CEA estimates that about 140,000 people attended CES, and the state of the industry is showing strength. Gary Shapiro predicts that consumer electronics spending will show a 6% increase for 2010, to $180 billion, and will rise an additional 3% this year, to more than $186 billion. The predominant themes this year were tablets, apps, 3D, 4G, gestural interfaces, and ‘smart’ connected devices. We saw a great deal in terms of sharing content across multiple CE platforms – and the high-speed networks required to do so. ETC will have a post show analysis with details of the major themes and trends available by next week.

Facebook and Twitter had a strong presence at CES … in the form of apps on connected TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top-boxes, and just about any connected device. Samsung even announced that their new connected refrigerator could display your Twitter feed. The popularity of social networks have forced CE manufacturers to include them on their products’ feature specs, irrespective of how appropriate the application truly is. Unfortunately, this knee jerk reaction to include social networks clearly demonstrates the lack of imagination or understanding as to how social networks are really used by people.

Cisco’s Videoscape is an end-to-end content management solution that ties social networks, advertisers, content providers, unmanaged network/Internet and managed access networks into one cohesive system that allows service providers to seamlessly manage the consumer experience across multiple screens.

Cobra Electronics’ iRadar becomes GPS-enabled via a downloadable app that syncs to an iPhone. The app will be upgraded in spring to include a real-time data gathering component that collects information from all mobile users and distributes it live, via the cloud.

Pioneer has announced a new platform that is immediately available to developers, and hopefully in the near future to users. The Platform for the Aggregation of Internet Services (PAIS), will enable users to have a single login that can access all of a user’s social networking, music, video, contact, calendar accounts and much more from multiple content/service providers. The PAIS API allows users’ devices to seamlessly access and share information among a verity of services, allowing for a new level of interactivity among the various users’ accounts.

Haier is soon to debut a new range of LED displays powered by Yahoo!’s Connected TV platform. These Net Connect displays also feature Wi-Fi and boast a Netflix button on their remote control. Haier is also demonstrating Yahoo! Connected TV’s new broadcast interactivity feature and has plans to participate in the pilot program.

New York-based Copia is a software app supported on the Windows 7, Android and iPad platforms that allows users to choose among hundreds of thousands of downloadable books, but also offers a “social” experience that allows readers to annotate and share notes. It’s billed as an ideal medium for book clubs and students.

Panasonic has changed the name of its IPTV service from VIERA CAST to VIERA Connect and installed it on 15 new TVs and a new tablet. VIERA Connect is an open platform, available to developers of third-party content. The company expects to drive its IPTV sales up to 70% of its total television sales in the global market by 2012.

At the Media Money Makers session, “Who’s Really Watching What and How?” president of research at NBC/Universal, Alan Wurtzel discussed five consumer-centric trends that people ignore at their peril: 1) Dynamic Pace of Change, 2) Consumers Still Love TV, 3) Fragmentation, 4) AlphaBoomer Phenomenon, and 5) Time for a Reality Check.

A panel of music and tech experts gathered today to discuss the future of music in the Digital Age. The consensus: while new opportunities are everywhere, there’s no clear solution to the music business’s problems. However, there now exists unprecedented and myriad ways by which artists can promote their careers and manage their music. Also, forms of curation and tastemaking are more important than ever.