It’s another beautiful night in Las Vegas for the International Consumer Electronics Show. But first thing’s first: a big thank you goes out to Boy Genius Report, Engadget, and their respective authors for getting the word of the at&t-branded BlackBerry Curve 8900, which was first posted here, out to the world–I’m truly grateful. Also, props to Media Temple for handling the tremendous traffic received without a single hiccup on its Grid-Service. I’m very impressed.

In regards to CES, last night’s post earned me a ‘Blogger Pass’ to the show, up from a standard pass. The new badge gives me priority access to keynotes and other public events, as well as some quality freebies including a “CES Blogger Bag.” Unfortunately, there are no keynotes and very few public events remaining for this year’s show. However, I’ll have the same pass from the beginning of next year’s show, where it will be put to better use.

I spent a majority of the day in South Halls 3 and 4, which are not filled with brand-name booths, but rather smaller companies. Because of this, I don’t have much else to share with you. Most products I saw were not new, and others were remakes of old products–nothing worth posting.

For tonight, I’d like to point you to what I believe was today’s most exciting event (which I was not admitted to.)

Dell put an end to the anticipation of its upcoming ultra-light notebook, Adamo, which looks stunning to say the least. Check out Engadget’s coverage here and here.

Tomorrow, I’ll be working much more efficiently in the Central Hall to bring you more quality news from CES 2009. There’s much more to cover there for my last day on the show floor. For now, good night!

I’ve decided to outline the most interesting and worthwhile things I’ve seen today here, and follow it up with a photo gallery to correspond.

Motorola Booth

Motorola surprisingly wasn’t considered the boring booth this year as it had been in the past. Rather, Motorola used CES to release two new, noteworthy phones. First up was the Motorola W233 renew, an odd name for a phone that may just dictate the future of the mobile phone industry. The environmentally-friendly, “candybar-style” phone’s housing is made entirely from recycled water bottles. Through Motorola’s efforts, they offset the amount of energy needed to manufacture, distribute, and operate the phone. It’s a great new direction for the company and industry as a whole.

Next, the much more advanced Motorola SURF A3100 was shown off today at the Motorola booth. This is one of Motorola’s few touchscreen Windows Mobile-powered cell phones. Its 528MHz Qualcomm processor gives the phone a noticable edge in the performance of simple tasks such as browsing the web and checking e-mail. More so, its loaded with 128MB RAM, quad-band GSM, a 3.1 megapixel camera, and a trackball as seen in the G1.

Sling Media Booth

As I had hoped for, Sling Media had their much-awaited iPhone app on display, running on at&t’s 3G network–not WiFi. This gave a much more realistic depiction of what we can come to expect of the app in real world situations. My impressions of the fully-featured alpha application were positive. The remote controls were quick to respond for the most part, and video quality was excellent. Sling Media has confirmed to me that they will be submitting their app to Apple in late March for approval in the App Store soon after. There will be a limited beta before then, of which a lucky select few will be able to join.

Canon Booth

I actually had not expected to drop by Canon’s booth today, but the EOS 5D Mark II captured my attention and lured me in. The update to the popular EOS 5D includes a 21.1 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor, Live View shooting, and 1080p video capturing. It has already been released and is available for purchase directly from Canon, although you must be on a waitlist. One can also get the DSLR at Canon resellers, where stock is not guaranteed.

The Outdoors

No, there is no such booth named ‘The Outdoors’. Rather, outside of the convention center I had a chance to meet and chat quickly with Ryan Block, former editor-in-chief of Engadget, and co-founder of gdgt, which has been covering CES as well. Lots of fun here…thanks for the chat, Ryan! =)

BlackBerry Booth

It’s been seen before, but hasn’t been officially released as of yet. That’s why this sleek device caught my attention: it’s the new at&t-branded BlackBerry Curve 8900, an update to the previous (and extremely popular) Curve. This confirms the device’s eventual presence in at&t’s BlackBerry lineup.

TiVo Girls

You read it right. I caught sight of TiVo’s new (and shall I say clever) advertising campaign in the form of surfers in bathing suits–at a consumer electronics trade show. Unfortunately for all the men in the convention center, the women were not permitted to enter the show floor due to “improper attire”…no joke. Get a glimpse below.

Well…that about does it for today! Catch you tomorrow for Day 2′s update.

7:51 pm: “Tripod” band takes stage once more! That’s about it…thanks for viewing! =)

7:50 pm: Technology industry has great opportunities ahead despite economic problems. “Thank you, and good night!”

7:42 pm: Microsoft Research takes the stage! $8 billion spent on R&D last year alone by Microsoft. Well done!

7:41 pm: Steve’s talking about being efficient with processor power. Finally! HDTVs will become cheaper, lighter, and more affordable. Future will entail writing apps that automatically customize to your device’s capability.

7:39 pm: Robbie’s off…Steve’s on!

7:36 pm: Little girl is demonstrating how to create your own game. Pretty awesome–and getting lots of laughs from the audience because she’s so fast!

7:34 pm: Another new XBOX channel called Community Games. Create your own games and play them with your friends over XBOX Live!

7:32 pm: Robbie’s having problems with his wireless controller–poor guy! No…nevermind, it’s fine. Showing off Netflix integration. New Windows Mobile Netflix Queue app coming out later this week on Windows Mobile Total Access.

7:26 pm: XBOX Live Primetime is a new channel with interactive games. Demoing “1 vs. 100″ game on Primetime. Sweet! This will be a hit…no question. Coming out Spring 2009.

7:25 pm: XBOX Live has had 10 billion hours of gameplay since its release. 10 billion!

7:23 pm: Halo Wars is a new strategy game. Expands the previous style of gameplay. February 28th Bungie releasing downloadable demo available on the 25th.

7:21 pm: Over 28 million XBOX consoles sold. Expecting even more sales momentum. 17 million active XBOX Live members. 70% growth in 2008!

7:19 pm: Microsoft Mediaroom is expanding by partnering with SingTel to view previous shows that you have not recorded on your DVR.

7:18 pm: Claims Zune a great success in 2008. Doubled Zune social network. 10 million unique users a month using Windows Media Center. Average session time per WMC user is 90 minutes!

7:15 pm: Robbie Bach, president of Entertainment division, takes stage.

7:14 pm: “Tripod” band takes stage. Intermission tech-based music!

7:12 pm: Windows Live Messenger matches photo tiles to emoticons you type in IMs.

7:11 pm: Social features in Windows Live Hotmail.

7:07 pm: Internet Explorer 8 accelerators. Translating Russian to English inside the browser.

7:05 pm: Showing Flash on Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile panorama stitching coming soon.

7:03 pm: Using Lenovo touchscreen to demonstrate Windows 7 multi-touch capabilities. Surface Globe app on display.

7:01 pm: 50% of US households have more than 1 PC. Introducing HomeGroups (new home networking).

6:59 pm: Charlotte Jones demoing Windows 7 beta. Showing new UI features…peek to desktop, etc. Jump Lists let you jump to a specific area of an app.

6:58 pm: Partnership with Verizon Wireless to offer Live Search on all phones.

6:57 pm: 20 million Windows Mobile phones sold in the last 12 months.

6:56 pm: 3 things. Worldwide availability of Windows Live Essentials announced. Partnership with Facebook to sync with Windows Live social networking. Partnership with Dell to pre-install Windows Live Essentials on all consumer PCs. First OEM to do so.

6:54 pm: Windows 7 is available now to MSDN and Technet users–worldwide beta of Windows 7 Beta live on Friday!

6:53 pm: Windows 7 on track to be the best Windows ever. Reliability and speed. “Working hard to get it right and ready. Should boot more quickly, have longer battery life, and fewer alerts.”

6:50 pm: Ballmer exclaims: “I’m a PC!”

6:48 pm: Introducing new hardware–new phones and PCs.

6:45 pm: Internet cloud will be the future of sync across all devices–Live Mesh, anyone?

6:42 pm: Smartphones will make up more than 50% of the mobile phone market in 2009 and 2010.

6:41 pm: 1 billion people own PCs in the world. Netbooks and OLPC will spread computing for the next billion.

6:35 pm: Ballmer takes stage and credits Bill for his work at the foundation.

6:33 pm: Showing Microsoft intro video…

6:30 pm: Gary Shapiro, President of CEA, takes stage to introduce Ballmer.

6:28 pm: CES official beatboxers are on stage…rapping about all things electronic!

6:20 pm: We’re being admitted into the ballroom!

4:30 pm: Here I am, in the midst of all the people who bring you your oh-so-loved gadgets. So far, I’ve met the CNN crew, as well as other industry affiliates who will be in tonight’s audience.

I’m writing to you this afternoon via tethering on my HTC 8925 over at&t’s 3G network.

More updates soon!

First off, happy new year! 2009 is sure to be a fantastic year for the technology industry. I can’t think of any better way to use the first post of the year than on the most popular consumer electronics trade show in the world.  For my third time ever, I’ll be one of more than 150,000 people making their way to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to check out the latest and greatest gadgets, listen to influential keynote speakers, and (hopefully) grab some freebies along the way…

CES has always been a strong foundation for both small and major corporations looking to release breakthrough technologies and products with the intent of capturing the attention of a giant audience. Unsurprisingly, the show was used to unveil the first VHS players, personal camcorders, cell phones, DVD players, HDTVs, and countless other milestone comsumer electronics.

Due to the astonishing amount of things to be seen at CES, I’ll outline a few events that I’ll be attending and some booths that I’ll be visiting and likely covering here.

Pre-Show Keynote – January 7th @ 6:30pm

In a change of normal routine, Bill Gates will no longer be delivering the opening keynote of the show as he has for the past 13 years. Rather this year, Steve Ballmer, Cheif Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, will be adressing a number of topics to the audience. From what has been leaked, we can expect to hear about Windows 7 going into public beta, Windows Mobile Flash support, and new home networking advances.

Microsoft Corp. Booth

With all the negative coverage of Windows Vista, the folks in Redmond have been working fanatically to resolve the most critical issues in the operating system alongside adressing the overall performance of the operating system in common tasks. Windows 7, the sucessor to Vista, will include all of these enhancements and more. With some luck, I’ll be able to take a closer look at the operating system currently set to be released in early 2010.

Also, following the release of Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server and the announcement of the all-new HP MediaSmart servers, the WHS team is sure to have much to talk about. Looking forward to quick chat with them…

Dell Inc. Booth

Facing increased competition from Apple and Hewlett-Packard, 2008 marked a year of innovation for Dell. The Inspiron Mini series took the ‘netbook world’ to new heights with its implementation of Intel’s Atom chipset. Furthermore, the Studio series proved that Dell was continuing to actively work on the design of its products. Dell should have much to tout at this year’s show.

DirecTV Booth

Last year was acclaimed to be the “year of HD.” DirecTV took the statement to heart, now boasting over 130 hi-definition channels in its lineup. Also, the company has worked with Microsoft to develop a method to watch DirecTV HD programming through Windows Media Center. Recently, the project was said to be put on hold, but it may be discussed at the show. DirecTV announced the return of TiVo DVRs in 2008, and it is likely that prototypes of such will be shown.

Sonos Booth

Sonos, along with Windows Home Server, is one of my most favorite “home technologies.” The networked home audio system’s setup is quick and painless, and its functionality is heavenly. Another ‘pro’ to the Sonos system is its constant (and free) software updates that dramatically improve the functionality and performance of the device. 2008 was filled with updates that added support for last.fm scrobbling, free Pandora playback, and a whole lot more. In addition, Sonos released a comprehensive iPhone remote app, which allows you to control the music playing in any area of your house. Should the Sonos team have any new products to announce, you can count on coverage here.

These are not the only booths I’ll be visiting. Not even close…I’ll be in Vegas for five days! These are just a few that came to mind right now.

Finally, here’s what I’ll be carrying on over to Las Vegas this year:

• Dell Inspiron 300m (What? I’m holding off for Windows 7!)
• AT&T Tilt – Tethering to the laptop for free internet access everywhere
• Nikon D70 – Take some pictures along the way
• Apple iPhone – Music and games for the short flight

That’s it for now–more on the 7th after my return from the Ballmer keynote!