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?

If you've been to an electronics store in the recent past, you know that "Smart TVs" are all the rage, televisions that have the built-in ability to run apps, display YouTube videos, access your photos, and access slick content like Google Play.

Heck, what if you want to have Netflix on your TV? Or join the world of Hulu and Hulu Plus instead of paying that ever-increasing cable TV bill?

What if you want those features but don't want to buy a new HDTV system?

That's where the slick CTL HDMI gizmo comes in. A tiny box not much bigger than a pack of gum, it plugs in to the HDMI port of your existing TV and gives you all the functionality of those expensive TVs. Without the cost.

Let's have a look!

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...