The Wallet MP3 is only slightly thicker than a credit card, and it plugs directly into a PC. Image: Jon Fortt

LAS VEGAS – At the Consumer Electronics Show, you often find those geeky product gems tucked away in a little booth away from the action. That’s where I spotted the Wallet MP3.

It’s an MP3 player the size of a credit card, complete with a USB connector that plugs into a computer. (It actually works; I tried it.) Walletex, the Israeli company that makes them, says the card gets five hours of battery life and charges via USB in 90 minutes. It holds 2 gigabytes worth of music, twice as much as Apple's (AAPL) iPod shuffle.

Why would you want an MP3 player the size of a credit card? If you have to ask, you lack geek cred. It’s cool because it’s weird. Good luck getting your hands on one, though; Walletex doesn’t do retail. They sell these, and identical card-size storage drives, to businesses that want to offer snazzy giveaways to their clients.

Sony's XEL-1 flat TV with OLED technology drew big crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show. Image: Jon Fortt

LAS VEGAS – After chatting with Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow, I had to see what the hype was about. So I headed over to Sony’s booth here at the Consumer Electronics Show to check out a $2,500 flat-panel TV with a screen a little bigger than paperback book.

Yes, at 11 inches, it’s that small. So what makes the XEL-1 worth as much as an HDTV 10 times its size? More

Pioneer showed off concept TVs that offer a first: near-absolute black in a flat-panel display, providing brilliant contrast. Image: Jon Fortt

LAS VEGAS – In the United States, plasma televisions are losing the high-def battle with LCD screens. But at the Consumer Electronics Show, plasma backers including Pioneer and Panasonic clearly believe it’s not over.

Plasma’s problem has always been the side-by-side comparison with LCD on the showroom floor. Because LCD screens tend to be brighter and thinner, consumers tend to judge it superior, even though good plasma sets can provide truer colors and better contrast ratios for a lower price. More

The innovative Rolly robotic speaker system, which is not yet available, is emblematic of the company's improved fortunes. Image: Sony

LAS VEGAS – After a rough couple of years, Sony is beginning to look like its old self.

It might be too soon to declare a total comeback, but the electronics giant finally seems to have momentum. Those quarterly losses that at times topped $500 million as Sony (SNE) struggled to turn around its core electronics business? They’re not quite a distant memory. But here at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony does exude a confidence it hasn’t shown in a while.

At a dinner with journalists Monday night, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow was upbeat. Despite the slowing economy, consumers responded to Sony’s risky $100 million marketing campaign, and turned out in force to buy high-definition TVs, camcorders and other gear in November and December. The industry support for Sony’s Blu-ray format for high-definition video is also encouraging. “I think across the board we demonstrated we had a good holiday season,” Glasgow said. More

As Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster walked the floors of the 2008 Consumer Electronics show he, like many other attendees, found himself thinking about Apple (AAPL) and Steve Jobs.

"While Apple was not at the show," he writes today in a report to clients, "the company's impact is felt at CES."

Signs of the company's influence, he says, were evident in three broad areas:

• Hardware design. "The simple, industrial design that began with the iPod and has carried over to Apple's Macs and the iPhone, is a general trend that we see in CE devices. iMac-like all-in-one desktop computers from Dell and Gateway, for example, are two instances of other device makers following Apple's lead."
• Touchscreen devices. "Apple's iPhone represents a consumer-ready level of maturity for touchscreen devices… Touchscreen device makers like Samsung are following Apple's lead, but we believe Apple is significantly ahead of other device makers (except perhaps Microsoft)."
• Ecosystem connectivity. "Apple's closed iTunes+iPod ecosystem has enabled the company to set the bar in terms of hardware and software integration… This year at CES several companies are pushing to catch Apple in terms of connectivity. Such products included the Sandisk Take TV, wireless streamers, and other connected entertainment devices that offer a non-iTunes competitor to Apple's entertainment ecosystem."

Like CES 2007, when the buzz of the show was the soon-to-be-unveiled iPhone, much of the talk this week in Las Vegas was about what might be coming next week in San Francisco.

As Munster puts it:

"We expect Apple's Macworld announcements (1/15) to set the bar for CES '09 — in other words, we see Apple as effectively one year ahead of its competition."

LAS VEGAS – Why did Warner Bros. choose last week to exclusively back the Blu-ray format for high-definition DVDs and ditch HD DVD, a move that could end the bitterest battle in the electronics industry? More

With 1.83 million square feet of floor space to cover, it's not easy to gather in one place the 600 media representatives who have flocked to Las Vegas for the orgy of marketing excess that is the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. But in the press lounge on Sunday, Valleywag's Jordon Golson found 129 reporters and bloggers (they wear different badges this year), and he used the opportunity to take a survey of what machines they were using.

His count: 94 Windows PCs and 35 Macs (including his MacBook Pro). That's a 27% market share for Apple (AAPL) — considerably higher than the 7.3% reported in the latest Net Applications survey. The numbers are sure to be even more skewed Cupertino's way when a different subset of the tech press gathers in San Francisco for Macworld next week.

No wonder Apple gets more than its share of ink — and pixels — in the technology press.

[Photo courtesy of CES]

Bill Gates is offering his view on the tech landscape he shaped. Last year, the Microsoft chairman used his CES keynote to tout ideas including an in-car technology partnership with Ford. Image: Consumer Electronics Association

LAS VEGAS – Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates used his last speech opening the technology industry's biggest trade show Sunday night to announce that the software giant will challenge rivals such as Apple (AAPL), Sony (SNE) and Adobe Systems (ADBE) with new initiatives in phones, online video and the Xbox 360 gaming console. More

Journalists prepare for the start of the Sony pre-CES press conference. Image: Jon Fortt

LAS VEGAS – Fresh from its news that Warner has backed its Blu-ray format for high definition, Sony (SNE) is vying to show that it is still an electronics innovator, and isn't languishing in the shadow of iPod maker Apple (AAPL).

To that end, the electronics giant said it will immediately begin selling an 11-inch version of a super-slim TV in the United States. The TV uses OLED techonology, which allows devices to be thinner than today's LCDs and more power efficient. Sony also showed off new cell phones, cameras and the Rolly speaker system, a novel egg-shaped robotic speaker system that actually moves to the sound of the music it plays. Below, the way the Sony press conference unfolded: More

Trying to pick the winners in '08? Watch these three conferences.

In January, politics has Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Tech has DEMO, Macworld and the Consumer Electronics Show.

Just as primaries and caucuses define the year’s political landscape, these three big technology trade shows compete to introduce trends that will shape 2008. Each show has its own personality and its own surprises – and its own part in influencing whether a few months from now we’re all clamoring for new iPhones, wireless HD home theaters, or the next challenger to Facebook. More