Are you ready to talk to your toilet? Those are just a few of the ideas we've seen at CES 2018, the annual consumer technology confab here at the Las Vegas Convention Center and other venues. Sure, there are tech titans here battling to control our computers, TVs and smart homes. But our favorite part is the thousands of other companies that gather to launch something new. While these ideas sometimes catch on, like fitness trackers and wireless ear buds, many go nowhere.

Jennifer Jolly's coolest gadgets from CES you'll actually see in your home this year. A New Year means one thing in the world of gadgets -- a trip to Las Vegas for CES. It's the enormous consumer electronics show packed with nearly 50-football fields worth of shiny new tech toys. Somewhere inside the cavernous convention center crowded with TV's we can't afford, concept cars we'll never drive, and stupid "smart" things we'll never use (Alexa-enabled toilet…really?), there's always a handful of gadgets that really can hit the jackpot of product-perfection. That's what I set out to find early-on here in Las Vegas. Here are my favorites so far.

And although some of jump is a result of continuing tech trends that have been playing out for years – consumer demand for smartphones, for example, is expected to generate a 3 percent uptick in product revenues this year – a substantial portion of the gains were attributed to new data-heavy technologies like the Amazon Alexa and Google Home digital assistants.

Lest you doubt that Google is serious about spreading its AI to every nook and cranny of the consumer electronics universe, consider today's CES 2018 reveal: Google just announced four new "smart displays" from Lenovo, JBL, LG and Sony, plus a bevy of smart speakers and TVs from other partners, almost too numerous to mention. And all these devices come with Google Assistant baked in. This is a shot across the bough of Amazon, whose Alexa digital assistant is appearing in more and more third-party devices, as well. Google also announced that Google Assistant is coming to Android Auto dashboard units, and gave an official name--"Actions"--to all the commands and queries you can voice to Google Assistant. But the big news centers on smart displays, which offer capabilities you won't find in Google's own Google Home, Google Home Mini or Google Home Max smart speakers.

Voice control was all the rage at CES 2017 and this year's show appears to continue the trend. This time, another big name in audio is getting into the game: Klipsch. The company will have options for both Alexa and Google Assistant, so you'll have some choice when it comes to the new feature and new audio gear. For Alexa integration, Klipsch is employing Amazon's Connected Speaker APIs to enable you to control its speakers with commands spoken to any device equipped with the virtual assistant -- like the Echo or Echo Dot. Any of Klipsch's Stream wireless multi-room speakers can take advantage, including Reference RSB-14 and RSB-8 sound bars, the Three Heritage wireless speaker, RW-1 wireless speaker and both the Gate and PowerGate amps.

Apple never really participates in CES, but there was a time when Apple would dominate the show without showing up. Not too long ago, booths would be filled with clocks, cases, speakers, and pie-in-the-sky concepts specifically made for the iPhone, and the buzz would be all about the next Apple product in the pipeline. Kohler announced a smart mirror at CES 2018. While you'll find iOS accessories and iPhone X cases if you're looking for them, the news coming out of CES floor is dominated by smart home gadgets and connectivity. From showers to speakers and everything in between, CES is all about making the dumb things in your home smart.

Qualcomm executives called the new Asus Lyra Voice a model for routers going forward: partly a speaker, partly a router, and powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant. The company said it's trying to convince ISPs like Cox and Comcast to move in that direction. Unlike AMD and Intel, you can't buy Qualcomm chips to build your own smartphones and routers. But when company executives take the stage at CES to describe how future products should look, it's worth paying attention. Qualcomm announced three versions of its Smart Audio Platform--complete with a quad-core ARM A53 processor, audio DSP, 802.11ac

Alexa and Google Assistant are appearing on what seems like every single gadget at CES 2018, but Cortana's absence from the party has made it the butt of jokes. Luckily, Qualcomm has announced that it's Smart Audio Platform, which includes microphone, speaker and voice recognition tech, now supports Cortana. That will make it a lot easier for smart speaker manufacturers to build devices around the neglected bot, instead of Google and Amazon's more popular platforms. Microsoft's Cortana has recently landed on Harmon Kardon's Invoke speakers (below) and its own Cortana thermostat. Apart from those wins, however, it's getting badly beaten in its race with Amazon and Google to get voice AI onto gadgets.

A number of dating apps in China were shut down by the police after it was found that they were actually run by automated robots. According to BBC, more than 600 suspects, associated with 21 Chinese companies, were arrested by the police after then startling discovery and at least 12 dating apps were shut down. The fraudulent apps operated across 13 provinces in the country, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. The investigation into the matter began in August 2017 when the police tried to crack down on one such app, operating in southern Guangdong province, China, that charged money from customers for in exchange for viewing pornographic videos that did not exist. Further investigation revealed that one of the company's staff members had created fake "sexy girl" accounts, in order to dupe newly registered customers and con them of their money. These accounts were programmed to send out automatically generated greetings and compliments to customers who thought that they were interacting with real women.

Qualcomm has announced a new chipset that the company claims will vastly improve wireless earbuds and solve the device's biggest problem. Called the QCC5100, the new Qualcomm SoC (system-on-chip) will be able to deliver three times the battery life of future wireless earbuds. "This breakthrough single-chip solution is designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and offers enhanced processing capabilities to help our customers build new life-enhancing, feature-rich devices," Qualcomm senior vice president Anthony Murray said. "This will open new possibilities for extended-use hearable applications including virtual assistants, augmented hearing and enhanced listening" The Qualcomm QCC5100 series chipset will be made available to makers of truly wireless earbuds soon. It comes with its own dedicated application processor sub-system, dual DSP architecture and next-gen ADK software.