The Consumer Electronics Show is expensive and for a lot of startups, it's prohibitively expensive, thousands - or tens of thousands - of dollars to be a very small fish in a very big ocean. As a result, there are external activities that are affiliated with CES but aren't actually part of the show floor and major event itself. One of those I attended a few nights ago, Startup Debut. Indeed, many of those companies were using that as their only shot at visibility during the event.

But if you're a startup seeking funding, even that can be prohibitively expensive.

Enter a new event for this year, the Launch.it Pitch Event. Co-sponsored by ShowStoppers (yet another off-show-floor event I'll be attending this evening), the Launch.IT event featured eight companies pitching their company from stage, seeking investment from the venture or angel community.

So how'd they do?

One of the biggest trends already coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show -- and it hasn't actually started yet! -- is a higher definition of TV screen called "Ultra HD". Regular HD is apparently already passé, so TV manufacturers are now working with the equivalent of the Mac retina display in terms of pixel density, which is offering considerably higher resolution and far crisper screens.

But what does it mean? What defines an Ultra HD television screen?

The Consumer Electronics Show started out early this year with an event two days prior to the official start of the show, Startup Debut. Held at a country club off-strip, it featured 40 or so small companies, many taking their first step into the spotlight with what can only be charitably be described as less than fully baked products.

New and innovative are what CES is all about for the AskDaveTaylor team, however, so we of course spent time checking things out so you can be on top of what's coming out of Las Vegas this week, even if we had some stealth photography in the mix...

Again, keep in mind that at least a half dozen of the companies were either still in beta or were making their first announcement ever to a media-heavy room of tech press and video crews, including teams from CBS and Engadget.

Conference report by contributing editor Gary Moskoff...

South by Southwest, SXSW, the original un-conference, is like nothing I have experienced before.

This was my first year attending and I was warned that it was going to be something different. To truly experience the conference, many said to follow the @SXSWparty feed on twitter and that I'd find all the parties, but that was not the case. One had to really think outside the box and do a lot of research to find the right parties to attend.

For instance, one of my favorites included the Skype party, a mix of bands and DJ's performed, the party itself was a lot of fun, but I was most impressed by the way they included the audience in the show by live streaming individuals dancing around the perimeters of the show and then using the imagery in real time on the big screen as visuals to enhance the overall experience for all to enjoy. I also enjoyed the Warner Brothers show where LP and the Punch Brothers stole the show for me!

A guest post by frequent contributor Gary Moskoff...

The San Francisco MusicTech Summit 10 was an experience I will not soon forget. In fact, I've attended six conventions this year, and this was simply the most informative one of them all. Held at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco's Japantown, the convention wasn't your typical Techy, Geeky, musical meet up. Approximately 1/3 of the attendees were musicians, while the other 2/3rds were technologists.

The conference itself was comprised of panel discussions, one after the other. Themes and topics that arose ranged from using API's to prolifically share one's products, to the licensing landscape and how some have become basement superstar phenomenon's on YouTube.

My favorite session was the final panel of the day, where a group of seasoned industry executives who are shaping this industry discussed what was coming next. I almost fell off my chair when the host hand delivered a beer to all of the speakers (high class at the end of a great day).

Seeing panel after panel provides a very different experience than watching speaker after speaker, leading to a deeper peek into how tech and the music industries are colliding as we learned about both the successes and failures of the panelists. People tend to be more relaxed and open up a bit more when on a panel, than when they offer prepared remarks and these insights are extremely valuable to entrepreneurs, technologists, musicians, and pretty much everyone who attended that were looking for insights to improve their businesses and/or careers.

Written by Contributing Editor Gary Moskoff...

My fifth visit to the Consumer Electronics Show was nothing short of epic!

This year was the busiest show since 2008 with 141,00+ people, from 80 countries descending on the Las Vegas Convention Center. The taxi lines were insane and making a cell phone call was next to impossible with so many gadget freaks in the same town!

If you find crowds intimidating, you simply did not want to attend this year's show.

However, if seeing the latest, greatest gadgets and understanding the trends in the consumer electronics market is more important than anything else you do over the course of your year, then you were there and I probably bumped into you at some point during the week!

Last week marked the fifteenth time I've attended the always-amazing Consumer Electronics Show. With 158,000 attendees and 3,100 vendors exhibiting, it's a trade show like no other I've ever seen, and "massive" doesn't begin to describe it. In fact, this year I had a pedometer in my pocket and on the day I walked the most, I took 17,000+ steps, around nine miles. One day. Walking.

There are lots and lots of companies showing their wares in reasonably modest booths, 15x15 feet, 20x20 feet, and then there are the real consumer electronics powerhouses, companies like Samsung, Sony, Intel and Sharp, they have spaces that are larger than your local store. The Sony booth itself was 30,000 square feet and took a year to design and create.

So what was worth seeing?

Guest piece by contributing editor Gary Moskoff...

This year, CTIA was an afterthought, a last minute decision for my buddy Conor Swanson and I, but the right one. If you haven't attended CTIA, it's a different kind of conference... Where else can one find a Satellite Transceiver Station on a convention floor sitting next to LG's booth?

CTIA, in case you're not familiar with the group, is the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry. You can find out more about the association and the conference at the Web site: ctia.org.

We enjoyed checking out a number of products during the convention, including Sprint and Google's partnership to release Google Voice on the Sprint network, but my favorite product was...

[This conference review is written by contributing editor Gary Moskoff]

Macworld Expo, to some a pilgrimage, came upon us yet again this February. For me, Macworld was at the right time for a variety of meetings I already had lined up, and San Francisco is always the right place, one of my favorite cities!

As I prepared for the technology wonderland of Macworld Expo, I found that it wasn’t just about the product on the Expo floor, it’s also about the educational experience, and the opportunity to immerse oneself in the root of the Mac subculture. And although I didn'’t attend half of the seminars I wanted to, the ones I did attend were interesting and definitely informative.

The keynote, given by David Pogue, was especially noteworthy. Mr. Pogue is the personal technology columnist for the New York Times, and tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, and apparently a comedian as well, because his 9am, "“Late Night with David Pogue"” session kept me chuckling all day!

Dell just introduced a new laptop that's getting a lot of buzz because of its inevitable comparison with the popular Macbook Air (a laptop that I used here at Ask Dave Taylor, as it happens). I'm lucky to be here at SXSW 2009 where they're letting us play with one and got a bunch of photos of the computer adjacent to my own machine...

Day Two of the huge Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we decided to check out the Central and North halls of the unimaginably massive Las Vegas Convention Center. The Central Hall seemed to be dominated by large tech companies, notably Microsoft, Intel, Motorola, and the like, along with a sprinkling of accessory manufacturers dwelling on the periphery.

The North Hall was in-car audio and mobile audio and devices, which was less well attended and, to my interests, less interesting. More amazing cars and lots of "booth babes" who were dressed exactly as they'd been for the almost cliché mechanic's calendars they'd posed for in the first place. And lots of guys eager to pose for photos with 'em, arm firmly in place around their barely clad waists.

We took a break, then went to the Las Vegas Hilton's own convention area for the International Gateway, which was exclusively representing companies in China and Hong Kong. Lots and lots of tiny booths with an amazing array of gadgets, gizmos and gewgaws, and every company hoping to find someone to distribute their products in the United States. This makes it a bit frustrating when you see something cool and realize that it might never be for sale through Best Buy, Wal-Mart or even Amazon.com, but it's fascinating to think that two shy Chinese women who are hiding out in their tiny booth might well representing a two-thousand person strong manufacturing powerhouse in a far-flung province of China.

Anyway, on with the photos!

End of day one of the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 and I barely made it through the upper and lower South Hall in the Las Vegas Convention Center before I had to split for the splendid Showstoppers evening event at the sumptuous Wynn Hotel and Casino on the Strip.

There were tons of interesting things to see and really, an amazing number of companies and people, but I tried to find both what was interesting and amusing, to give you a sense both of the new consumer electronics products that are coming out onto the market and the inane delight of a massive (135,000 attendee!) trade show.

Please read on to see my first day photo exhibit, with commentary...

This is the first of many reports we'll be filing from the Consumer Electronics Show, January 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are lots of places to get all the big announcements, so our focus will be on trends and things that catch our eye.

Will Interactive Blu-Ray Save the Format?

"Dreamer, a leader in interactive TV solutions, announces today that their BIDDLE™ platform will be utilized by Technicolor to offer digital content delivery services including online and disc-based direct-to-TV solutions for Blu-ray; allowing movie studios, broadcasters, record labels and other content distributors to utilize BD-Live as a fully-controllable direct marketing and e-commerce tool."

There's a lot that's interesting in this announcement: First off, that Technicolor is expanding into your home, a smart move, but also that Blu-Ray Live can include e-commerce capabilities. Now we really might see a "click to buy Angelina Jolie's t-shirt" button floating above her during key scenes in Wanted or similar.

Will that work? Is it enough to save the lackluster performance of Blu-Ray as video on demand and DVR systems become increasingly sophisticated? You tell me.