I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday. We’re still digging out from some pretty big storms and flooding here in northern California, but the tech world is gearing up for a week of major announcements coming out of the venerable CES show in Las Vegas. If you’re a gadget lover CES is definitely the place to be this week, and we can expect plenty of telecom-related announcements too. I’ll be down at the show later this week and will report on the most interesting of these, but here’s a teaser of a few things that are coming out in the new year.

• Samsung demonstrates 3.6 Mbps cell phone based on new High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology.
• Skype is announcing a bunch of new prodcuts and parnterships, like the IPEVO USB cordless phones and a voice-enabled photo sharing service with Kodak.
• MatrixStream will be showing off their H.264 Video on Demand and IPTV Set Top Box (STB). (Expect a lot of action around IPTV coming this year).

Check back often, as we’ll do our best to wade through the flood of tech announcements coming out of Vegas this week and let you know about the key products and moves that will impact the world of telephony this year.