.26 inches (6.68 millimeters), the Ascend P1S is thinner than the width of a pencil. Apple's latest iPhone, the 4S, by comparison, has a thickness of 0.37 inches (9.3 mm).

Tom Hanks' long gestating Web series is coming to Yahoo.

"Electric City," an animated futuristic series Hanks has been developing for years, will premiere on Yahoo this spring. The series includes 20 episodes, each three- or four-minutes long.

Acer unveiled the world's thinnest laptop computer as an array of "ultrabook" rivals prepared to debut this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Taiwan-based computer titan will begin shipping Acer Aspire 5 models in the second quarter of this year, with prices to be disclosed in coming weeks.

Email addresses and passwords belonging to British, U.S. and NATO officials were posted online following the hacking of a U.S. intelligence analysis firm over Christmas, the Guardian daily reported Monday.

Online "hacktivist" group Anonymous claimed via Twitter on Christmas Day that it had stolen a trove of emails and credit card information from Stratfor's member subscribers.

A Bangladeshi high court on Sunday ordered police to prosecute a university lecturer for sedition after he wished for the death of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Facebook, a state prosecutor said.

The same court handed Jahangirnagar University teacher Ruhul Khandakar six months in jail last week for contempt of court after he failed to respond to repeated summonses to explain his Facebook posting.