I purchased my iPhone 5 just before the New Year on December 29th. I was so excited and still love my new phone, but after using it for a week or so, I knew I was going to need some help getting through my favorite convention, CES, the Consumer Electronic Show.

It is amazing how Las Vegas runs down any mobile phone. Phones simply die much faster out there. I always practice my ABC's, Always Be Charging, but I knew that was going to be next to impossible during CES. CES is a marathon. I'm on the move for the four days, running from meeting to meeting, checking out new products, talking with developers, manufacturers and listening to speeches. There's just no time to plug in and charge.

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.

An interview with Kingston Technology's Mike Mohney: Senior Technology Manager about the new line of SSD solid state drives from Kingston to be released in 2012. Interview conducted at CES by Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com

Kingston Technology head of PR David Leong sits down with Dave Taylor to talk about the company and its new USB Data Traveler device. Recorded at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 2012.

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?

I've never seen this before, but on the icon for Messages on my iPhone 4, there's a small white exclamation mark in a red circle. Not a number indicating how many new text messages I have, but an exclamation mark. Apparently that shows up when something failed. Now what??

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.

I played hooky today and came to the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) trade show and exposition in Denver, Colorado to see what's new. Sadly, not much. If you're a wirehead this is a cool place to visit, since much of the action is about flexible HDMI cables, very high quality speaker cables for recessed and invisible speaker systems, and lots of subwoofers for high-end home theater systems.

Nonetheless, I did see a few cool gadgets and gizmos that are worth writing about...

After reading about the Gizmodo bloggers wandering CES and flicking off TVs left and right, my company is paranoid someone will do a similar stunt to our displays in our Macworld exhibit booth. That'd would be a huge problem. Short of duct tape, is there some way to prevent this problem?