Members of the Windows Live dance troupe pose for a photo during a break. The ’80s-themed dancers, adorned with sweatbands and high tube socks, are touting Microsoft’s Windows Live Internet services.

For his Thursday morning keynote speech at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer (left) brought some star power on stage. Joining him for some advance publicity on the Sony Pictures version of the bestseller “The Da Vinci Code” are actor Tom Hanks, director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.

A highlight of Bill Gates’ opening keynote speech at CES was some hand-to-Xbox combat with fellow Microsoft exec Steve Ballmer. The two sparred via the “Fight Night Round 3,” video game. Gates played as Muhammad Ali and Ballmer as Joe Frazier. The bout went to Gates in a knockout.

In a flashback to the early days of personal computing, the opening keynote also featured a video with a young Bill Gates and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Gates’ on-stage dance card also included pop music star Justin Timberlake. The two were accompanied by MTV Music Group President Van Toffler to present the new Urge music service.

The calm before the visitors began storming the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

With CES in full swing, the show-bound traffic was heavy, and the parking lots were full.

The Funky Monks rocking out at Creative’s booth during CES.

Some 2,500 exhibitors are converging on CES in Las Vegas to get the attention of industry professionals, the media and consumers.

The Yahoo tent at CES. CEO Terry Semel speaks on Friday.

At CES, vendors show off all manner of gadgets, including state-of-the-art tech for automobiles.

The Sands Convention Center at CES in Las Vegas was home to various small companies and emerging-technology companies showing off their wares. Among them: a Dutch firm that’s trying to reinvigorate the Commodore brand. Here, a booth shows off its products, including a portable media player and a media hub.

PC cases that light up, such as this one from Logisys, are a staple of the outer reaches of tech trade shows. At this year’s CES, smaller firms can be found at the Sands Convention Center.

A CES attendee tries out the Golf Launchpad, a PlayStation 2 controller that lets golfers take a real swing while rnplaying virtual golf.

At the Sands Convention Center at CES, iRobot shows off the latest of its household drones, the floor-mopping Scooba.

Mitsubishi’s prototype Blu-ray Disc player is big and somewhat intimidating. It’s far bigger than a normal DVD player.

Royal Philips Electronics’ Blu-ray player is bulky yet simple. Its few visible controls make it look like it could be easy to use, yet its size makes it seem like it could run hot and suck a lot of power.

Pioneer Electronics’ BDP-HD1 player was one of the slicker looking of the Blu-ray machines on display at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Yet it still looked more like a decent mid-1990s VCR than state-of-the-art technology.

To look at Sony’s BDP-S1 Blu-ray player was to flash back to ’80s-era Trinitron TVs. The buttons seem the same, and the machine itself is big and bulky and about as unsexy as possible.

Hewlett-Packard’s HD DVD digital-entertainment center looks kind of modern but also reminds one of an old dual-cassette deck.

It seems that in creating its sample HD DVD player, RCA simply took a shell from one of its old VCRs and stuffed it with new technology. The machine may turn out stunning image quality, but by its look, no one would know it.

With its bottom control panel door closed, Toshiba’s sample HD DVD player is a study in large simplicity. With the door open, the machine looks archaic.

Do the new Blu-ray and HD DVD players remind you of anything? To one CNET News.com reporter, they look a lot like 1980s-era VCRs.

This Advanced Digital Media high-definition TV with 37-inch LCD screen, the SLC3760N, is among the new products Hewlett-Packard rolled out at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas this week. Compatible with Windows Media Player 10, this screen is designed to showcase music, photos, slide shows and videos stored on a PC.

Another HP HDTV on display at CES, the PL506N plasma TV features a 50-inch screen.

Based on “digital light processing” technology developed by Texas Instruments, this 65-inch microdisplay TV, the md6583n, features 85-watt surround-sound audio.

The dv8000, one of the new HP notebooks on display at CES. The notebooks are expected to be available by the end of this month and will be priced from $699 to $1,049.

At CES, Dell showed off this concept laptop with a 20-inch screen and detachable keyboard. The company said it has “10 patents and counting” related to the product but did not say when it would ship.

Dell’s “factory-overclocked” limited-edition XPS 600 Renegade is the company’s first foray into the world of overclocking, which refers to selling PCs that have chips running at above their approved speed.

Accessory maker Speck Products showed off its latest iPod cases at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company also launched its first electronic iPod add-ons, a set of car chargers and FM transmitters.

Little-known GGI was one of many upstarts at the Consumer Electronics Show looking to get in on the iPod accessory action.

Belkin used its CES booth to display the TuneDok, as well as a variety of other Mac and iPod gear.

Japan’s Green House used CES to show off a variety of peripherals made to sit above or below a Mac Mini, including a speaker, hard drive and subwoofer. The company was at the Sands Convention Center hoping to find some U.S. distribution for the gear.

The RIAA says the $399 Pioneer Inno, which stores up to 50 hours of XM Satellite programming, is a tool for copyright infringement and can act as the equivalent of a download service such as iTunes. The recording industry sued XM Satellite for $150,000 in damages for every song copied by XM customers using the devices, which went on sale earlier this month.

XM has a second radio receiver/MP3 player, the $399 Samsung Helix. It sports the same dimensions as the Inno and similarly stores 50 hours of programming.

Sony’s first high-definition Blu-ray DVD player for the international market, called the BDP-S1, which will be released this summer. The company hasn’t yet said how much it will cost.

The Sony Reader, an eBook device with electronic-ink technology created by E Ink. It’s similar to the Librie product previously distributed in Japan.

Sony’s 46-inch Bravia LCD television, which will retail for $4,500. The company also showed off a gargantuan 82-inch LCD screen TV at the CES show.

The DCR-SR100 camcorder, Sony’s first to feature an iPod-like hard drive to store video. It will be available in May, for about $1,100.