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.

T-Mobile promises to double the speed of its existing 4G network to 42 Mbps downloadable by the end of 2011, when it expects to have 4G in 25 markets. The company also debuted its first tablet, the Dell Streak 7, running Android 2.2 on a dual core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor with Adobe Flash support. The Streak 7 has a 7-inch display and a front-facing camera for video chats.

A new Silicon Valley company is discreetly showing “The Kno,” a dual-screen tablet being marketed as the future of college textbooks. While several companies are pushing dual tablets here at CES, this one is unique in that it’s already shipping, is designed as a textbook replacement, and offers a large catalog of ready-to-purchase digital textbook content from all the major educational publishers.

This year, connectivity is clearly the big story. During his opening keynote, CEA’s Gary Shapiro predicted that 70% of all CE devices will be connected by 2014. Also, watch for news on the tablet PC front; we are expecting to see more than 100 models at the show this week.

Kicking off the largest CES ever, Gary Shapiro, CEA’s CEO, opened the event to a packed crowd, citing the theme of Innovation – the “engine driving the US and global economy” – as the theme of this year’s Vegas soiree. Shapiro’s remarks covered the waterfront, from upbeat commentary on the criticality of innovation in reviving our economy and improving our standard of living to political commentary on the need for Washington to remove barriers to innovation. Shapiro cited steady growth in consumer electronics this past year (up 3.5 percent worldwide in 2010, to $18 billion), driven in part by the acceleration of change with mobile technology, Internet TV, tablet computing, home automation and 3D.

Verizon, which has arguably led the industry in terms of infrastructure but lagged in terms of debuting 4G phones, announced 10 new devices for 2011, including Android talk units from LG, Samsung and HTC. The company also debuted a 4G tablet and unveiled integration deals with Electronic Arts and Skype.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touted innovations to XBox Kinect, the Windows Phone 7, and the latest PCs … but did not unveil a new tablet or give hints about Windows 8. The star of the show was the Xbox gaming system, which has been the #1 selling console for the last six months and whose Kinect gestural interface system sold over eight million units during the holidays. Starting this spring, XBox LIVE users can use Kinect to navigate controller-free within Netflix and Hulu Plus.

Motorola and AT&T on Wednesday unveiled the ATRIX 4G mobile phone, which combines a 2GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM with up to 48 GB of onboard memory. It docks to a special station that allows it to function as a desktop computer. The company also debuted the industry’s first Android 3.0 tablet, the Verizon XOOM, which is 1080p capable.

This may be the year of “smart” devices and solutions with a number of companies claiming the space with meanings ranging from integration to sustainability. More “smart” devices are on the way from Samsung. Televisions touting thin bezels, lightweight laptop displays, and sliding keyboard touchpads were introduced during the Samsung press event.