Tomorrow morning I’ll be heading back to Las Vegas for CES, and I’m really curious to see what kind of year it’s going to turn out to be. CES is being bookended by the Google press event that happened today announcing the Nexus One, and the supposed Apple event that could be happening at the end of the month. As I said on TWiT this past week, I’m not really that interested in an Apple tablet, though I’m sure whatever they release will be (at the very least) interesting. So what do we have to look forward in the meantime? Lots of netbooks, 4G and WiMax talk, new Intel processors, eco-friendly gadgets and lots of web-enabled TVs. Yeah, so basically a lot like last year.

I’ll be helping Tekzilla cover the show, of course (follow the Revision3 CES Twitter list here), but I’ll also be paying special attention to any gaming-related content on the show floor for Qore as well. That means you’ll probably see me floating around the Sony booth quite a bit. Plus, I’ll be guest-hosting Buzz Out Loud on Friday morning at 9AM PST, so if you’re around the South Hall come check it out (or listen online).

Let me know what you’re most excited about seeing at the show this year in the comments, and don’t forget to add your most coveted gadgets to your lists on gdgt!

Tomorrow starts the busiest week of my year (Tokyo Game Show notwithstanding) so I wanted to give everyone a heads up on what’s going on with Tekzilla this week!

Tuesday:
We’ll be at the (Jobs-less) Keynote, and then roaming the show floor at Macworld trying to find the coolest stuff to put on the show. There’s a Macrumors party that evening that I’d like to attend, depending on my exhaustion levels. For live coverage, make sure you watch Ryan’s liveblogging at gdgt!

Wednesday:
CES baby! We’re all flying down to Vegas in the afternoon. Digital Experience is that night, which always has something interesting to see.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday:
Live Tekzilla at 4pm at the NBC/Revision3 booth (Central Hall #12133). Come see me and Patrick record the show, which should last about 30 minutes or so. We’ll have a ton of new products to show off, most of which I can’t talk about yet. :/
I’m also hoping I might be able to pop into Buzz Out Loud for a little reunion show, but we’ll see!

Saturday night:
We’re having a Tekzilla party at the Double Down Saloon! We’re probably going to get things rolling around 8pm, but I’ll send updates to Twitter if anything changes. I’ll be the one drinking the bacon martinis.

If you’re at any of these events, stop and say hello! Post any predictions for Macworld/CES that you have in the comments, and we’ll see who has the best intel. BTW, we have a winner for the shuffle contest! It was Mirko from Croatia (#433). Congrats! I’ll get that out to you as soon as I get back from CES.

What’s happened to conferences in 2007? During the past week, I think we’ve all been waiting for some truly amazing news to come out of CES, and it never came. So what’s the deal? Is there just too much industry pressure for these annual events for the companies to live up to? New rule for CES: If you don’t have anything good to show me that’s going to come out in the current calendar year, then you have no business having a booth on the show floor. We cover it because it’s there and because people find it interesting, but how frustrating is it that, for example, the hot new product you just saw won’t be out until 2010? Enough with the prototype and “concept designs.”

This whole scenario reminded me a lot of E3, and how drastically different it was from past years. Yes, the lack of excess was refreshing for people, but there were no amazing announcements to give it some balance. I don’t know, maybe if they had some dancing bears or something it would have taken the edge off of hearing about delayed titles and lackluster console sales.

There are exceptions, of course. Macworld is an obvious example of a show that keeps it’s intensity, but it’s also not as broad in scope as E3 or CES. And smaller conferences are also garnering a lot of attention, but that has a lot to do with their niche focus (such as startups at TechCrunch40 or LeWeb).

I don’t know, maybe it’s unrealistic to expect to be wow’d at every conference like this. And I certainly don’t think that companies like Sony or Samsung should sit on new stuff all year to save it for a big unveiling at CES, either. But with the rate that technology is progressing, I’m just a little surprised with the lack of new things to see here at the show floor. I guess there’s always next year.

We’ve been having a great time here at CES so far, and cranking out the videos non-stop. I think tomorrow I might actually have a chance to browse the show floor a little bit and check out some things I may have missed. Honestly, I haven’t seen anything too mind blowing, but there were some interesting announcements from Panasonic and the really cool Alienware Curve monitor.

The Mahalo Daily’s at CES have been a blast too, and I was even on Buzz Out Loud today, which was great. It felt like we just picked up where we left off. The CNET booth this year looks absolutely amazing, so if you haven’t stopped by there make sure you work it into your agenda. I also met the lovely iJustine, albeit briefly, and Major Nelson of Xbox. Getting to meet the people I read and watch online at these events is my favorite part, for sure.

More from the floor tomorrow!

Image from Engadget