LAS VEGAS -- Some companies spend millions building huge booths and producing glitzy stage shows for the Consumer Electronics Show.

Perpetua, a little energy-device company in Corvallis, Ore., sent Jerry Wiant with a laptop and a few gadgets to set on a table.

That's all it took to hook me, though.

Wiant's demonstration of "energy harvesting" gizmos was one of the most intriguing things I saw at the massive event last week.

Maybe that's because the bigger companies were holding back this year, making it hard to find radically new products.

There were lots of improvements on display -- brighter TVs, thinner computers and faster memory cards -- but not many huge breakthroughs apparent on the show floor.

The annual gadget fest suggests that every year we should expect waves of exciting new products, but in reality the cycles of research, development and technological change are longer, and some years bring more iteration than innovation to Las Vegas.

Still, there were plenty of exciting new products and some far-out creations that left me excited about what's still around the corner.

Like Perpetua's technology for powering gadgets with body heat instead of batteries.

Drawing on research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Perpetua developed thermoelectric devices that convert temperature differences in dissimilar metals into electricity.

Since 2005 the company has been selling these energy-harvesting systems for industrial use, where they may be attached to warm pipes to power sensor systems, for instance. A number of employees came to the company from Hewlett-Packard's Corvallis printer operation, and Perpetua's devices are built in a way similar to HP's inkjet hardware.

Now Perpetua is working on smaller, wearable versions that generate electricity just from a person's body heat. The National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security are helping fund the research. The company also partnered with Texas Instruments to add wireless connectivity to the devices.

Within a few years, Perpetua's wearable devices could be used to power consumer gadgets, starting with fitness sensors and medical devices.

To show the concept at CES, Wiant had a small thermoelectric generator connected to a digital watch. Pressing your finger on the generator provided enough heat to power the device. Also on display was a prototype armband.

Wiant's show booth -- really just a table with a display board -- was in a far corner dedicated to innovative startups.

I didn't realize Wiant's company was just down the road until we started talking. Then I also found out that the company was funded partly from the proceeds of a startup -- Internet marketing company TrafficLeader -- that Wiant sold to Seattle's Marchex in 2003. He was an early investor in Perpetua and became its vice president of marketing in 2008.

Friday, as he packed up, Wiant said he didn't have much time to tour the show because he was busy manning the booth.

But he said it was worthwhile, and Perpetua drew a lot of interest from potential business partners.

"I have a stack of cards about 20 deep that are serious opportunities, which is really good," he said.

If one or two of those contacts come forward with development funding, he said, Perpetua could release the wearable thermoelectric products in 2013 or 2014.

Maybe Wiant will be back in Vegas then with a bigger booth. It shouldn't be hard to miss -- if it can harvest the energy of 150,000 conventioneers looking for the next big thing.

(Today's column from CES, on Microsoft's Windows and tablet news ...)

LAS VEGAS -- Here at the Consumer Electronics Show, you can see every TV set, iPhone accessory and cellphone ever imagined.

There are thousands of products in more than a million square feet of exhibition space, packed with more than 140,000 people.

But what's really hard to find are people who understand what Microsoft is up to with its mysterious pronouncements at the show about the next version of Windows. It took me four days to come up with a few guesses.

I'm talking about the centerpiece of Chief Executive Steve Ballmer's keynote -- the show's grand opening event, where thousands come to hear what's next from a company straddling the computer, phone and entertainment industries.

Ballmer used the spotlight to present hardware test beds running the next version of Windows on the tiny processors used in phones and Web tablets.

Ballmer also touted the Xbox and Windows Phone 7 with flashy demonstrations.

But his Big Deal was a demonstration of this new software and hardware running Office, Quicken and a high-definition video clip in Windows Media Player.

This probably would win the blue ribbon and scholarship offers at a university computer-science fair. It also sent various messages to Microsoft's industry partners and competitors. But it seemed strangely out of place as the opening spectacle at CES, where most people couldn't understand the semaphore and Microsoft refused to explain the flags.

Microsoft was so reserved and calculated with the presentation, you were left feeling that the company was keeping the cool new stuff under wraps, and using CES to check off a milestone in its secret release schedule.

In years past, Microsoft set the show's tone. Bill Gates used to open the event with bold predictions about software and PC technology spreading into TVs, refrigerators and Web tablets. His keynote usually had a funny video or two, perhaps a celebrity appearance and a few exciting prototypes.

This year Ballmer showed Microsoft is making an important move. It's extending Windows to the minuscule hardware used to produce phenomenally thin and light mobile Web devices. The hardware is primarily based on the ARM architecture that's dominant in smartphones and Web tablets.

A lot of people think Microsoft missed this boat and will never get past the iPad's wake. The bigger competition, though, may be Google and its Android operating system, which was powering nearly all of the new tablets and smartphones debuting at the show.

Either way, Microsoft's big investment into ARM is "a huge, but necessary, step for the company as it works to re-engage with the booming mobile device space," IDC analyst Al Gillen said in a research note.

What's a little strange is that Microsoft already has versions of Windows that run on ARM. The Windows phone software runs on ARM; its mobile Windows CE software has run on ARM since 1996.

But Ballmer made it clear at CES that Microsoft intends to put the full version of Windows on mobile devices coming in 2012 and beyond. He said customers expect "the full range of capabilities from any device" and Windows "will be everywhere on every kind of device without compromise."

Once again, Microsoft is insisting that the full version of Windows be used on what it considers to be primary computing devices.

That gives the devices the benefit of Windows' support for all sorts of programs and hardware. But it can also put a heavy load on the system, affecting performance and battery life.

By pushing "big Windows" onto tablets, Microsoft is saying it considers these devices to be full-powered computing systems, with the capabilities of a laptop. Not just a tablet for browsing and running Web applications.

This pronouncement comes as the definition of Web tablets, and portable computers, is in flux.

Consumers and the industry are still trying to figure out the mix of computing devices we'll use to work, play and communicate.

Microsoft is taking a different path than Apple, which opted to produce a slimmed-down version of its operating system for the iPhone and the iPad. Its mobile operating system has fewer capabilities, but works well for the hardware.

The bigger competition appears to be the Android, which Google gives away free. Android is already overtaking the iPhone and is now aimed at the iPad with a refined version for tablets coming out later this year. Google demonstrated the upgrade at CES, and it looks like it could also become a competitor to Windows 7 and Apple's OS X.

Microsoft has to make some bold moves, because its execution hasn't kept up with its vision for mobile computing.

Early on, the company saw the potential for tablets and smartphones. The first Windows tablets launched in 2002, nearly a decade before the iPad, and its ultra-mobile, handheld PCs launched a year before the iPhone.

Yet ultra-mobile PCs were held back in part because Microsoft opted to use the full version of Windows. Hardware at the time wasn't powerful enough and was too expensive.

Sales were poor and PC makers turned to netbooks.

There were hints Microsoft figured this out. After the iPhone cleaned its clock, the phone group rebuilt its unwieldy operating system, sharpened its focus and unveiled Windows Phone 7.

Windows 7 was also supposed to be better for tablets, with the ability to remove more components and lighten the system, and improvements to touch controls.

But, for tablets, Microsoft's biggest partners are turning from Windows. Dell's new Streak tablet runs Android on ARM, and Hewlett-Packard's next tablets run its own operating system.

It seems Microsoft, with the strategy Ballmer discussed the other night, is moving to reverse that.

But even if it makes full Windows work well with devices, huge obstacles stand in its way -- if my tour of the international section of CES is an indication

A walk through the crowded stalls where Chinese and Taiwanese companies hawk every gadget imaginable, from flashlights to holographic video players, suggested Asian factories are gearing up to produce millions of Android tablets this year.

Last year, this zone was full of netbooks; before that it was iPhone and iPod knockoffs. This year every other company seemed to offering Android tablets, most with ARM processors.

But after talking to one of the manufacturers, I'm not counting on a flood of Windows ARM (WARM?) tablets at the 2012 CES.

The issue isn't hardware support or the software's capability as much as price, according to William Hsaio, deputy general manager of Hopeland Digital in Shenzhen China.

Hsaio hadn't heard of Microsoft's plan for the next version of Windows to run on ARM. But he said it won't matter when he can get Android free.

"Windows? Too expensive for our market," he said. "One license costs $30, $40. That's huge money."

(UPDATE: After this was filed, I heard from a veteran Microsoft engineer who shared a few thoughts. He said it could turn out to be more like Apple's approach after all - taking a legacy operating system to new processor architecture, with more constrained computational abilities, and leaving legacy applications behind.

Deep changes in Windows to make it run well on mobile hardware could result in new efficiencies and responsiveness that would also improve things on Intel x86 architecture.

Maybe we'll learn more about what's meant by "full power" Windows on mobile hardware at Microsoft's Mix conference in April or a developer conference later in the year.)

Here is Ballmer's keynote:

There are plenty of Windows 7 tablets to challenge the iPad if you look hard enough at CES, or live in Asia.

I guess people won't have to wait for Windows 8 on ARM processors after all.

Here are a few of the Windows 7 tablets on display here and there, among the dozens and dozens of Android tablets.

The Moneaul M-Pad that will cost $400 to $600 in Korea. It's based on Intel's Atom N455 processor, has an SD slot, 10-inch touchscreen and 16 or 32 gigabytes of memory.

The Padows 20 also has a 10-inch screen, Intel N455 and 16 or 32 gigs of memory. It also has an accessory keyboard. Wholesale, it's $280 FOB in Hong Kong from Shenzhen Jumper Computer Technology Co. Ltd.

Is that an iPad, or a Padows 20?

Intel showed HP's Windows 7 Slate 500. Steve Ballmer - who unveiled the Slate during the previous CES - didn't mention the device this year:

One reason Windows tablets are a tougher sell is because there are relatively few accessories compared to what's available for the iPad. I think about 5 percent of the booths are displaying iPad accessories, but this one deserves a special award:

LAS VEGAS -- Here's a demonstration of how content can be streamed from a Windows Phone to the new set-top boxes based on Windows Media Center running on an embedded version of Windows.

The devices take advantage of a "play to" capability built into Windows and based on DLNA media networking standards.

Mark Pendergrast, senior program manager, is showing the technology here at CES.

LAS VEGAS -- The hall full of car stereos and auto gadgets is getting smaller, squeezed by new areas for health products and accessories for the iPad and other Apple gadgets.

Carmakers are also higher profile as they recast cars and trucks as rolling gadgets, with electric propulsion and dashboard computers.

But there are still a few crazy hot rods to be found on the 1.4 million square feet of show floor. Here are a few of my favorites so far.

Audi may start selling this all-electric "e-tron" by the end of 2012. Buyers will need every tax credit they can get:

The University of Washington may have to test this Murcielago's resistance to bass vibrations:

Tell Police Commissioner Diaz it's time for the Batt Kruiser ...

They couldn't squeeze this one into the Corvette:

Arc Audio heard people are into electric cars nowadays, so it built this battery-powered rig on a 1959 Cushman platform with a 1923 Model T bucket grafted on:

Will eco-friendly Seattle provide special privileges to this Sony Hybrid Scion?

This Nissan provides carbon offsets to the Leaf. Cities need to provide it with special fueling stations:

So what wrench do you use on this Ford hybrid motor?

Speaking of hybrids, Polaris brought one of its all-electric, all-terrain vehicles, which went on sale last fall. A spokesman told me they're popular at retirement communities among men who want something cooler than golf carts to drive around:

They could really blast the oldies in this one:

Monster's Audi and Bentley were parked at the Paris Las Vegas hotel:


Pioneer brought three Camaros with different levels of customization, to illustrate it's "mild to wild" entertainment options:

This one's just for show -- it's basically a chair, equipped with a car stereo, an LCD panel and a PlayStation 3 - with racing games:

Win a Tesla!

LAS VEGAS -- Here's a new plasma TV on which you can draw pictures and manipulate images with a pen.

Actually it's a stylus that receives infrared signals from the screen. LG will begin selling the displays in about six or seven months. It would be great fun in a rec room, but it's intended for retail and commercial displays.

LAS VEGAS -- Here are a few TVs that caught my eye on a partial walk through the show floor. I'll post more as I have time.

Mitsubishi showed a prototype 155-inch OLED display that could be used at home, but it's really intended for commercial displays. The set is huge, but it could get much bigger; it's made up of 5 x 9 inch panels, and more panels can be added to make the set as big as you want. Its resolution is 640 by 1152.

Here's the world's slimmest OLED display at 2.9 millimeters thick, according to LG, which is selling the 15-inch diagonal model for $1,700. A 31-inch model below is a prototype that may not go on sale for a year or two.

Here's an overhead view of the thinnest OLED:

A dual-screen Mercedes:

Sony's prototype, glasses-free OLED 3-D TV with a 24.5-inch screen and 1920 x 1080p resolution:

Another shot of the OLED 3-D prototype, which was displayed in a dark alcove:

I think there are some cool TVs over there somewhere:

LAS VEGAS -- Here's a quick video of the trippy video display that greets visitors in the central hall of CES and captures the frenetic feeling of the show floor. The effect is especially strong if you've just come from the Bob Marley iPod accessory booth.

The LG sets on display are about a half-inch thick and connect to Web services like Hulu Plus, by the way.

LAS VEGAS -- Nike is using CES to launch a new gadget in its "Nike Plus" line, which began in 2006 with an in-shoe sensor that connects to an iPod to track and record running activity.

The company is introducing the "Nike+ SportWatch GPS," with GPS services provided by TomTom. It doesn't help runners navigate, but it keeps track of where they go, so their progress can be mapped and shared when they return and sync the watch with a computer.

It's relatively low tech compared with some of the gadgets at the show, but the watch sits at the intersection of a few big trends, including the growing use of geolocation services, new applications of social Web services and the surge of connected devices for health and fitness.

Nike's iPhone apps already let users share their running progress via Facebook and Twitter, so friends online can send them cheers and encouragement relayed through the phone during the run.

The watch won't receive cheers, but it will give kudos when milestones and record speeds are reached, such as a user's best 10k time. Nike's also introducing a "check in" service to let users stake a virtual claim to particular routes and socialize with habitues.

Inside the rubbery band is a hidden USB plug also used to charge the battery, which lasts about nine hours. The watch also works with Nike Plus sensors in shoes, so it keeps tracking steps when used indoors or where GPS reception isn't available.

Nike's been stepping up (sorry ...) its in-house software development as its Plus line has grown beyond the original partnership with Apple. A wristband that holds a Plus sensor was introduced in 2008 and a band with a heart monitor went on sale five months ago.

GPS capabilities were added last September with a $2 iPhone app that's the top health and fitness app on iTunes with more than 500,000 downloads, according to Ricky Engelberg, director of digital sports experiences at the Beaverton, Ore.-based company.

The watch provides similar capabilities for those who don't own an iPhone or don't want to take one along on their run. It's sort of waterproof -- Engelberg said it can be worn for a quick swim but lengthy immersion isn't a good idea.

Nike is simultaneously upgrading the website where users upload and track their runs. The site's getting a new mapping service, based on Google Maps, in March just before the watch goes on sale April 1. The price is undisclosed but it should be between $199 and $299.

The watch and mapping services would also be cool for cyclists and walkers but Nike doesn't have any immediate plans to broaden the scope of the Web service, which remains focused on running, Engelberg said.

Here's a video of Engelberg demonstrating the watch:

LAS VEGAS -- HTC, which introduced the first 4G phone last year with Sprint, today announced two more for the fast networks.

The announcement came just after Motorola announced the "Bionic" Droid phone for Verizon's 4G LTE network and the potent dual-core Atrix for AT&T.

The Atrix is a quasi 4G phone for AT&T's HSPA+ network, which the carrier is calling 4G even though it's really a boosted version of 3G. HTC also announced one of these quasi 4G phones for AT&T.

HTC -- a Taiwanese company with U.S. operations in the Seattle area -- announced the ThunderBolt for Verizon's new LTE network. The touchscreen, Android-based phone has a 4.3-inch screen, 8 megapixel camer, HD video and DLNA media streaming capabilities.

Skype, including video chat capabilities, are built into the ThunderBolt. Pricing and availability weren't disclosed.

For Sprint, HTC is making the EVO Shift, an Android 2.2 model with a 3.6-inch touchscreen and slide-out physical keyboard. It's going on sale Jan. 9 for $150, after a $100 rebate.

For AT&T, HTC is making the Inspire 4G, an aluminum touchscreen model with a 4.3-inch screen and surround sound. HTC is also offering Web services to map the phone's location if it's lost, or wipe its data if the phone is stolen. It's coming out in the first quarter.

Here's the Motorola Bionic for Verizon, followed by the Atrix, which has an Nvidia Tegra processor and 16 gigabytes of storage:

LAS VEGAS -- It's all about the network, according to Verizon Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg.

During his opening-day keynote at CES this morning, Seidenberg talked about the rapid growth of mobile phones and broadband in the U.S. A decade ago, a third of consumers had cellphones, where now 90 percent own the devices.

Meanwhile, broadband has gone from a rarity to a service used by more than 85 million homes in the country. Seidenberg noted that Verizon's broadband service is now available at up to 150 megabits per second and engineers have tested 1 gigabit residential service on the same infrastructure.

Wireless data is more than doubling every year, smartphones sales are growing at almost 90 percent a year, and mobile broadband is enabling a new computing platform for mobile applications. Altogether, the connectivity is creating the biggest opportunity ever for technology products "the world has ever known," he said.

Verizon brought Motorola Mobility Chief Executive Sanjay Jha on stage to show two 4G devices, including the Droid Bionic smartphone and Xoom tablet, both of which run Google's Android software and have dual-core processors. The Bionic launches in February, but won't run on 4G until an update comes in the second quarter. The Xoom also launches in the second quarter.

The company also drew aahs with a demo of Google's new "Honeycomb" version of Android for tablets, presented by Mike Cleron, Google's principal engineer on the project.

Google's big presence was almost enough to make people forget all the earlier speculation that Seidenberg would use the keynote to announce a Verizon iPhone. It turned out there was no mention of Apple at all.

Seidenberg did note the fast progress to the 4G LTE service that launched last month in 38 markets (including Seattle) and is expected to cover the country within 18 months. Verizon started the project in 2007, three years after launching its 4G network.

On Wednesday, AT&T announced that its 4G network will launch this summer, and Clearwire is testing LTE technology in parallel with its WiMax network.

There wasn't much focus on individual devices until Motorola's Jha came on stage. Seidenberg said additional devices coming later this year will be shown at a separate press event later today. Those devices include 4G products from HTC and Hewlett-Packard.

Here's a video of the Honeycomb preview:

LAS VEGAS -- There weren't many gadgets at Microsoft's press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show today, at least not the kind you'll see at Best Buy any time soon.

Most of the event was a primer on Windows hardware engineering by Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division.

Sinofsky had a few new computers on the stage, including a Samsung tablet with a phonelike slide-out keyboard. The 2.2-pound system has nine hours of battery life, a touchscreen, solid-state memory and goes on sale in March starting at $699.

There was also a quick peek at a Samsung Surface computer in a 4-inch thick case, about the size of a circa 2008 flat-panel television.

But the highlight of Sinofsky's hourlong session was a geeky demonstration of the next version of Windows running on ARM mobile processors mounted on test boards.

Details were limited, but the message was clearly that Microsoft's been doing lots of re-engineering of Windows and work with processor companies as it prepares to pounce on the fast-growing market for ARM-powered mobile devices with its primary operating-system.

The software used the Windows 7 interface so what was being shown was that Microsoft's next operating system will run on the same kind of mobile processors that power the iPad and most smartphones. The company in July announced a licensing deal to work with the processors.

"We haven't talked about form factors or user interface," he said. "The priority for today was to show the work we've been doing on the engineering side."

The company also showed ARM processors running Word and a video -- an "Iron Man" clip played in Windows Media Player.

Sinofsky wouldn't say when the "next generation of Windows" will be done and appear in new devices. But he said it "seems about right" to release new versions of the platform every two to three years, suggesting the new OS could be released as early as this fall and at the latest by the fall of 2012.

Before showing the software, Sinofsky explained that Microsoft is working with Qualcomm and others on hardware systems that combine computing and graphics systems on a single chip.

Getting Windows and Office to run on this sort of hardware positions Microsoft to be part of a convergence in capabilities of three platforms -- mobile devices, personal computers and "slates," he explained.

The session was billed as a press conference but it seemed aimed at Microsoft's hardware partners and the Windows developer ecosystem as much the reporters looking for the next shiny gadgets at CES.

Sinofsky clarified that applications written for Windows on Intel x86 architecture won't work on the ARM version of Windows, and said there aren't plans to enable them to run on ARM with virtualization.

Sinofsky sidestepped a question about whether Microsoft needs to continue developing a phone operating-system when it's making Windows run on ARM.

It seemed more like the old Comdex computer show than CES. Sinofsky was giving a look ahead at the next really big thing from Microsoft, but it's so far off that consumers can now only guess what sort of new products it will spawn.

So much for the old days, when Microsoft would bring far-out prototype designs to CES -- like a tablet PC carved out of wood -- to get people excited.

Maybe the company's being cautious about promising yet another far-off gadget that computer companies may or may not get right. Or maybe it's so confident in its approach with Windows that it's not bothering to mock up an "iPad killer."

Say bonjour -- or ni hao -- to the LePad, a Windows-Android hybrid tablet launched today by the giant Chinese PC company Lenovo.

The hybrid, first unveiled at last year's CES but which didn't go on sale, is basically a laptop with a detachable display that functions as a standalone "slate" running Google's Android operating system.

When the display is docked with the rest of the laptop, it runs Windows 7 on an Intel processor.

Lenovo said it will begin selling the system in China in the first quarter for about $1,300. The tablet is also going to be sold by itself for around $520.

The detachable tablet reminds me of the one on the $350 HP printer I reviewed last month, but the LePad display is bigger and more powerful. It's a 10.1-inch diagonal screen with a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor inside. It weighs under 2 pounds, is a half-inch thick and runs eight hours on a battery charge.

"Our IdeaPad U1 and LePad truly fit today's mobile lifestyle," Liu Jun, senior vice president of Lenovo's Idea Product Group, said in a release. "Use the lightweight slate when you're mobile, and then simply slide it into the U1 base when you need to create and edit content. Consumers shouldn't have to adapt their lifestyle to technology, and this product definitely delivers twice the functionality and fun in one device."

A spokeswoman said the design was fine-tuned over the last year and Lenovo developed an Android application store for the Chinese market with apps customized for the LePad. Similar slate products and the U1 will come to the U.S. "sometime later this year."

Sales of tablet computing devices will double in 2011 to 24.1 million units, and keep climbing through 2015, according to a report issued today by Forrester Research.

"Of those sales, the lion's share will be iPads, and despite many would-be competitors that will be released at CES, we see Apple commanding the vast majority of the tablet market through 2012," analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said in a blog post today.

Epps said tablet buying will be more like sales of MP3 players or iPhones than PCs. They are primarily lifestyle devices that people will replace more frequently than computers.

In other words, we think a significant number of first-generation iPad buyers will buy iPad 2 when it comes out this year -- many first-gen iPads will end up entertaining the kids in the back of the car while Mom and Dad get the shiny new (likely Facetime-compatible) model.

As for Android tablets, Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook, Microsoft's Windows-based tablets, and tablets that run on HP's and Nokia's platforms, they'll take a backseat to Apple, but in a market this big, there's room for more than one player. By 2015, 82 million US consumers -- one-third of US online consumers -- will be using a tablet, and not all of them will be iPads.

Here's a chart from her blog:

Here's another from her report, via Mary Jo Foley's blog, where I first saw the report:

The first major CES 2011 announcement for a Seattle-area company is from Inrix, the Kirkland provider of traffic and vehicle information services.

Today, Inrix announced that it's going to provide real-time traffic information to "Entune," Toyota's response to the successful Ford Sync in-dash multimedia system. Entune, which is appearing in some Toyotas later this year, connects to online services via driver's mobile phones.

Inrix characterized the deal as the first of a series of collaborations with Toyota. The company is also working with Ford on its Sync product and mobile applications.

Inrix is "staffing up heavily" with about 15 open positions to support the Toyota work and a contract with an additional automaker that will be announced later this month, spokesman Jim Bak said via e-mail. That's on top of 20 employees added over the last year, which has brought the company to 70.

Here's a screenshot of Toyota's Entune menu. It has another local company's product prominently displayed - Bing Maps and Bing Mobile technology are part of Toyota's announcement today. I wonder if that will get mentioned Wednesday night during the opening keynote by Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

Here's the transcript of a reader chat session yesterday discussing the Consumer Electronics Show, tablets, phones, Qwest and other topics. Thank you to those who participated. Feel free to send more questions via email or participate in another chat session with Sharon Chan on Friday.

(Today's column is a look ahead at CES ...)

You'd think people would have enough gadgets, after spending billions on TVs, computers, Web tablets and other gizmos this past holiday season.

But there's more to come in 2011.

The cycle starts all over this week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the nexus of a $165 billion a year industry.

More than 2,500 companies are presenting new electronics and tech products that will appear in stores, shopping carts and credit-card bills later this year.

It's a global event. At least 120,000 attendees from 130 countries are expected to peruse the show floor, then haggle with suppliers and retailers in meeting rooms and hotel suites.

Following tradition, Microsoft will give the opening keynote, with a Wednesday night presentation by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

The actual show begins Thursday and runs through Sunday, but most of the major announcements come earlier in the week before the rush.

Here's an overview of what I'm expecting to see this year:

Upstart TV maker Vizio jumped the CES gun today by announcing new TVs, a Web tablet and a smartphone the company will be showing in Las Vegas this week.

Vizio also disclosed that several of its new sets will include the GoogleTV software, even though Google has asked electronics companies to hold back on releasing new GoogleTV products until the product is refined.

Details are still skimpy about the phone, but the device and the Vizio tablet are both based on Google's Android operating system. Both include infrared transmitters and software so they'll work as universal remote controls for TVs and other electronic devices.

The handheld gadgets extend the "Via" Web application platform that Vizio has added to its higher-end TVs and Blu-ray players, "delivering on the multi-screen, unified ecosystem others have talked about for years and never delivered," Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae said in a release.

Vizio isn't disclosing prices yet but a spokesman said the phone and tablet will be available this summer.

The phone has specs comparable to the latest smartphones -- a 1 gigahertz processor, 4-inch screen, 80211n Wi-Fi, a 5 megapixel camera and a front-facing camera for video chats -- but Vizio didn't announce which wireless phone technology it will use.

Vizio's tablet has an 8-inch touchscreeen, 1 GHz processor, an HDMI port, HD video output, a MicroSD card slot, three speakers and a front-facing camera for chats.

Irvine, Calif.-based Vizio also announced new "Theater 3D" TVs ranging in size from 22 to 71 inches diagonally. The line doesn't require the battery-powered "active shutter" glasses used in last year's models and its displays are twice as bright, the company said.

Prices of the 21 new TV sets have yet to be determined. A chart accompanying the release lists two "Via Plus" sets -- a 47-inch and 55-inch -- suggesting that they'll be the two with GoogleTV software.

Steve Ballmer's getting scooped.

Asian computer makers are letting news of their Windows 7 tablets trickle out ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show, when Ballmer's expected to show more Windows-based rivals to the iPad during his Jan. 6 keynote.

MSI gave Taiwanese journalists a sneak peek at the Windpad 100W that it's going to present in Las Vegas next week.

Here's a video taken by Netbooknews.com, which had a reporter at the preview event in Taipei. They said the 10-inch tablet running an Intel Atom Z530 chip is about the same as the one MSI unveiled in June. It has an HDMI port, memory card reader, two USB ports and a 32 gig solid-state drive.

New tablets based on Intel's Oak Trail platform will appear in March, according to the report.

Asus is also jumping the gun with preview glimpses of its Eee Pad, a handsome convertible laptop/tablet based on Windows.

Here's the Asus teaser video:

Panasonic turned a corner of Pike Place Market into a mini Consumer Electronics Show today, setting up demonstrations of its high-def 3-D televisions, Internet connected TVs and cameras.

To lure people into the free showcase, the company is holding a drawing for a free 3-D home theater setup to people who drop by the event. It's a little hard to find; when heading west on Pike, turn left at the pig and look for stairs going up.

Or you could ask for directions from Chris Bell, one of the fish throwers at Pike Place Fish Market, who brought a fresh Alaskan wild king up to the showroom. The fish was nearly as lifelike as the 3-D images -- it was caught Monday, Bell said.

Panasonic's event runs today until 6 p.m., Wednesday from 11 to 6 and Thursday from 11 to 4.

It's a little ironic that the event is being held upstairs in the Economy Market building. The highlight is a mini theater where visitors can sit in a home theater and check out 3-D movie clips on a 54-inch plasma 3D HDTV that retails for $2,999, including one pair of 3-D glasses. Additional pairs are $150.

The system being given away is a 50-inch 3-D HDTV with a 3-D Blu-ray player and glasses -- a package worth $3,050.

Today's column:

LAS VEGAS -- With my ears still ringing from the roar of a thousand TVs on the floor of the International Consumer Electronics Show, I'm going to use this week's column to answer a few questions readers asked about new products at the annual gadget bazaar.

Q: I just purchased a 46-inch HD LCD TV and now am hearing about 3-D television making a big splash at the CES. I feel like I got a pretty good deal, but do you think it would be in my best interest to return it and wait for 3-D? I have no idea what prices will be, as I paid around $900 for mine.

A: I'd keep the LCD and not worry much about 3-D yet. Most won't be out until later this year and they'll generally be more than twice as expensive as the TV you bought. Also, 99 percent of the stuff you'll watch in the next few years won't be 3-D.

Another sign of the times: There was a dearth of Ferraris -- beyond Monster Cable's yellow F430 -- on the show floor at CES this year and only a couple of Lamborghinis.

The automotive section of the show floor felt bare compared with last year's spectacle, but there were still cool cars for the 113,085 show attendees to ogle.

Here are the standouts in my camera, starting with a kids' Escalade tricked out by Car Vision USA with a DVD system on the dash and a rear display:

Here's a sample of the new televisions that caught my eye walking the CES show floor, starting with the entrance to the LG booth:

From Microsoft's booth at CES, here's Greg Baribault, director of product management for Microsoft Auto, demonstrating the Kia Uvo system:

Ancient cultures buried their dead with charms to protect them in the afterlife. We're making sure they have great bass:

Check out this graffiti on a signpost outside the CES show office and speaker ready room.

I don't know if that's Mulally's handwriting, but who else besides a former Boeing Commercial Airplanes boss signs his name with a little drawing of a jetliner? He spoke here Thursday.

LAS VEGAS -- A test of my capacity for humiliation -- the Charity PC Race -- should be broadcast live on the link below starting just before 7 p.m.

Dozens of journalists participate in the race to see who can assemble a new PC the fastest. The winner gets to donate $10,000 to a charity of choice, and all the PCs are donated to charities helping children (after the systems are rebuilt by sponsor Systemax).

This year the system I'm building will be donated to the Yesler Terrace Youth Tutoring Program, if I ever get it done.

LAS VEGAS -- Instead of playing DVDs in the car, how about live digital TV broadcasts?

All sorts of portable TVs using a new ATSC mobile broadcasting standard are appearing at the show, including budget TV maker Vizio, which just announced three "Razor" brand LED TVs going on sale toward the end of the year.

Razor sets are less than an inch thick, have 7-inch, 9-inch or 10-inch screens and range from $150 to $230.

I'll bet sports fans will start taking these to games.

Here's a collection of LG mobile phones that receive digital over-the-air broadcasts:

A closer look at one of the LG TV phones:

LAS VEGAS -- It's not going to be the next "Halo" or "Modern Warfare," but I'll bet the retro "Game Room" service the company announced at CES will be a huge hit.

The company built a virtual arcade within Xbox Live stuffed with original arcade games from the '70s through the '90s. To make them accurate, it tracked down original arcade setups on places like eBay and employee homes.

Here's a demo by Frank Pape, a senior director in Microsoft Game Studios, who led the project. (Apologies in advance for the audio quality ...)

It will have at least 30 games, such as "Centipede," when it debuts in March. All can be sampled free. You can buy copies for $3 for Xbox versions, $3 for PC versions or $5 for both. Or you can pay 50 cents to play until you lose.

Players can compete against friends for high score on various games and play head-to-head on multiplayer games on a console in the same room.

Microsoft expects to have more than 1,000 games on the site within a few years.

It seems perfect for phones and Zunes, but the company's not saying anything about mobile versions -- yet.

LAS VEGAS -- If you thought news was getting too touchy feely, wait until you see this awesome CES display in Intel's booth.

It's an enormous touchscreen that displays news feeds from sources such as Google News and Flickr, which you can call up by walking up to the display and touching or dragging the shapes that appear.

It started out as an attempt to show off the power of Intel's i7 processors, but the demo built by engineer Elie Jamaa turned into a big hit in Intel's booth.

An i7 PC powers the 7.5-foot by 7.5-foot "double HD" touch display with 1920 by 1920 resolution.

LAS VEGAS -- Is this the closest thing yet to a supersized iPod Touch?

It's a touchscreen Windows 7 tablet powered by an Atom processor that Intel's showing in its booth at CES.

It's made by Hanvon, a Chinese company that's been building readers and tablet devices:

LAS VEGAS -- Samsung got artsy with 132 TV sets, a bunch of mirrors and a half-acre of white vinyl:

To see the thickness of Samsung's new flagship LED9000 3-D TV, here's a closeup of four sets on a carousel so you can see them from the front and side:

LAS VEGAS -- It's sacrilege to say so at this year's CES, but I'd trade any of the 3-D TVs on display for one of these -- a 152-inch ultra high def plasma with 4096 by 2160 resolution:

Panasonic displayed plenty of 3-D sets as well, including one that receives content wirelessly:

LAS VEGAS -- First, it was rainwater collection barrels, then it was solar panels on the roof.

Now the coolest eco accessory is going to be home fuel cell generators and energy storage units like these babies offered by Panasonic.

The residential fuel cell generator uses natural gas to create electricity and heat:

To store all the energy you're generating at home, Panasonic Is also offering a battery module comprised of 840 lithium-ion batteries:

LAS VEGAS -- Look out, Clearwire.

LG's showing off some amazing hardware for the LTE mobile broadband network competing with Clearwire's WiMax network.

A prototype LTE laptop modem on display in its CES booth downloads data at 100 megabits per second and uploads 50 Mbps. It's the red, external device next to the laptop:

LTE networks don't yet support its technology, but the company is expecting to release a dual-mode LTE/CDMA version in July that will download at 70 Mbps and upload at 20 Mbps on Verizon's LTE network rolling out this year.

It also hands off automatically when users move from LTE to CDMA networks.

LG developers said the hardware is a prototype and the final design will be different than the white device left of this laptop:

LAS VEGAS -- Segmentation of the electronic book market has begun in earnest with the arrival of the Que, a new reader aimed at executives and traveling business people.

Plastic Logic's much anticipated reader will go on sale in April for $649 for a 4 gigabyte model with W-iFi and Bluetooth radios and $799 for an 8 gigabyte model that also has 3G wireless service from AT&T.

The device is 8.5 by 11 inches with a black and white touchscreen and a single button on the bezel, for returning to the home screen. The home screen displays a calendar, including appointments synced with Outlook, as well as favorite documents that can be pinned to the screen.

Barnes & Noble will carry the Que in its stores and powers its bookstore. Plastic Logic also has partnerships with numerous newspapers, magazines and wire services offering subscriptions on the device.

To cater to the news industry, Plastic Logic introduced a template called truVue to make it easier for papers to format their products for display on the Que.

Also announced today is a new online storefront to pre-order the device and explore its digital bookstore.

But the device is intended to be more than a device for reading books and papers. It's intended to replace the sheaf of printed materials that business people travel with, and includes tools for annotating and editing on the device.

Instead of pursuing a paperless office or paperless bookshelf, "what we are driving on is the paperless briefcase," Plastic Logic Chief Executive Richard Archuleta said at a news conference announcing the Que on the CES show floor.

Documents, including Word, Excel and PDF files, can be added to the device by dragging them to a Que icon loaded onto a PC desktop. The Que can also share data wirelessly with BlackBerry smartphones.

Its software includes a touch keyboard that can be called up on the screen and a search function, but their design isn't as slick and advanced as the hardware, which is about the same thickness as a pad of legal paper.

The conference was crowded with reporters and managers from news organizations such as USA Today, which have high hopes for electronic readers to help revive their industry.

Plastic Logic was started after researchers at Cambridge University in England developed ways to print transistors on plastic film, instead of silicon, using inkjets. It now has a factory in Dresden, Germany, and plans to introduce multiple readers for different markets such as students, teachers and healthcare workers in the future.

LAS VEGAS -- Sprint hasn't announced a 4G handset yet, but it unveiled a pretty nifty new gadget at a press event tonight at CES.

The company announced the Overdrive, a 4G modem and hotspot device about the size of a pack of cards. Up to five computers and devices can connect to the modem via Wi-Fi, and a sixth can be connected through a USB cable.

Sprint's selling the Overdrive for $99, with a two-year, $60 per month unlimited data plan.

It's an intriguing alternative to DSL service at home, but the Overdrive is also portable - -it works most anywhere, pulling 4G service where it's offered by Sprint partner Clearwire or Sprint 3G if there's no 4G.

Overdrive has an LCD status display and an SD card that creates shared storage for devices connecting to the device. During a demo I was given, one of the devices was powering a laptop, an iPhone running Skype and a Samsung Blu-ray player.

Sprint launched the device at an event in the Venetian packed with current and former Seattlelites, including Sprint CEO Dan Hesse and celebrity chef Mario Batali, who provided a live cooking demonstration beamed from his new Overdrive kitchen hotspot (behind the curtains in the room).

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer stopped by to talk up the company's support for Sprint's 4G service, but he didn't mention any new Microsoft products that will tap into the network, being run by Kirkland-based Clearwire.

LAS VEGAS -- Samsung Electronics introduced a line of snazzy new 3-D televisions today at CES, including a pencil-thin model with a polished metal bezel, but the most amazing tidbit in its press conference may be its sales projections.

The company -- whose slogan is now "Inspire the World, Create the Future" -- expects to increase sales from last year's $110 billion to $400 billion in 2020.

"We believe that the recovery of our industry will be strong,'' said David Steel, head of its North American marketing group.

The company expects sales of its LED TVs to increase from 2.6 million last year to more than 10 million this year.

To keep up momentum in the company's Web connected TV business, Samsung announced a software developer kit to encourage developers to write applications for its products.

"If you thought it was fun building apps for a 3-inch phone screen, I have a 55-inch LED I'd like to show you," cracked Tim Baxter, president of Samsung Electronics Americas.

Gadget highlights of the session included the LED 9000 TV, with a touchscreen remote that displays a stream of video sent from the TV.

"Yes, the remote is now a TV," Baxter said.

The company also introduced two electronic book readers with touchscreens, a special Vancouver Olympics edition of its Mythic phone sold by AT&T and a phone that receives over-the-air digital TV broadcasts. The DTV phone will enter testing this year in Washington, D.C.

Also shown off was the Omnia2, a Windows Mobile phone that works as a remote control with Samsung TVs and can wirelessly load video content from the TV for watching on the go.

Further showing off the connected TV's tricks, Baxter said PCs on a home network can work as remote controls with the sets and be used to watch a second channel tuned by the TVs and wirelessly streamed to the computer.

And, like Toshiba, Samsung announced that upcoming TVs will be able to upconvert 2-D content to 3-D.

LAS VEGAS -- Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer reiterated plans to upgrade PlayStation 3 game consoles with firmware downloads to play 3-D movies and games.

All you'll need is a 3-D television, such as the company's new 3-D Bravias going on sale in the summer, bundled with two pairs of 3-D glasses.

Preview demonstrations of the system will be given soon at Sony stores, such as the one in Seattle's University Village.

Stringer started his CES press conference by announcing that the company has reached an agreement with the Hendrix Experience estate to license the late Seattle guitarist's catalog and will re-release the material, including some that hasn't been published before.

Then he introduced Sony's current star, Taylor Swift, who gave a performance that was recorded in 3-D.

The company introduced a new "monolithic design" series of Bravia TVs going on sale in March and new Blu-ray players and home theater systems.

Then it rolled out the Dash Web appliance -- a "personal Internet viewer" designed "to view your favorite parts of the Internet at a glance," Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said.

Kaz Hirai, president of Sony networked products and services, said the company sold more than 3.8 million PlayStation 3 units during the holiday season and talked up new games coming to the system.

But Hirai's big announcement was that Sony is broadening the 3-year-old PlayStation network developed for the PlayStation and PlayStation Portable, using its infrastructure to bring new services to other Web-connected gadgets.

"We're also extending our premium video service to even more Sony devices," he said.

The network will support a new premium video service debuting next month, delivering movies to PlayStations, Blu-ray players, Web-connected Sony TVs and Windows PCs.

Hirai said the network now has 38 million registered users around the world, boosted by the sale of 3.8 million PS3 consoles during the holiday season.

Glasgow introduced 17 new camcorders and announced that new models will finally support the SD memory card format, in addition to Sony's Memory Stick cards. Sony HAD held back on supporting SD, a format backed by its competitors Panasonic and Toshiba.

"It's all about providing consumers with choice," he said.

Among the cameras is a new pocket HD camcorder called "Bloggie" that's designed to easily upload videos to social Web services.

Also new is a Cybershot camera with a "party mode" that automatically takes candid photos during a party when it's set on dock.

Glasgow also introduced the obligatory green product, a new Vaio W series "Eco Edition" with a case made of recycled CDs and DVDs. It ships in a package made from recycled plastic bottles.

LAS VEGAS -- Sony's press conference at CES is just about to start -- promising lots of 3-D, including a 3-D showing of Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock -- but execs are already sharing details about one of the company's new products -- a Web and media playing device with a 7-inch touchscreen and a WiFi radio.

Called the Dash, the device runs software from Chumby that displays widget versions of Web applications -- from a library of more than 1,000 -- as well as the software that Web connected Sony TVs use to display widgets.

It's a little hard to describe. You could call it a supercharged alarm clock that displays basic info from the Web, but don't call it a Web tablet, said Andrew Sivovi, director of the program for Sony Electronics.

"It's not a tablet PC," he said, explaining that it has a relatively low-power processor that helps keep its price at $199.

Sivovi said tech enthusiasts may be aware of wireless Web information appliances like the Chumby, but they're still largely unknown to the general public that Sony's going after with the product.

It plays music from services such as Pandora or from memory devices attached to its USB port, but won't stream music from a home network, server or Sony's wireless home audio devices.

The Dahs goes on sale in April.

Microsoft's answer may be the SilverPC Evolution 5500, a similar sized touchscreen TV remote/Web appliance that uses Windows Sideshow technology to display information from a home PC.

We'll see if anyone pays attention to these little Webby gadgets. Neither one displays 3-D content.

LAS VEGAS -- Steve Ballmer reportedly is going to unveil Hewlett-Packard's new slatelike, wireless tablet PC during his keynote tonight at the Consumer Electronic Show.

But NEC beat him to the punch -- you can buy this 10'' diagonal Windows-based slate computer today for only $1,800:

Here's a whole batch of them introduced at CES, in 2004.

Even budget TV maker Vizio is getting into the 3-D game with a batch of new sets featuring 3-D capabilities and wireless systems for connecting to the Internet.

The Irvine, Calif.-based company today announced its "XVT Pro" series of LED sets in four sizes -- 47 inches, 55 inches and 72 inches, plus a 58-inch "cinema wide" model that displays content in a 21 by 9 format. They'll go on sale in August.

The sets include most every cutting-edge feature appearing on new TVs at CES this year. In addition to displaying 3-D and 2-D content in 1080p resolution, the sets display Internet applications, have built-in 802.11n dual-band wireless radios, Ethernet jacks, Bluetooth universal remote controls with slideout keyboards and a "wireless HDMI" system that can connect the sets to video and audio systems without wires, using an optional accessory device.

They also have 480Hz refresh rates, 10 million to 1 contrast ratios and cases under three inches thick.

"We at Vizio are setting new standards for picture quality and user experience," Vizio co-founder and sales Vice President Laynie Newsome said in a release. "Fifty percent of consumers want a 3-D home theater, according to Quixel Research, and our new XVT Pro Series brings the latest technology to consumers who want the absolute best in class."

The 47-inch model will list for $1,999, the 55-incher is $2,499 and the 72-incher is $3,499.

Throw in a hot dog and a soda for another $1.50.

An image of one of the 3-D sets:

The 2-D "cinema wide" set:

Ceton, a Kirkland startup developing advanced TV tuners for Windows 7 PCs, is finally announcing prices and a release date at the Consumer Electronics Show.

An early glimpse at the company's press release indicates the company's four-tuner cards will cost $399 and go on sale by April 1.

The cards will be be manufactured in the PCI Express Low Profile form factor so they'll fit into slim entertainment PCs, as well as larger desktop systems.

They're designed to be use with Cablecard devices provided by cable companies; with a "multistream" card the Ceton devices will allow a PC to play and record up to four high-definition channels at once.

You'll be able to watch more than "Avatar" and "Up" on the new 3D televisions being unveiled this week at CES.

TV networks are lining up to offer all sorts of 3D content later this year, including ESPN. Disney's sports network is going to launch "ESPN 3D" in June and broadcast at least 85 sporting events in 3D in the first year, according to this USAToday report.

The article notes that you may need a new set-top box to get the 3D broadcasts, and there may be a premium charge for the extra dimension. That may be hard to digest if you're already paying a premium for high-def, but sports fans are used to ponying up for the latest broadcast services.

From the article:

Paul Liao, CEO of the CableLabs consortium of cable operators, says that while 3D movies are paramount to the success of 3D in the home, live sports "will engage the consumer to a degree that has been unprecedented."

ESPN's debut 3D event will be a June 11 World Cup soccer match. Sony and FIFA announced Dec. 3 that they're working together to broadcast matches in 3D.

Sony's also working with the Discovery Communications and Imax to produce a 3D network that will begin broadcasting in 2011. They disclosed details today, ahead of Sony's CES press conference on Wednesday, according to this New York Times report.

David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications, said in an interview that the 3D move is part of "this overall quest that we're on for closest-to-real."

"With Sony promoting it on their sets and Imax promoting it in the theaters, and all of us contributing content, we think we can have something that will be pretty strong for consumers," Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav told the paper.

Jumping ahead of the pack of e-readers expected to debut this week at CES, LG, Sprint and Skiff today previewed the Skiff Reader they'll be showing in Las Vegas this week.

The one-pound reader, designed for newspapers and magazines, measures 11.5 inches diagonally and a quarter inch thick, with a resolution of 1200 x 1600 pixels and a touchscreen. Skiff claims that it runs a full week without recharging.

The Hearst Corp. started the project, initially called "FirstPaper," and spun Skiff out as a separate company earlier this month.

Pricing is not yet available, but Sprint plans to sell the devices through its stores later this year. Sprint's also providing 3G wireless connectivity to the devices, which also have Wi-Fi radios.

It's based on a display that LG has shown in recent years at CES, using a thin, flexible sheet of stainless steel foil.

Skiff, a venture based in New York and Palo Alto, Calif., hopes to get its technology and services for distributing content onto other companies' consumer electronic devices.

From today's release:

The Skiff Reader will feature the Skiff service and digital store, allowing consumers to wirelessly purchase and access a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, books, blogs and other content from multiple publishers. Newspaper and magazine content delivered by Skiff will feature visually appealing layouts, high-resolution graphics, rich typography and dynamic updates, supporting key design qualities that help publications differentiate themselves and attract subscribers and advertisers.

Full technical specs:

The best indication yet of how CES will be affected by the economy: This year's meager party list, which so far has only one celebrity event.

In recent years, companies held elaborate parties during the show with top bands, comedians and other performers. But it's getting skimpier as the industry copes with reduced spending on consumer electronics.

Last year's CES party list was thin and this year's is ridiculous.

This year the only A-list show is a private John Legend concert Friday night, hosted by Monster Cable at the Paris Hotel, according to an annual party list compiled by PR rep Karen Thomas.

The list is fluffed up this year with routine press events such as the Thursday night "Showstoppers" demo event at the Wynn and a reception for Chinese electronic brands Friday evening at the Venetian.

Invite-only parties on the list include Wednesday's Corsair party at the Palazzo and Cooltronics party at the Palms; Thursday's NPD event at the Bellagio, a Pentax party at Aria and a DivX party at the Palms.

You'd think Friday night would be a blowout but other than Legend it's pretty bare, larded with a few Twitter meetups, a reception for Chinese electronic brands and a Canada-only shindig.

The full Friday list:

5 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: Official CES Tweetup & Twitterhunt -- LV Hilton, Tempo Lounge
5 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.: China Top Brands Awards Reception -- Venetian, Casanova 505, Palazzo Room (Invite only)
5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.: CES Tweetup -- LV Hilton, Tempo Lounge (Invite only)
5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.: It Won't Stay in Vegas Blogger Party -- Atomic Museum (Invite only)
6 p.m. - 8 p.m.: Bluetooth SIG -- Hard Rock Hotel, Wasted Space Room -- Best of CES contest
6 p.m. - 10 p.m.: Marketnews Canada Night -- Caesar's, Palace Ballroom (Canadian industry members)
6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.: Digital Media Insider Reception -- Venetian, Ballroom 3001 ($75 for full day of events)

(An illustrated version of the preview column that ran in today's paper ...)

Las Vegas always seems like it's in another dimension, but this week it will be even more so when the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show takes place.

More than 20,000 new products will be shown by 2,500 companies starting Thursday.

They're expecting to sell $166 billion worth of TVs, phones, stereos and other gadgets in the U.S. alone next year.

You'd never guess the economy's limping and millions are out of work.

FoxNews.com nudged up speculation about Apple launching some sort of Tablet or supersized iPod Touch in January.

The news site on Wednesday said "a source inside Apple" confirmed there will be a "big" event that "will focus on the mobility space" in San Francisco.

It follows a Financial Times piece last week that broke the story of Apple planning a January 26 launch event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where Steve Jobs launched the newest iPods in September.

Google is apparently trying to steal some thunder from Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference this week by releasing more details of its Chrome operating system.

So far the Chrome OS has been mostly FUD since it was announced in July but that may change at a Thursday press event where the company is promising demos.

But the buzz around that event is already being drowned out by unconfirmed reports that began Tuesday about Google planning its own mobile phone-handheld computing device.

TechCrunch said the gadget will be made by a Korean company such as LG, carry only Google's brand and probably use AT&T's 3G network.

Google is building their own branded phone that they'll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding.

A big ad campaign promoting Google's first consumer hardware will begin in January, TechCrunch added.

My guess is that Google will surface the device at the Consumer Electronics Show, which begins Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, where co-founder Larry Page last gave a keynote in 2006.

Maybe he'll take the place of Yahoo boss Carol Bartz, who canceled her appearance at the show last week.

At a press dinner last night in Seattle, Dan Cole, vice president of the trade group that organizes CES, hinted that another major keynote may be added but he didn't name names.

Here's a Chrome sign hanging in Google's new Kirkland campus, where they get quiet and change the subject if you ask if former Microsoft talent is working on the new operating system:

Among the attractions at CES are the outrageous cars loaded with stereos, computers, navigation equipment and other gadgets.

Here's my annual gallery of CES hot rods, starting with Monster Cable's customized Bentley:

Stinger may take the cake with its Lamborghini:

Can the fiberglass body of a Corvette handle the rumble of these woofers:

From the front:

To promote its "Knight Rider" GPS units, Mio brought KITT:

Portland-based Flir went old-school to showcase its thermal-imaging night vision dashboard accessory, which shows people in the dark:

You can see a few legs in the display here:

Just what every amphibious vehicle needs -- four aerial, rear-firing speakers. Be careful not to splash that amplifier on the rear deck:

Among the cars in Intel's booth were these Dodge Chargers. They're a twist on the in-car PC -- the whole cars are PCs:

Ports are in the rear:

A Nissan Skyline GT-R:

The ride's a little bumpy for backseat passengers in this Toyota Scion:

Same problem in this Mini:

Lots of business research going on in the automotive exhibition area:

Fix your bike on the go, quickly:

Huge as in a projection display taking up nine floors on the side of a Vegas hotel.

Capcom had two screens going around the pool at Planet Hollywood tonight, promoting "Resident Evil 5," a zombie shooting game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that goes on sale in March.

The company was giving demos of Airtight Games' "Dark Void" on regular displays inside, but wouldn't its vertical combat system be better suited to the hotel walls than the canal sequence from "Resident Evil"?

A picture and a video of the event:

Netbooks - the small and cheap laptop computers based on mobile chips such as Intel's Atom processor - are all over the Consumer Electronics Show.

Especially in the remote booths where Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers are offering a rainbow of netbooks. Bestlink of Shenzhen City, China, is offering these at wholesale prices starting around $140 for Linux systems and $150 for those with Windows CE. Systems with Windows XP are wholesaling for around $200:

At the other end of the spectrum is Sony's show darling, the lovely Vaio netbook. It starts at $899 with Vista, a 60 gigabyte hard-drive and build in 3G wireless modem (Verizon service costs extra ...):

Intel's pushing netbooks for education and developing countries, including this convertible tablet with stylus and touch input:

Also cool is this research project being demonstrated by Intel. It's an application that wirelessly links the displays of multiple portable computers, so you can arrange them to form a bigger, multi-panel display:

Hopefully I won't be the last one this year:

Tiger Direct, a Florida-based online PC vendor that bought CompUSA, annually hosts the race with about 30 journalists racing to see who can assemble a barebones PC kit the fastest. The company then reassembles the systems and donates them to youth-oriented charities, and donates $10,000 to the winner's chosen charity.

Last night's winner was Al Hernandez, who builds PCs for Fox News: He assembled the high-end, AMD Phenom II quad-core system in 5 minutes and 59 seconds.

I had the system together and turned on the power in about 10 minutes, but the video display wasn't getting a signal. After futzing by me and the Tiger Direct techs, they said the video card was bad or broken. One of the techs tried to console me by noting that at least I didn't break the (1.5 terabyte) hard drive like the guy behind me. They also said the card would be replaced and the system tested before they send it to Seattle's Technology Access Foundation.

I've already had a call from a reader who wants to buy one of the reel-to-reel/cd combo players designed by Chris Hennessey, a Seattle guy I profiled in today's column. Who would have guessed?

Here's a photo I took of Hennessey and the device at CES.

BRIER DUDLEY

Chris Hennessey, a former Seattleite who now designs consumer electronics in Hong Kong, with the reel-to-reel/cd player he displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

On the other side of CES was the Zhongshan Leetac Electronics booth displaying similar retro devices. Leetac also does modern items, like the radio on the right that looks an awful lot like one of those expensive Tivoli units.

Monday's column looked forward, at a new approach to copy protection technology shown at CES.

For a neat historical perspective, check out this post at Techdirt that compares the way the RIAA and 17th century French-button makers reacted to challenges to their business models.

LAS VEGAS -- I'm not sure if these are approved by Nintendo, but Hong Kong peripheral manufacturer iCon is displaying some crazy new remotes for the Wii at CES.

Vincent Chan, a Los Angeles-based sales rep for iCon, told me they won't be available for at least a few months and prices won't be disclosed until the end of the month.

That gives Wii owners time to make room alongside their Wiimotes and Nunchucks for:

BRIER DUDLEY

The Wii steering wheel and tennis racket remotes. How about calling them the Wiiel and the Wiiacket?

The Wii "Light Gun." This company has got to get with the naming program -- this is obviously the Wiivolver.

The Wii "Golf Stick." That's got to be the Wiiedge.

This was called the Wii Baseball Bat, but it looks more like a Wiibrator.

LAS VEGAS -- The cars at CES are not to be missed. A whole wing of the show is devoted to automotive products, and full of supercars converted to rolling showcases of speakers, stereos, onboard computers and iPod connectors.

Cars are also moving into the main show as Microsoft and other big players extend their digital entertainment and communication technology beyond the PC and the living room, into new devices that work with or in vehicles.

But enough about the business stuff. Here are some of the coolest cars I saw at this year's show.

BRIER DUDLEY

You've seen one tricked-out Lamborghini Murcielago you've seen them all.

Zunes loaded in a vehicle: When wireless sharing isn't enough.

More Zune product placement -- check the console.

This van drove around Seattle taking pictures for Microsoft's Live Search mapping service. It's one of nine the company drives around the country, slowly, taking pictures sold to Microsoft, Google and others. The back seat has a rack-mounted server with 250 gigabyte drives that are swapped out and mailed to headquarters in New Hampshire when they're full.

Hey, Marv! That's a HYUN-dai. Can you believe it?

Don't you dare cut that GT40 up to fit in huge speakers..

Twelve cylinders provide enough music in the Ferrari F430.

Oh, Canada! A Canadian Pontiac in Pioneer's booth.

Another view of the Canadian Pontiac.

Sony's Cayman S.

Sony's rolling kiosk, a Scion that took three months to build.

The guys in the booth said it's driveable -- both the Scion and the PlayStation 3 mounted in the back, under the 46-in. HDTV.

LAS VEGAS -- CES is so big and overwhelming, reporters look for people to put it all in perspective. Like cabbies, who always turn up in stories about how huge the show has become.

I've done it myself a few times with limited success. But today I had a great chat with Habtom Tekie, who hails from Eritrea but lived in Seattle 11 years before moving to Vegas.

After we talked about Iraq and the problems in Somalia, we started talking about cellphones and he mentioned that Eritreans call the devices "tsunami" because they debuted there after a real tsunami and washed over the country in a flash. He estimates half the population has a phone, vs. about 50,000 that have PCs.

Get him a job at IDC or Gartner.

LAS VEGAS -- Ben Romano has a nifty story on new technology at CES that blends the TV and the PC.

While we work through that transition, consumer electronics companies are coming up with all sorts of cool TVs that seem to work pretty well without a computer attached.

Companies are still racing to build the biggest high-def panels, but they seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on their work to improve the quality of LCD displays in particular.

LG made a splash with its $1,200 dual-format devices that play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, bridging the high-definition DVD format war.

But the company also some far out television on display, including a 3D set that was playing "Star Wars" for a huge crowd of geeks and a "green" LCD with a frame made of wood.

Here's a sampling of the screens you can see at CES.

This is LG's wood-framed 60-in.' plasma TV. It has two HDMI inputs and a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, but it looks like veneered MDF, not real wood:

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A close up of the wood plasma, which is only a prototype:

It looks like just another 60-in. high-def plasma TV, which would be ho-hum at CES nowadays. But this LG has a built-in digital video recorder with a 160-gigabyte hard-drive that "rewinds" ands pauses live TV, just like a TiVo but with no service fees. It also has inputs to record and play video content from a PC, like a Media Center in reverse. It's also available in 50-in. and 42-in.' panels and some models are already in stores:

LG also displayed wireless GPS device that also functions as a TV tuner. The LGN1 has a 3.5'' screen, dual speakes and the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system:

It was overshadowed by the Apple iPhone, but the LG9400 mobile phone/television still drew a crowd. The price wasn't disclosed but it's coming to market by March. It doesn't receive over the air signals, though; you have to subscribe to a video service through Verizon or other service providers:

Among the TVs displayed by Sanyo was a bright touchscreen that's aimed for kiosks and interactive displays. But it would also be cool to use as a monitor with Windows Vista:

Perfect for Seattle? Sanyo's rain-resistant LCD monitor and camcorder:

Sony's prototype OLED TVs made all the LCDs and plasmas seem big and out of date:

LAS VEGAS -- It's always amazing how many Seattle people I bump into at CES.

Today I was at a Taiwanese company's booth displaying a variety of new Ultra-Mobile PCs running Windows Vista. The word "Vistagami" was scrawled in orange pen on a piece of notebook paper to explain the merchandise.

Another guy examining the machines said, "I'd like to see the Windows logo here," and I wondered if I was seeing a software piracy bust go down in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

It turned out there was a Windows logo on the back of the device, the guy talking was Jeff Meissner, who works on the Windows logo program in Redmond. He was with a posse of Windows guys roaming the international exhibits.

I worked my way through Taiwan and Hong Kong, then headed over to Denmark to see the high-end stereo equipment on display.

I was checking out a new wireless music streaming device at the OXX Digital booth, when the Dane behind the podium saw my nametag. He told me that OXX within the past week opened a new office in the Seattle area -- Snoqualmie, actually -- that's headed by a guy named Chris Lee.

UPDATE: I finally connected with Chris, who gave me some details about his background. For the past two and a half years he's owned a local company, RareWave, that manufactures phone and iPod accessories. OXX is a joint venture by RareWave and Smart Vizion ApS in Denmark. Earlier, Lee was European director of sales for Body Glove in England.

LAS VEGAS -- The next edition of the new Apple TV product may use ultra wideband radio technology instead of the proprietary 802.11n wireless system used in the device introduced today.

Tzero Technologies, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based UWB chip maker, has been talking to Apple about using its modules, its senior director of marketing, Matthew Keowen told me at CES today.

Keowen said the technology used in Apple TV lacks the capabilities of WiMedia, but Apple's entry into the market is great for the business.

"I think Apple is going to create a huge amount of interest in wireless video,'' he said. "I think they have an incredibly elegant solution."

But it doesn't distribute full 1080p high-definition.

Tzero's chips support a new standard known as WiMedia that's fast enough to transmit 1080p wirelessly at speeds up to 480 Mbps.

It calls its solution "Wireless for HDMI," referring to the all-in-one HDMI cables increasingly used to connect high-end TVs to receivers and DVD players.

In its booth, Tzero was showing several upcoming devices that stream 1080p content, including a pair of receiver/transmitters from Asus that will sell for about $300 sometime before June. The devices are each about the size of a small cable modem or wireless router, and transmit video signals from any source -- including a computer, set-top box or receiver -- to a TV display.

All these gadgets seem to be interim steps, though, until TV makers start putting these sort of modules directly into their sets. You shouldn't have to buy all these $300 gadgets to make everything work smoothly.

One Chinese television manufacturer, Hisense, announced at the show that it will add use the Tzero modules,but the company is still trying to get top manufacturers such as Sony to use them.

"We are trying to embed our module inside the TV," said Jihyo Chung, an engineer from the company's Korea office.

Keowen estimates that WiMedia devices like the Asus set will be broadly available later this year and televisions with built-in high-def streaming capability will start appearing around the holidays. He expects they'll be widely available in 2008.

I dropped into the Bloghaus blogging suite hosted by ex Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble and his wife, Maryam, last night at the Bellagio.

As soon as I checked in, Maryam pulled out a huge roll of bills and began pulling out fives and 10s. It turns out she was giving visitors $25 apiece for cab fare. I thanked her and declined the offer.

Inside there was a TV playing back video of a Bill Gates interview, an open bar and buffet, a bedroom with Xboxes running on big screens and a dining room table filled with bloggers. About 15 of the 30 or so people there were blogging, and I saw three using what appeared to be the notorious Acer Ferrari laptops.

(Microsoft's press team didn't send one to me, by the way, and I wouldn't keep it if it did. I do get loaner products to review sometimes but I don't keep them.)

The Bloghaus was sponsored by Scoble's new employer, Podtech, and companies including Seagate. Microsoft promotional materials were all over the place as well.

Everyone seemed nice and most were having fun -- much more fun the roomful of sweating, stressing reporters jockeying for space in the CES press room. But it felt like I was back in college and had stumbled into the wrong frat house.

LAS VEGAS -- I wonder if this is what TV viewing will be like in a few years, after we've all got broadband and content flowing through the house: Instead of visiting channels, you visit personalized pages where you watch movies, TV shows and other video content in a resizable window that's always playing something "over the air" or from your playlist of saved clips.

The windows also connect you to online games, a friend list, online chat and a commerce system involving points that can be redeemed for more content. It's customizable, so it feels like your own place, and it's filled with ads and promotional material.

That's what The Walt Disney Co. is doing with an impressive update to its Web site that the company's chief executive, Bob Iger, unveiled in a CES keynote late yesterday.

At first I was yawning during the keynote as he talked about a refreshed Web site, the Disney brand and distributing content in different formats -- online, mobile devices, etc. I've never watched "Lost," so I wasn't captivated by the video clip referring to its finale, or the appearance on stage of its star actors.

But slowly it dawned on me that Iger was explaining what the TV experience will be like for the kids he's targeting with Disney.com. Those with broadband and the PC-TV technology emerging at CES will grow up with all these interactive applications and immersive brand advertising that presents itself as entertainment.

At the new Disney site, kids would be able to customize a Web page so it has the feel of a particular characters' fantasy world -- like Jack Sparrow's pirate land or Tinkerbell's fairy world. With a click, the site can be tailored for boys or girls or different age groups.

Like traditional TV, the site is also offering lots of free content, including new multiplayer online games. The first game is pirate-themed -- at piratesonline.com -- but different genres are coming.

"We believe that Disney.com has to serve the interest of the online user by offering a broad, robust and deep entertainment experience,'' he said.

It seems Disney is making its move on the broadband entertainment niche serving kids ages 2 to 12. Then those kids may move on to a service like Xbox Live or Disney's sports world, ESPN, where Iger said fans are now spending two hours a day consuming content through their TV, computer or mobile phone.

Iger also made an interesting comment about sports content: He described it as the "killer application" for consumer electronics that's driving purchase of technology such as high-definition televisions. Then he talked up MyESPN, a customizable online service that gives sports fans the same experience as Disney.com offers to kids.

Here's an idea for next year's CES: Display manufacturers should start making sets that project ultraviolet rays, as well as colorful images, so viewers will get the health benefits of sunshine.

LAS VEGAS -- If the University of Washington really wants to make waves with its robotics research, it ought to start embedding TV and stereo remote controls into people's bodies.

Remotes seem to be one of the hot categories at CES this year, along with devices to store and stream digital content in the home. Plus there's the usual array of thinner phones and better TVs.

I recently reviewed the Logitech Wireless DJ, a $250 Bluetooth remote that streams music from a PC to stereos. I'd expect that price will come down pretty quickly because other companies are going after the same category with less expensive devices they're displaying here at the show.

Philips has a particularly nice pair of audio-streaming remotes that work with either a PC or an iPod. Like the Wireless DJ, they have small screens that display song information like an iPod, and they use radio technology that works through walls so you can use them throughout the house.

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Philips' music-streaming remote control with iPod dock.

But the Philips remotes will also control TVs, so you'll only need one remote for audio and video; they have full color displays; and they're cheaper. Doug Kent, the product manager, told me they'll sell for about $179 starting in August or September.

What makes this category of remote really interesting is that they also function as media streaming devices that connect music stored on computers to audio systems.

Hi-fi companies are also doing this with all sorts of new receivers on display at the show. Many now have USB and Ethernet ports, and some have wireless accessories and iPod docks. But they tend to cost $500 or more, and they generally have much worse remote controls.

Philips also displayed a standard but wacky remote that looks like a "flip" cellphone, or a Star Trek communication device. To access the buttons on the SRU4060, you have to flip up the lid, but it does control up to six different devices.

The Philips "flip-phone" remote.

Remotes will also get interesting if you use Windows Vista as the heart of your home entertainment system.

Vista has a cool technology called Sideshow that displays information like album and song lists on a small secondary PC display. Toshiba and other laptop makers are putting these little screens on the outside of laptops, so you can see messages and other snippets of information without firing up the system.

Display of remote controls and other Sideshow devices in Microsoft's booth.

Sideshow is also being used by a number of consumer electronics companies to build slick two-way remotes that display media collection information. About a dozen models are displayed in Microsoft's booth.

LAS VEGAS -- My 13 minutes of CES fame came last night when I raced against a group of other journalists to see who could assemble a new PC the fastest.

It was the 10th annual "Build your own PC Race" for charity held by TigerDirect, a Miami-based online computer and electronics store. The PCs are donated to charities, and $10,000 is donated to a charity selected by the winner.

The competition was tough -- most of the 30 or so contestants were from specialty tech publications like PC Magazine, PC Gamer and Hardware Geeks. It seemed as though they had all built lots of PCs, and someone said one of the guys worked at Intel for a decade.

I've poked around inside PCs but had never built one before last night. After seeing the pile of components, screws and cables I had to work with, I thought I'd be there until the janitor came to sweep the room.

Mostly I wanted to hold my own against the other newspaper guys, particularly Dean Takahashi from the San Jose Mercury News. Unfortunately Dean didn't show up and I ended up next to PC World's Steve Bass, a celebrity of the event who had been in the contest eight or nine times before.

Steve came in fourth, and the race was won for a second year in a row by Charlie Demerjian from TheInquirer.net, who finished in 6 minutes, 47 seconds.

I finished -- by assembling the system, booting it up and connecting wirelessly to the electronic finish line -- in 13 minutes, 34 seconds, placing 18th.

I wasted a minute or two trying to get it to boot up because I had accidently pulled out the cooling fan power cord plug and it wouldn't start until one of the TigerDirect guys pointed that out, but I was never a contender for top 10.

The system -- with a 64-bit, dual-core AMD processor, 1 gigabyte of memory, a 256 meg graphics card, a wireless card and a DVD burner -- will go to Seattle's Atlantic Street Center after it's checked out by techies at TigerDirect's parent company, Systemax.

TigerDirect got its PR and I realized how easy it is to build a system from scratch, although it helped that all the components were pre-selected and the power supply was already in the case.

It was actually easier to build than some of the Ikea furniture I've assembled in the past.

CES used to be full of tiny things, like gumball-sized MP3 players and video players that fit in your shirt pocket.

Apparently big is back, judging from these things I saw on the floor today:

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The enormous Philips remote.

Samsung's gigantic new music phone.

I didn't realize the size of the Samsung Blackjack phone until I saw this one in person.

Wait, this one's not a mockup. That really is a 102'' Samsung plasma TV.

This guy is trying to hide behind the LG Shine Black Label Edition.

Microsoft pitched a little tent for press meetings in the Las Vegas Convention Center parking lot. It must have been designed by the same guy that did Bill Gates' waterfront cottage.

LAS VEGAS -- Instead of having young models in revealing clothes smile and point at products as other companies do at CES, Panasonic had the local talent pose in bathing suits on a mock beach in its huge booth.

The setup was like an exhibit at the zoo, with a slightly raised platform where people could stand and look down at two curvy women and a hunky guy on the other side of the railing. There was real sand, on the floor in front of a wall-sized mural of a sea.

Why? So people would try out the new camcorders lined up on the railing --especially the zoom features, apparently.

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Panasonic's variation on using models at a CES booth.

LAS VEGAS -- SanDisk is making it possible with a 32-gigabyte, 1.8-inch flash memory drive it presented at the show today. The "SSD" (solid-state disk) drive is designed as a drop-in replacement for the delicate hard drives now used on portable computers.

The drives have no moving parts so they should last at least six times longer than a hard drive, and better withstand extreme conditions, vibration and jarring.

Until now big capacity flash drives were esoteric and expensive products used mostly in military and aerospace applications, the Milpitas, Calif.-based memory company said in its release.

The drives are now available to PC manufacturers and will be appearing in Vista laptops.

Besides durability, flash memory also offers speed and reduced power consumption. SanDisk claims the SSD is 100 times faster than most hard drives, and allows a Vista Enterprise laptop to boot up in as few as 35 seconds.

SSD uses 0.4 watts compared with 1 watt used by a hard-drive, the company said.

They're still expensive, but not outrageous when you think of the cost to replace and restore data lost to hard drives that fail when laptops are dropped or banged around too much. SanDisk estimates that the drives will add about $600 to the cost of a PC in the first half of 2007.

I was going to attend the press conference, but the line to get in was a block long, perhaps because SanDisk was luring reporters by giving out 1 gigabyte portable media players.

LAS VEGAS -- High on my list is an ultra-mobile PC out of left field: A dual-mode, dual-band WiMax portable information terminal running Windows XP from Samsung, which calls the device the "Mobile WiMax Deluxe MITs."

It's a white box about the size of an old Walkman cassette player. But you open it up and it has a color screen, fold-out keyboard and built-in 1.3 megapixel camera for making video calls over the Internet. It also comes with a companion WiMax flip phone in case you just want to talk.

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Two Samsung MITs; the one in back is closed, and plugged to a phone.

MITs is a term Samsung has used to describe "mobile information terminals," which include both phone and data capabilities.

The new device connects to the Internet via WiMax, and it can "seamlessly" switch to CDMA cell networks when it gets out of WiMax range, according to Jim Parker, a senior wireless systems manager at Samsung Telecommunications America in Richardson, Texas.

Parker said the device will start selling around March for $2,000. Samsung is working with Sprint on a mobile WiMax service to be tested by the end of this year and be available in 2008.

Also on display were several Samsung WiMax phones and a nifty multi-mode WiMax router that also uses Wi-Fi to distribute signals around the house. All in a box about half the size of a DSL modem, or perhaps half the size of a Clearwire box.

Other Samsung goodies ranged from wafer thin media players to a 102-in.' plasma TV. Its gee-whiz product was a double-sided LCD display that uses the same light source to display different images on each side of the 2.22-inch screen.

Also impressive was a demonstration of bleeding edge HSPA cell network technology that can upload music and photos from a cell phone at 2 megabits per second and download at 3 Mbps. That's nine times faster than 3G networks.

LAS VEGAS -- While interviewing a Samsung manager about the company's amazing new WiMax hardware, I set a cup of coffee on a convenient ledge in the Samsung booth.

The manager's eyes widened and he gently but urgently asked me to move my coffee. It turns out I had set the paper cup on top of a mobile WiMax station that was powering the booth.

The metal box is supposed to be weatherproof but Samsung's Jim Parker didn't want to take any chances.

I was also nervous about what could happen if I messed something up -- Parker's title is "Senior Manager, Wireless Systems S & M."

(Sorry, I've been in Vegas too long already.)

LAS VEGAS -- I heard a few more details about Windows Home Server Sunday night, after I'd already filed today's column on the product.

One interesting tidbit was from Bill Gates, who said it's a long-term investment by the company and that Microsoft will be working with hardware companies to further develop the product line. He said that after I mentioned that I was surprised that the debut product, a Hewlett-Packard system, doesn't include wireless connectivity.

HP

Hewlett-Packard MediaSmart server for home use.

If the software is cheap enough, it seems a great opportunity for big or small hardware companies to build cool home server products that incorporate more of the new technologies on display at CES for distributing media around the home using new flavors of Wi-Fi, home electrical wiring and exotic new cables. How about a home server with a built-in Blu-ray or HD DVD drive for burning hard copy backups? Why not include a modem -- Clearwire's perhaps? -- so the broadband goes straight to a single box in the house?

I was a little snarky in the column but frankly I'm ready for a product like HP's (or one of the Buffalo units ...) right now, to backup and share family photos and videos. I'm not one of those uber geeks, like the guys in the Windows group who run industrial servers in their houses, or Craig Mundie, with multiple servers on his boat, but the server sounds like a fun thing to tinker with at home.

The server -- code-name Q -- wasn't built on the upcoming Vista server, by the way. It's a subset of the current Windows server -- Gates said Micosoft didn't want to wait for the next server to release the home product.

Another point of interest: The server works with non-Windows PCs on a home network, so it can store and back up files from a Mac, for instance.

LAS VEGAS -- The first vulnerability report isn't enough to judge the security of Windows Vista, Jim Allchin told me and CNet's Ina Fried at a reception following Bill Gates' keynote.

Perfection is an elusive goal with complicated software, he noted, after having a chat with New York Times reporter John Markoff, who made a splash with a Christmas Eve story about Vista vulnerabilities. Later stories by other outlets said it's not that critical.

"It's not perfect,'' Allchin said. "But it's a huge step forward."

Allchin said it will take time for people to understand how much security has improved in Vista.

"History will tell that story, not the first issue,'' he said. "Give me two years and then look back because that's what it's going to take."

LAS VEGAS -- A lot of the insiders are still calling the Windows Home Server by its code name, the "Q," according to Jim Allchin, Windows co-president.

But Craig Mundie topped that with the term he used to describe the new Ultra-Mobile PCs based on Windows Vista that will start appearing around the end of January.

The UMPC was code-named Origami, so Mundie referred to upcoming models at Vistagamis.

LAS VEGAS -- Microsoft now has only six employees who have worked there at least 25 years, according to No. 6.

David Pritchard joined the company in 1981, after graduating from the University of Puget Sound. I interviewed him about five years ago when he was a human resources recruiter.

Pritchard is now chief of staff to Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. I ran into them at a reception with Microsoft executives at Delmonico's restaurant after Bill Gates' keynote speech.

I asked Pritchard if he'll get a watch or something, and he said he won't know until Thursday when he's having an anniversary party.

I'm not sure which is more amazing -- that the company has only six long-timers left, or that those six kept working so long after getting all that early MSFT stock.

LAS VEGAS -- Get ready Melinda, Bill's going to buy some more stuff for the house in Medina.

Gates said he loves the new all-in-one "TouchSmart" Vista PC that Hewlett-Packard unveiled at the show. It includes a 19-inch high-definition monitor with touch screen controls.

"There are places in my house where that's what I want," Bill said.

LAS VEGAS -- According to a few good sources, Bill Gates is likely to make one more keynote speech at CES in 2008 before he phases down his Microsoft work to focus more on philanthropy.

One of my sources was Bill himself. During the keynote he joked that he'll probably speak next year but "after that I'm not sure they'll want to invite me because I might talk more about infectious diseases than software."

Gates shared the stage Sunday with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division.

Bach is the obvious choice to replace Bill delivering CES keynote speeches, since Bach runs the most consumer-electronics focused group at Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer may join Bach on the CES stage after 2008, according to my other source, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer.

I'll be curious to see if they draw the same crowds. Gates is a highlight of the show for thousands of people who line up for hours to hear his annual speech.

This time around Gates didn't bring any celebrities on stage, but he was loose, happy and cracking unscripted, self-deprecating jokes.

During a demonstration of a futuristic, Web-connected bus stop, he joked that "I'm very familiar with bus stops."

Later, he presented a mockup of a kitchen. "It's another place you can imagine I have deep expertise,'' he said.

The kitchen, lifted from the Home of the Future demonstration on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, shows technology could someday be used to keep track of ingredients in a kitchen and suggest recipes when packages are placed on the counter.

Gates put a food processor and a bag of flour on the counter, and he chose a bread recipe.

What I thought was funny was that the instructions given to the world's richest man said: "Step 1. Divide the dough."

LAS VEGAS -- Sony hit all the major themes of this year's Consumer Electronics Show at its press conference today, announcing new devices and services to download video, store it on high-definition DVDs, record it on flashy new Windows Vista PCs and display it on bigger and brighter flat-panel televisions.

The consumer electronics giant also noted that it reached its target of selling 1 million PlayStation 3 consoles during the holiday season, but the PS3 wasn't Sony's star this year.

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Sony device plays back Web video on TV.

A standout announcement was a gadget that will attach to Sony televisions and enable them to play high-definition video streamed over broadband, plus other video content downloaded from the Internet. The company also disclosed partnerships with AOL Video and Yahoo! Video, and played up the downloadable content on Grouper, a YouTube competitor Sony owns.

Prototypes of the gadget are about the size of a DSL modem and can attach to the back of upcoming Sony flat-panel TVs, but they'll increase their depth if you're mounting one on the wall.

It uses a screen interface similar to the one on the PS3 and the PlayStation Portable, putting them all in the same family of next-generation video display devices from Sony. I wonder if they'll give the PS3 the same streaming capability, so it can keep up with the Xbox 360's evolution into a set-top box.

Sony also presented two slick but expensive new "living room PCs" based on Windows Vista Home Premium, which includes Media Center features for recording and playing TV broadcasts. One of the systems is a far out white hat-box shaped machine that will list for $1,600. The other is a high-end media center, shaped like a stereo receiver, with a Blu-ray disc burner inside; it will cost about $3,300.

SONY

Distinctive Sony TP1 Living Room PC With TV gadget lists for $1,600.

More accessible is a wireless music streaming device that also functions as a small boombox. Sony will sell it for $350.

But Sony's most cutting edge products at CES are, not surprisingly, televisions. The jaw-dropper was a display with working prototypes of 27-inch and 11-inch sets with superbright OLED displays that make today's high-def sets look like fat old dinosaurs.

Sony calls the OLED TV (organic light-emitting diode) technology "super top emission" and claims they have constrast ratios of 1 million to one. They're also not much thicker than an iPod, but a spokesman said they're just prototypes and won't be on sale anytime soon.

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OLED: The next generation of advanced TV displays.

Other prototype TVs included an 82-inch flat-panel LCD and a 55-inch rear projection model with a new laser light engine.

While you're waiting for those to reach the market, you can get by with Sony's new 70-inch 1080p LCD with three HDMI inputs.

To show off its TVs, Sony held a very strange press conference. The news announcments were made at stages spread around its 10,000-square-foot booth at the show.

Seats were arranged facing only one of the stages. When the presentations happened at stages you weren't facing, you saw instead the presentation displayed on a bank of high-definition TVs.

LAS VEGAS --The Bill Gates keynote express departed from Sea-Tac Gate A2 at 12:45 Sunday with a plane full of geeks heading for the Consumer Electronics Show here.

Most were Microsoft folks who didn't have to go early and set up booths or prep for the keynote.

Chris Capossela, a former assistant to Bill Gates, has done that many times. Now he's a vice president in the Office group, and knows how to do CES the right way -- arrive just before the keynote, do some meetings and fly back home before the show gets too overwhelming.

Chris said the team is still high from a surprisingly positive Office 2007 review (sub. required) by Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal that's been getting a lot of traffic. Chris said Walt has been using the product since its first beta version and got technical support from the top -- Office development boss Steve Sinofsky, who helped explain Office's new ribbon interface to the influential pundit.

Office isn't playing a big role at CES, show but it's still part of the story Microsoft is telling here.

Others on the same plane included robotics unit boss Tandy Trower.

You could tell who was boarding by the luggage and jackets sporting logos from groups like Vista and Office and and from past Microsoft conferences. Either that, or a lot of travelers have been shopping at the Redmond Value Village.

It's amazing any business (or reporting ....) gets done in Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show.

Here's the latest edition of the CES party list compiled by PR maven Karen Thomas. It doesn't include dozens of additional private events, including several organized by Microsoft.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 6:

4:00 p.m. - 7:00 PM: CES Press Preview, Venetian, Marco Polo (Invite Only)

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM: Storage Visions Reception, Flamingo (Invite only)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 7

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Panasonic, Venetian, Bellini Room (Invite only)

7:30 PM - 12:00 AM: HP, Caesar's, PURE Nightclub (Invite only)

8:00 PM - 9:15 PM HD DVD Press Event - Venetian, Galileo 905 (Invite only)

MON, JANUARY 8

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Rock-Ola Party, AMG Suite (Invite only)

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Saitek Industries Wine Reception - Bellagio Penthouse suite (Invite only)

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM: SpectroniQ, Hard Rock, Penthouse Suite, 11th Fl (Invite only)

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: KEF Press Conference, Hilton, Suite 335 (Invite only)

5:30 PM- 8:00 PM: TigerDirect Build Your Own PC Race, Wynn (Invite only)

5:30 PM - 9:30 PM: Corsair Party, Bellagio (Invite only)

6:00 PM: CES International Reception, LVCC, Room S222

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: CEA Wireless Reception, LVCC, Central Plaza

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: NPD Reception, Bellagio Hotel (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: CEA TechHome Reception, LVCC, South Hall, Room S226 (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Showstoppers - Wynn Hotel (Invite only)

6:00 PM: Technology & Engineering Awards, Venetian (Invite Only)

6:15 PM: Nokia, LVCC, Nokia Pavilion, outside Central Plaza (Invite only)

6:30 PM: Bang & Olufsen Hospitality Suite, Venetian Tower, 30th Fl, Suite 235 (Invite only)

7:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Verizon, Nobu (Invite only)

8:00 PM - 1:00 AM: Peerless Party, Palms, Ghost Bar (Invite only)

9:00 PM - 12:00 PM: Seagate, Bellagio Hotel (Invite only)

9:00 PM - 12:00 AM: OCZ Technology Overclockerfest, Bellagio Hotel (Invite only)

TUES, JANUARY 9:

5:00 PM: Blog Business Summit Party, Atomic Testing Museum (Invite only)

6:00 PM: Warner Bros Home Entertainment Press Conference, Bellagio, Tower Ballroom 4 (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM: TTZ Media Party (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: TRENDnet Party, Mirage (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: iHollywood Forum Party, Empire Ballroom, 3765 S. Las Vegas Blvd. (Invite only)

7:00 PM - 10:00 PM: AVS Forum Party, Sahara, Golden Ballroom

7:00 PM: Monster Cable Party, Venetian (Invite only)

7:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Dell Reception, Venetian, Madame Tussauds (Invite only)

7:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Maximum PC, Palms, Ghost Bar (Invite only)

7:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Cooler Master Party, Palms, Crib Suite (Invite only)

9:00 PM - 1:00 AM: Sony, MGM (Invite only)

WED, JANUARY 10:

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM: Super Talent Reception, Bellagio (Invite only)

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM: TTZ Media Party, Roy's Las Vegas (Invite only)

I'm not sure who attends all of these events. My evenings at CES are usually spent hunched over a laptop, frantically typing stories in a dark hotel room, surrounded empty pop cans and crumpled Frito's bags.

Feel free to drop by if you're in the Las Vegas Hilton next week, no invite required.