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Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer opened up the largest consumer technology trade show in the world with a tone that was both reflective and energized, but without living up to much -- if any -- of the anticipation that preceded the speech.

Some tech insiders had expected Microsoft to use its keynote slot Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show to debut a tablet-sized computer, a much-hyped category of electronics that is sized between mobile phones and laptops and usually has a touch-sensitive screen.

Apple, the company's chief rival, is rumored to be announcing a tablet later in January.

While Ballmer did briefly show off tablet-sized computers that run on Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, he did not announce a Microsoft tablet computer; nor did he dazzle the technophile crowd with many new products or announcements.

Instead, Ballmer chose largely to highlight the company's past successes, like Windows 7, the Xbox 360, its Zune HD portable music player and the search engine Bing. Thirty-nine million Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide, and Bing has gained 11 million new users in recent months, he said.

He also mused on the history of technology and said he is going to be headstrong about the fact that the future will be just as innovative and inspiring as the past.

Noting that the global middle class -- Microsoft's customer base -- is expected to jump from 1 billion to 4 billion people in coming decades, Ballmer said, "I'm bullish, and we can all be bullish in terms of the long-term prospects of our industry."

A substantial portion of the keynote focused on entertainment and gaming, and some news did come out of that part of the talk.

Microsoft announced Project Natal, a new controller-free video gaming system, which reads a players body movements with cameras and mimics them with avatars on screen, will be available for purchase by the holiday season this year.

The company had demonstrated the system at another trade show last year, but had not set a release date until Wednesday. It is still unclear how much the system will cost, although Microsoft says Natal add-ons will work with its existing Xbox 360 gaming console.

Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president for entertainment and devices, also announced a number of new games for the Xbox, including a new edition of the popular game Halo,

Nice story on how to build a huge storage system on the cheap (sortof).

"At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867."

Read the rest of the story here.

(CNET) -- Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T to offer the iPhone may end within the year, according to a prediction from financial analyst Gene Munster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray.
The iPhone could be available next year on wireless carriers such as Verizon, an analyst predicts.

The iPhone could be available next year on wireless carriers such as Verizon, an analyst predicts.

If Munster is correct, opening up the iPhone to other carriers in the U.S. could be a boon for Apple, which would likely see iPhone sales go through the roof. On the flipside, if this prediction were to come true, it would likely mean very bad news for AT&T, which has relied heavily on the iPhone to boost its own wireless sales and revenue.

Munster noted recently in his published research that Apple has been moving away from exclusive deals in other countries, according to AppleInsider. Specifically, in France the company ended an exclusive deal with Orange and opened up the device to multiple carriers. Munster said the change pushed the iPhone's marketshare upward to about 40 percent in France. In the U.S., where the iPhone is exclusively offered through AT&T, the iPhone has a marketshare in the teens.

There are several other countries where Apple has a multi-carrier model. In fact, its most recent deal with China Unicom to bring the iPhone to China is also not exclusive. Apple declined to discuss which carriers it might be in talks with, but analyst firms such as Piper Jaffray expect Apple to sell more than 3 million iPhone units in China next year.

Details of Apple's relationship with AT&T have never been made public. But many people have speculated that the exclusivity contract with AT&T would last at most five years from when the first iPhone hit the market in 2007. This would mean that AT&T would have exclusive rights to the iPhone until around 2012.

Joel Tenenbaum has to pay $22,500 for each of the 30 songs he downloaded and shared on Kazaa in 2004.

(CNET) -- At a hacker conference no one is safe.

When I first went to Defcon in 1995, the halls were mobbed with teenagers and attendees seemed more concerned with freeing Kevin Mitnick and seeing strippers than hacking each others' computers.

Jump forward to Defcon 17 this year, which was held over the weekend in Las Vegas, things certainly have changed. The attendees are older and wiser and employed, most of the feds aren't in stealth mode, and even the most savvy of hackers is justifiably paranoid.

"Welcome to the hacker world," said Defcon founder Jeff Moss.