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adget freaks should start saving their pennies as the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), currently taking place in Las Vegas, unveils thousands of innovative electronic products that will become available in the marketplace in the coming months.

Product innovations mainly revolve around their capability to integrate with smart technology and broadband internet access.

For example, Toshiba introduced its smart blu-ray disc players that features new capabilities allowing consumers to directly stream audio-visual media and to also connect to a home network.

The disc player also offers a feature called the “MediaShare”, which is a simple Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) interface that enables the player to access content from other DLNA-compatible devices.

Toshiba plans to officially launch their new blu-ray disc players to the public in April.

Samsung also unveiled its new line of smart blu-ray disc players during the CES.

Samsung’s senior vice president of visual display business, Sangchul Lee, boasts that the newly released players feature an innovative “disc to digital” feature that will enable consumers to turn their personal DVD collection into digital content and then share it on multiple devices, anyplace and anytime.

Samsung’s new line of blu-ray products also includes a full web browser and content services delivered through Samsung’s Smart Hub.

“Consumers now have an endless list of connectivity options and services for a true multiscreen experience,” Sangchul said.

Another trend that was apparent during the CES was the introduction of hybrid-like products.

One of the hybrid-like products that caught visitors’ attention was Lenovo’s Yoga. The Yoga is like a marriage of Apple’s iPad tablet and a notebook. This product allows consumers to easily shift the Yoga to become a tablet from a notebook and vice versa simply by flipping its screen 180 degrees to the back of the keyboard pad.

Michael Littler, the representative of Chinese personal computer (PC) manufacturer Lenovo, said the company wanted the Yoga to cater to the needs of a market segment that wanted to experience the comfort of using a tablet but with the vast capability of a notebook at the same time.

Besides the Yoga, Lenovo also introduced what is undoubtedly the largest tablet so far released, with a 27-inch screen — the so-called A720.

Lenovo plans to launch the Yoga in the second half of 2012 with an estimated starting retail price of US$1,199, while the A720 will be launched during the first half of 2012 with an estimated price of $1,299.

Most of Lenovo’s products have an “Apple-like” appearance but the company’s vice president for marketing and communication for emerging markets, Howie Lau, said Lenovo had no intention to become an Apple doppelganger and claimed that the designs were based on the company’s research into consumers’ desires.

The CES, which runs until Friday, also features Intel Corporation’s debut into the smart phone market.

Intel announced it had struck a multi-year, multi-device, strategic agreement with Motorola Mobility Inc. Intel also appointed Lenovo to become its official partner to ship their first Intel-based smart phones.

“Our efforts with Lenovo and Motorola Mobility will help to establish Intel processors in smart phones and provide a solid foundation upon which we can build in 2012 and on into the future,” Intel president and chief executive officer (CEO) Paul Otellini said.

Meanwhile, Lenovo’s chairman and CEO, Yang Yuanqing, said the company expected to garner at least 10 percent of the market share in Indonesia’s PC industry, up from 7.9 percent last year.

Indonesia’s PC market share is currently dominated by Acer with around 26 percent.

“Indonesia is definitely the next high potential market. We haven’t been very successful in Indonesia. We have very little market share in Indonesia,” Yang admitted on the sidelines of the CES.

Lenovo considers Indonesia as one of its emerging market regions, which include all countries outside the United States, Japan, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Yang said that obtaining a minimum of a double digit market share in emerging markets was essential because the company, which managed to become the second-largest PC manufacturer in the world last year, also planned to further expand its product range by introducing smart phones, tablets and smart televisions to regions outside of China.

“That’s how it works. We haven’t made a lot of money in emerging markets. But we believe that if you don’t have double-digit market share, if you are not relevant to the market, it will be very hard to make money,” he said.

Separately, Lenovo’s Howie Lau said he was optimistic the company would be able not only to improve its PC market share in Indonesia but also become one of the major players in the smart technology industry.

“On a corporate level, Indonesia is one of our key markets. We’ve been growing steadily in Indonesia over the last few years .... We see a lot of potential for growth,” he said.

Howie said that Indonesia’s technology consumers had shown the ability to accept new innovations coming into its market within the last few years and, therefore, he was confident that Lenovo’s smart technology products, such as their smart phones, would also be positively received by consumers in Indonesia.