Peter Nowak answers your questions from the Consumer Electronics Show

Japanese company Fujitsu is making its phones and tablets waterproof. Here, Fujitsu phones and tablets are immersed in water inside a fish tank at CES. (Peter Nowak)

We asked you to submit your questions for reporter Peter Nowak, who's covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Here's his first installment of answers:

"I would like to know with all the technology put into cellphones these days, why is it that they haven't made the screens and internal parts more able to take serious abuse? Why aren't they waterproof?" - Allan Jeffery Quinn

You're in luck, Allan. Waterproofing seems to be a big theme at this year's CES, with a number of manufacturers addressing the issue. Some, like Japan's Fujitsu, are making the devices themselves waterproof. The company's phones and tablets have rubber used in their construction and their various input ports are compartmentalized, so water doesn't get into them. These products are only available in Japan for now, but Fujitsu is at CES to see if there's a North American market for them. You should write the company and let them know how you feel! Other companies, such as Salt Lake City-based HzO is also here showing off a type of nano-coating that makes electronics water-resistant. With any luck, gadget makers will give this sort of technology a look.

"Has RIM released a developer beta for Playbook OS with working native email? How did RIM get around the security model based on a per device, rather than per user? Will that workaround work for BBM [BlackBerry Messenger]? Will BBM on Playbook be per device, per user, pki, something else? When will developers get a beta with working BBM? When will Playbook with working BBM be released to the public?" - Ziad Fazel

Hi Ziad - some of your questions are answered in a Q&A I did with Alec Saunders, RIM's vice-president of developer relations. In a nutshell, the BlackBerry maker has announced that the PlayBook 2.0 software will be available in February as a free download. It'll finally bring things like email and calender to the PlayBook. It won't, however, bring BlackBerry Messenger to the tablet. RIM isn't saying much about that yet.

How many of the products at CES 2012 are actually pegged to be launched within - let's be generous and say - six months of the expo? Also, how many of the things shown off are actual products and not just R&D that will never see a consumer release? Are there many "quasi-innovations" that are driven by marketing with the purpose to be used as upsells? - Alex

The short answer to your questions, Alex, is all of the above. It's hard to say how many total products are shown off at CES given that the event is so huge, but there are probably too many count. You're right - a good portion of them will never be released and some are simply marketing efforts, but that's sort of the point of CES. Companies bring their new technologies here to test them out and see if there's any appetite for them, both from the media and other companies that are here to buy and acquire. Last year's show was a great example - close to a hundred tablets were shown off, but only a few actually made it to stores. Manufacturers were able to suss out what their competitors had and assess whether they really stood a chance. That's actually one of the great things about CES.

You can still submit questions for Peter Nowak in the comments as well as by email. Keep them coming!