Android Tablets and Smartphones to Steal the Show at CES

Fortune said 2011 will be the year Google's Android operating system "explodes" across the technosphere on smartphones, tablet computers and other devices hardware manufacturers cook up.

Time for a level set: "Explodes," or some variation thereof, is the dramatic euphemism people in the technology industry employ to proclaim that a product is set for some super definitive growth. In this case, it's the kind that blows RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iOS smartphone platforms out of the water.

Android fans will wince at the too-common use of the expression "Android explodes." This is because it may be turned for mischievous purposes to describe what an Android phone does when a user holds it up to his ear or what an Android tablet does when a user swipes it with her fingers.

So "explodes" may be a tad rich a description, but if there is any event that could signal that Android is ripe for hyper growth (Fortune apparently doesn't see Android's rise to 23.5 percent of U.S. smartphone share in 2010 as "explosion" worthy), it's the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. The annual event commences in earnest Jan. 5 in Las Vegas.

eWEEK's Clint Boulton and Nicholas Kolakowski will be attending. Here is a preview of a handful of Android-related announcements the reporters expect to hear and see.