of goodies are tumbling out of the annual technology fest at Las Vegas known as the Consumer Electronics Show.

Bill Gates (pictured) opened it up with a talk about Windows Vista, due to go on sale to home buyers at the end of January. Windows Vista, Microsoft Office and Windows Live are designed to allow consumers to connect to multiple devices and access live services.

Some companies see the demand for video content as their main target market, innovating to provide better display and portability.

Texas Instruments sees the future, unveiling a plan to create a suite of products aimed at different points in the "end-to-end video chain". This market aims to deliver multimedia content across cell phones, high-definition projectors and televisions, portable media players, automotive infotainment systems and other networked devices. This ability to seamlessly move content and do it on demand is possible through a technology the industry labels as "transcoding".

At the show Texas Instruments is demonstrating devices that capture original video content, including a video surveillance system, and seven different Internet Protocol (IP) video phones.

TI is also targeting products that would allow IP set-top boxes to allow users to access their content when and where they want.

In the display segment TI is demonstrating its DLP display chip technology, an array of up to 2.2 million microscopic mirrors which switch fast to create a high resolution, full colour image on high definition television sets (HDTVs) and front projectors. One display featured a mobile phone being used to play a game. The phone is connected to a DLP pocket projector to create a larger display.

Panasonic meanwhile launched what it says are the first HDTVs with high intensity lighting technology developed by Luxim. LiFi is a new light source that promises improvements in image brightness over an extended period of time, and reduced start-up times.

To get video from computer to TV SanDisk released what it calls the platform for the first digital ''Flash DVD Player''. It labels the format "USBTV". It would allow consumers to plug a USBTV player into the USB port of a personal computer, where it acts as a USB device for "drag and drop" storage. The USBTV's processor converts the stored files into various TV video/audio formats for direct playback on virtually any TV without the need for any changes to the set.

The players will be able to plug into the TV standard A/V sockets through an adapter cradle. In the future, USBTV players may be able to plug directly into new TV sets through a built-in port, SanDisk hopes.

The first pocket-sized players are expected to be available this spring. LG Electronics, Mitsubishi and Pioneer have signed on to support the standard.

With Sony's Blu-ray video playback format competing for supremacy against Toshiba's HD DVD, one company decided to hedge bets on which one would win the consumer war. LG Electronics said it will release a dual-format high definition player that will play both formats.

The company plans to release its "Super Multi Blue" Player in February for about $1,200. LG also said it will release a multi-format disc drive for computers that also plays both rival formats. The two DVD formats were introduced last year. This year Warner Bros. plans to introduce a high definition DVD disc that can hold video in both Blu-ray and HD DVD format. A single-layer Blu-ray disc can hold up to 25 gigabytes of data.

About 25 companies have released Blu-ray disc products to date, including players, recorders, high-definition computer drives, recordable media, computer applications, and 170 movie and music titles. The Consumer Electronics Show started on Monday and ends on January 11.

It is depressing to see that the top news search term on Google during 2006 was Paris Hilton. The hotel heiress beat out Orlando Bloom, cancer, podcasting, Hurricane Katrina, bankruptcy, Martina Hingis, autism, the NFL draft and Celebrity Big Brother in that order. The list of top Web searches during the year was topped by Bebo, the social networking site, followed by Myspace, followed by competitor Myspace. Searches for World Cup, Metacafe, Radioblog, Wikipedia, video, Rebelde (a Mexican teen soap opera), Mininova (a downloading site) and Wiki (an online site like Wikipedia that allows users to add and edit content collectively).

l Send any comments to Ahmed at elamin.ahmedgmail.com