Scenes from CES 2011: Day one (photos)

LAS VEGAS--Day one of the Consumer Electronics Show kicked off with a joint keynote address by the Consumer Electronics Association (which puts on the massive show), and Verizon.

Here, Mike Cleron (right), principal software engineer at Google, joins Verizon President and Chief Operating Officer Lowell McAdam (left) and Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha during the address.

For his portion of the talk, McAdam focused less on actual devices and more on the power of Verizon's new 4G network. But a few shiny gadgets did get trotted out...

...including the Motorola Xoom, shown here. The tablet is the first to run Google's tablet-optimized Honeycomb version of Android. It is due out in the first quarter of 2011 and will be available, naturally, on Verizon.

You can see more hands-on photos of the Xoom here, as well as some photos of the Xoom being demoed running Honeycomb here.

Another device to get some good face time during Verizon's keynote was the Motorola Droid Bionic, one of the first phones to use Verizon's 4G LTE network and one of the more popular devices to come out of this year's show.

You can check out CNET editor Nicole Lee's hands-on with the dual-core Bionic here.

Not to be out-tableted, Dell used its press conference on Thursday to reveal its Streak 7 tablet. This is the followup to the Streak, an Android-powered mobile device released last year that straddled the line between smartphone and tablet.

During its talk, Dell dubbed the new 7-inch Android tablet "the ultimate social-networking device."

The Dell Streak 7 is expected to become available through T-Mobile retail stores and T-Mobile.com and through Dell in the weeks to come, though pricing has yet to be announced.

Dell also used its time to introduce the XPS 17 laptop, which runs on Intel's new Sandy Bridge CPUs; the 3D-ready XPS 8300 desktop; the Android-powered Venue smartphone, with its full Flash 10.1 implementation and 8-megapixel camera; and the new Alienware M17x 3D, which boasts full HD 3D and an advanced wireless connectivity for real-time gaming with zero lag time. Dell called the M17x the "most powerful product to be introduced in the universe." Yep. They went there.

For a more complete summary of Dell's address, click here.

T-Mobile talked up its 4G network and, while it didn't introduce any new phones during its Thursday event, it did say it plans to unveil 25 4G devices this year.

Jong-Seok Park, CEO of LG (left), and Philipp Humm, CEO and president of T-Mobile, show off their Honeycomb-powered G-Slates during T-Mobile's press conference.

The company's keynote sounded great, but didn't offer much in the way of news.

Later in the day, Verizon held a second event, this time a Verizon-specific press conference, where it unveiled a table full of its first 4G devices--10 in total--expected to make it to store shelves by the middle of this year.

Among them was the LG Revolution smartphone (see CNET's hands-on photos here) and the HTC Thunderbolt, HTC's first 4G LTE smartphone. Click here for a summary of all the 4G-ready devices Verizon touted during the talk.

Here, Verizon CMO Marni Walden (center) stands with two of Verizon's partners behind the table of devices introduced Thursday.

In what was doubtless the most entertaining--though perhaps not the newsiest--press event of the day, Samsung blew our minds with dancing ladybugs, flowers, circus performers, and children of the future.

A sort of child emcee for the night was a furry-headed pre-teen, who apparently represented a child from 2020 and talked of his experience with the TV entertainment experience, and how vastly different things were from 2010.

He went by the name of "Zoll," but we thought he bore a striking resemblance to Sonic the Hedgehog's sidekick Tails.

You can see more of Samsung's dance-a-thon press conference in this slideshow.

Of course, the day wasn't all about press conferences. Thursday was also the day the convention opened its doors to the public, so there was plenty to see out and about on the show floor.

Lady GaGa made an appearance on behalf of Polaroid, showing off the Polarez GL20, a pair of sunglasses with a built in camera, and the Polaprinter GL10, a mobile instant printer.

In this photo, she's talking about how phones are the cameras of the future.

More photos from Lady GaGa's CES appearance are here.

GoPro's 3D Hero case is the high-tech version of taping a pair of cameras together for stereoscopic vision.

The case maintains GoPro's waterproof, shock-resistant design, but also includes the 3D Hero link cable. This connection joins the two HD Hero cameras by their BUS connections and allows one camera to take full control of the second, automatically syncing video capture and settings with the touch of a button.

The AR.Drone, a favorite toy in the hallowed halls of CNET, is back at CES this year. And the demo of a dogfighting game was going really well--until the legendarily poor Wi-Fi environment at the convention got in the way.

Wi-Fi meltdowns aside, the AR.Drone team was there to show off some fun racing and dogfighting games that can be played with the remote-control flyers. You can read more about the demo and see a short video of one dogfight in our blog here.

Waterloo Labs shows off a prototype of its motion-control technology powered by your eyes.

The electrodes on this fellow's skin are attached to a motherboard that's communicating with the TV.

We have more details on how the technology works, plus a video of it in action, in our blog here.

Meet the next generation of Microsoft Surface. Largely untouched since it was first introduced in 2007, the technology has resurfaced (sorry, I couldn't resist) at this year's CES.

The upgraded table-top, multitouch computer is set to ship later this year. This new version has 10 inches of additional screen real estate, more powerful internals, and is significantly thinner than its predecessor.

The new unit is four inches thick and is made out of an LCD panel that's been optically bonded to Corning's Gorilla Glass, a material that has appeared prominently in many of this year's high-profile devices. It can be placed horizontally on stands or counter tops, or (for the first time) on vertical surfaces for use as a kiosk.

ThinkEco's "modlet" is a smart outlet and lets people schedule when to turn off electronic gear when they're not at home.

The plug is equipped with Zibgee radio that can communicate with a PC through a USB key. The system can track how much energy electronics use and make suggestions about what devices could be turned off at specific times based on usage data.

The company says it's preparing an iPhone app that could be used to control the system, as well as a power strip, both of which should be available later this year.

Continental's AutoLinq is an Android-based automotive head unit offering many apps. During a demonstration, a Continental representative showed an app that can alert parents if a teenage driver is consistently exceeding the speed limit, and something called geo-fencing, a system whereby parents can receive a text message if their child goes farther from home than allowed.

Other apps included navigation with real-time traffic, music from Pandora, and a vehicle diagnostic system that analyzes error codes and gives drivers more detailed information than the traditional check engine light.

Samsung quietly showed off a few new, then-unannounced Google TV devices at its booth.

The company's Google TV Blu-Ray player and set-top box were running side-by-side in one part of its booth, which was otherwise dominated by TVs running Samsung's own Internet TV software.

Samsung characterized the devices as "an experiment" but later confirmed its new partnership with Google TV today.