Hundreds of futuristic, fanciful and frivolous electronic products were laid out at two industry events last week. The main event was the Consumer Electronics Show, which drew 2,700 exhibitors and 150,000 visitors in Las Vegas. Further west, Apple Computer made a splash with its iPhone at the annual Macworld conference in San Francisco.

Apple enters the mobile handheld market with a five-ounce iPhone, which unites features of the iPod, digital camera, smart phones and even portable computing. Users control the phone by sliding a finger across its touch-sensitive display, which is 3.5 inches wide. It can seamlessly sync data with a Mac, PC, or Internet service, including music and videos from iTunes, contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks and e-mail accounts.

Warner Brothers, earned attention at the Vegas convention with a Total HD hybrid videodisc that works in Blu-ray and high-definition DVD players. Sharp unveiled the world�s biggest TV -- a 108-inch flat panel behemoth. Samsung introduced a sleek, double-sided, combination cell phone-music player.

New MP3 player: The SanDisk Sansa Connect earns coolness credits for letting users share files wirelessly via a subscription to a music service. It's the size of a business card, stores 8GB of tunes and can receive real-time Internet radio.

Apple CEO says: �Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.� � Steve Jobs on his company�s iPhone

Dubious devices: Some gizmos at the Consumer Electronics Show drew who-needs-it comments. Items in that category include a barbecue grill thermometer that broadcasts temperature readings wirelessly to a hand-held speaker, a �Buttkicker� vibrator that shakes seat cushions in sync with sound from a televised movie or concert score and a floor-mopping robot that costs $1,000.