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CORRECTION APPENDED When Steve Jobs talked about the iPad's rivals, he didn't mince words. ''If you see a stylus, they blew it,'' he said in 2010. Well, in that case, thousands of people are happily blowing it every day. The stylus is one of the most popular accessories in the touch-screen age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pity the poor flight attendant. They didn't sign up for this: millions of petulant airline passengers surreptitiously reading digital books and magazines on their iPads or Kindles during takeoff and landing. The flight attendants' job was never easy. Glamorous once, at times rewarding. But now they have to stroll the aisles of a plane while it lingers at the gate or on the runway to ensure that people turn off their smartphones, computers or tablets - yes, ''Off, not in Airplane Mode.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The International Consumer Electronics Show, which will open on Tuesday in Las Vegas, is impossible to ignore. It will smother the city's gigantic convention center with gadgets and those who make and promote them; more than 140,000 people are expected to attend for a frenzy of old-fashioned social networking with other members of the tech set. But once again, the show is unlikely to be where any blockbuster products of 2012 are introduced. Many of the hottest new gadgets in recent years -- including Apple's iPad and iPhone, Microsoft's Kinect and Amazon's Kindle Fire -- were first announced at other events, even though C.E.S. remains the world's biggest consumer technology convention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CORRECTION APPENDED ''An utter disappointment and abysmal failure'' (Orange County Design Blog). ''Consumers seem genuinely baffled by why they might need it'' (Businessweek). ''Nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks'' (Bloomberg). ''Insanely great it is not'' (MarketWatch). ''My god, am I underwhelmed'' (Gizmodo). Good heavens! What a critical drubbing! Whatever it is must be a real turkey. What could it be? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mystique that Apple cloaks itself in when introducing snazzy gadgets, like the new iPad it is expected to unveil this week, has served its bottom line well. But that same opacity doesn't translate well to corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Of all the news releases inundating my in-box in the weeks before the annual Consumer Electronics Show - new cameras, new computer chips, a ton of gadgets for the iPhone and iPad - the one least likely to catch the attention of any au courant reviewer was about a new phonograph preamplifier. Of course, it caught mine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]