Rather than offer up some predictions about what will be unveiled at CES next week in Las Vegas, I've formulated a few products that I'd really like to see showcased on the floor -- but probably won't.1. A better business/media phone from Nokia. What I really want Nokia to do is to take the E90, its über-smartphone, and mate it with the N95. That way you'd have the best of business productivity tools with the best of entertainment and media features all smashed into one device. Nokia can call it the E95. Just make it a bit smaller than the E90, mkay? Another way to look at it is, I want an N series device from Nokia that has a QWERTY keyboard. That would work out pretty well, too. Likelihood: pretty much zero. Maybe at Mobile World Congress next month?

2. The next-generation smartphone from Palm. It would be brilliant if Palm thumbed its nose at the world and dropped a bomb at CES: a brand-new smartphone based on a Linux platform. Basically, I want it to be 2009. Palm is working on next-generation hardware and its newly revamped operating system (possibly from Access), but it has been delayed to late 2008 or early 2009. It would be awesome if all those announcements about delays were simply to put us off the trail so Palm could wow everyone. But there are some minimum specs required here. It has to be thin! No more beefiness allowed. It has to have a 2- or 3-megapixel camera. Stereo Bluetooth is necessary. More memory is required. No Blazer browser, please! Use Opera or some other mobile browser. Likelihood: zilch. C'mon, this is Palm we're talking about.

3. Prototype Android handsets. We've already seen Android running on some franken-hardware. What I want is the real deal. I'm sure Google has already approved some prototype handsets that run Android and probably even has them laying around in someone's lab. I want to see it. Touch it. Feel it. Play with it. I want to know that Android is real, and get a feel for how it works. Impress me Google. Likelihood: slim, but better than the above.

4. Sound-isolating headphones that are comfortable to wear. I don't like the over-the-ear, active noise-cancellation headphones made by companies such as Bose. They may sound incredible, but they look dorky as hell and are just too much to bring onto a plane or be seen anywhere in public with. So my tactic has been to go with sound-isolating headphones. You know, the kind that are basically earplugs with a speaker in them? I've tried 'em all. Shures. Etymotic Research. V-Moda. Senn. And on and on. Even experimenting with every type of insert known to man (dang those triple flanges hurt!), I have yet to find a pair that is actually comfortable to wear for extended periods of time and sounds good. Oh, and a cost of less than $150 would be nice. Can anyone get the job done? Anyone? Likelihood: It's possible.

5. Breakthrough battery technology. Let's face it. One of the major shortcomings of portable electronics is battery life. Most laptops die off at the four- or five-hour mark. Sooner if you're watching movies with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios on. Cell phones? Well, each one is drastically different. The worst barely last a day, the best last closer to a week. I think seven days of battery life would be awesome for cellular phones. Laptops? Can't anyone give us 10 hours in a single battery? The problem is lithium-ion battery technology is improving only marginally each year. Power management has been improved, more than anything else, to give us more minutes of talk time. I think it would make my week in Las Vegas if a company came up with a new way to provide electronics power. One that lasts longer and is cheaper to deploy. Likelihood: only a daydream ...