The Tech World's Week of Buzz

As technology has evolved -- with faster Internet speeds, larger hard-drive capacities and smarter computer chips -- the lineup of big players at the show has shifted.

Last year, Google made its debut at the show and created a lot of buzz when co-founder Larry Page landed a keynote speech and unveiled its online video store. Google's video offerings turned out to be somewhat of a flop, but online video itself became the icon of the technology frontier for 2006.

This year, video remains a key player at CES -- this time with Leslie Moonves, chief executive of CBS, delivering a keynote speech that is likely to address the network's push to use the Web for delivery of its programming.

Shapiro notes that not everything that's showcased at CES will find a space on the shelves of big electronics stores or win the hearts of fickle consumers. But the show has become a testing ground for what people seem interested in and is increasingly a place where business deals are struck.

It's no coincidence that over at the nearby Sands Convention Center, the adult video industry is holding its annual show the same week. Hollywood and Silicon Valley will be interested in what adult film producer Vivid Entertainment is doing with upcoming releases on two competing formats for high-definition DVD, called Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

"The adult industry's reputation for a long time has been that we're guys who get the technology out there and are willing to take chances," said Vivid founder and co-chairman Steven Hirsch. "It just makes sense that the adult entertainment industry people would be there, as well."

Historically, the adult industry has been a testing ground of technology, from 8mm films and VCRs to streaming video and clips for a mobile phone. In all those cases, mainstream studios have followed in adoption of the technologies.

Paramount Pictures, for example, last week launched a movie site exclusively for cellphones, and a month earlier, MTV Networks started a mobile-entertainment unit to sell videos over wireless phones.

It's tough for anyone to pinpoint a central theme of CES, but Shapiro, who will address attendees this morning, said he will focus on the freedom of consumers to consume digital media on their own terms.

"Innovation is focused on essentially one thing, which is shifting content in time and place," he said.

But as much as the companies have fine-tuned their products and services for the CES crowd, there's also the challenge of standing out among thousands of firms.

Some hang oversize ads on the sides of buildings; others opt for a mobile billboard cruising up and down Las Vegas Boulevard. For several years, District-based XM Satellite Radio has been inflating a towering boombox that's impossible to miss just outside the convention center entrance.

"There is a countless number of trade shows, but there is nothing, utterly nothing, like the Consumer Electronics Show," said XM spokesman David Butler. "Just the sheer number of people put it into a category by itself. It's the ultimate opportunity to meet with all the major players under one roof."

Staff writer Mike Musgrove contributed to this report.