(CNN) — If you like bold predictions, here’s one, courtesy of the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which hosts the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week:

“In my 28 years of attending the CES and participating in it and being a part of it and running it for most of that time, I can honestly say there will be more innovation at this show than any one in history,” Gary Shapiro said.

This from the head of the yearly show that has launched such big tech ideas as compact disc players, high-definition television and Blu-ray.

CES is the year’s largest consumer technology trade show and one of the best chances to see new technologies before they hit the market.

Despite Shapiro’s enthusiasm, though, this week’s CES buzz may be dampened by the lingering economic recession and the fact that big announcements from Google and Apple are likely to bookend the show this month.

On Tuesday, Google is expected to launch its own mobile phone called Nexus One, and rumors are flying that Apple will unveil a touch-screen tablet computer January 26. Neither of the tech giants is scheduled to exhibit at CES, although Google said in an e-mail to CNN that it will attend a CES media event.

Watch a video about what to expect from CES

Attendance at CES 2009 plunged 20 percent compared with 2008 numbers, largely because of the economic recession, Shapiro said. The number of people at CES this week is estimated to hold flat at about 110,000 people.

Still, after a slump in 2009, some market analysts predict a brighter future for consumer electronics this year — and the innovative CES that Shapiro predicts could blossom from this preliminary optimism.

Here is our take on eight of the hottest consumer tech trends to watch at CES. Add your ideas in the comments below. And reply to this CNN iReport assignment with questions you would like CNN to answer at CES this week or cool gadgets you want to see.

We will do our best to report back with answers.

Tablets and midsize screens

Size is everything in computing these days. Netbooks — those 8- to 10-inch dumbed-down laptops — were big news in 2009. This year, they may be eclipsed by an abundance of other midsize computing devices.
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“There’s the large screen, which is the television. There’s the small screen, which is the wireless phone or the smartphone,” Shapiro said. “Then there’s a middle category, where there’s a tremendous opportunity for growth.

“That’s the netbook, the smartbook, the dualbook, the nettop, the desktop, the laptop — tablets. There’s a lot going on in that middle screen-size space.”

Toteable “tablet” computers ditch keyboards in favor of touch-screen interfaces. Apple’s rumored tablet is getting all of the buzz from tech blogs, but Shapiro said CES will debut tablet computers that run on the Android operating system that Google produces.

Bloggers expect Dell to be among the companies introducing an Android tablet.

E-books and e-readers

Heard of the Amazon Kindle? The Barnes & Noble Nook? The Sony Reader?

All of these e-readers — portable devices that let readers consume digital books without the eye strain caused by computer monitors — will face new competition at CES this year.

Look for an ultralight e-reader from Plastic Logic that’s big enough to display a standard sheet of letter paper. It’s called the QUE.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil tells Wired magazine that he will debut a color e-reader interface at CES called Blio. The software is expected to work on a number of devices, from e-readers to tablets and phones.

Look for new e-readers with color screens at CES as well.

TV + Internet, or “Smart TV”

TVs will continue to morph into living room-based computers in 2010. The industry calls the new generation of televisions “Smart TVs” or “Connected TVs,” and they do things like download Netflix films, stream Pandora music, check e-mail and communicate with other electronic devices in the home.

The idea isn’t especially new, but the interfaces are changing. Plus, Shapiro said, Internet-connected TVs stand to shake up the cable industry.

“You may need the cable company to get broadband, but you may not need it to get cable services” when more TVs connect to the Internet, he said.

One spinoff trend to watch: Several new services, like Boxee, offer interfaces to help couch potatoes surf Internet video without having to jump from one TV network’s Web site to another.

The software side of Internet-enabled-television trend is likely to be hot at CES as well. Boxee is expected to offer hardware that connects TVs to Internet content, too.

Mobile TV

In June, the U.S. switched from analog to digital television (goodbye, rabbit ears!). A quiet side effect of that change: U.S. television signals now can be viewed on mobile devices like smartphones and portable media players.

Shapiro said mobile television will be a major focus of CES, and products that play live TV on the go should hit the market in 2010.

Cydle, a South Korean company, says it will debut mobile TV products for cars. And iMovee announced that it will unveil several mobile TV products.

Look for South Korean mobile phone and electronics maker LG to get in the U.S. mobile TV market as well, as is rumored by tech blogs.

3-D TV, games and laptops

In the wake of hit 3-D movies like “Avatar” and “Up,” several TV makers including Sony and Panasonic have announced plans to sell 3-D television to consumers in 2010. Most of the products demonstrated so far require viewers to wear clunky 3-D glasses in order for images to jump off of the screen.

New at CES, Shapiro said, will be 3-D technology from 3M that does not require glasses for viewing — as well as laptops and video games that display three-dimensional images.

AMD and Blu-ray also say they will demonstrate high-definition 3-D home entertainment at CES. In December, Blu-ray announced that it had arrived at a technology standard for producing content in three dimensions.

Connected cars

Cars are turning into computers.  Ford and other automakers have announced in-car wireless Internet. Ford will offer one of the keynote addresses at CES, which emphasizes the growing importance of the in-car technology industry, Shapiro said.

“We expect them to say something fairly significant,” he said, adding: “They are also positioning themselves as a tech company rather than a car company.”

The emergence of mobile television also probably means live TV will come to automobile consoles and headrests soon.

Once that happens, Shapiro said, a whole new avenue for the advertising industry will open up. A family watching TV in their car while driving through North Dakota, for instance, might see TV ads about local attractions and eateries. A trip to New York might yield entirely different ads.

Android everywhere

Despite the recession, smartphones — those mobile devices like the BlackBerry and iPhone that work almost like computers — were hot buys in 2009.

Expect a fair bit of mobile-phone buzz at CES, although Google’s rumored announcement of its Android phone on Tuesday — and the absence of Apple, maker of the iPhone — could dampen some of the intrigue.

But Shapiro said new phones using the Android platform will be unveiled at CES.

The Android platform, which runs on phones like the Droid and myTouch, also is expected to extend its reach from smartphones into other electronics like televisions.

Apps and accessories

With consumer spending down, cheap buys like mobile phone applications and accessory electronics may take center stage at CES.

Apple’s iPhone is the dominant device for using mobile applications. The iTunes app store has sold more than 2 billion apps since it opened in July 2008.

An iLounge at CES will feature 100 exhibitors with Apple-related products, including new mobile phone applications, Shapiro said. Expect that to be a big draw as iPhone owners look for the next big games and app functions.

In addition to the apps, touch-screen cameras, a third generation of USB data cables and GPS add-ons for phones all could be big CES finds.

Details we’ve all been waiting for… the Google Nexus One phone.  We posted a Nexus One Android 2.1 walkthrough video earlier this month and today Engadget has managed to score a full spec sheet for the phone, as well as some details about its release date.

According to Engadget’s source, the phone will initially be available by “invitation only.”  It looks like Google will be deciding who gets invites (hey, Google, call me), but the specifications also indicate that T-Mobile will be able to sell the phone directly to the customers in the future.

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The Breakdown

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Here are some highlights from the screenshots that Engadget posted:

- 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, included 4GB microSD card, expandable to 32GB

- 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and mechanical autofocus

- 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED screen — in other words, as big as the Droid and brighter

- Worldwide GSM/EDGE, but 3G only on T-Mobile in the US (supports 2100, 1700 and 900 frequencies, meaning Europe should be covered)

- 1GHz Qualcomm chip — if accurate, that would make the Nexus One one of the fastest — if not the fastest — smartphones on the market.

- Wi-Fi A/B//G/N

- Bluetooth 2.1

- GPS

- Accelerometer

The specs look solid, the phone matches or beats every competing Android phone on the market (aside from having no physical keyboard) and also compares quite favorably to the iPhone (faster processor, nicer screen, wireless-N).

The only caveat for potential U.S. buyers is that, barring some sort of firmware upgrade (assuming the 1900 band is just disabled), this phone will only work in 3G in T-Mobile’s network.  If you live in a large city, that might not be a problem, but T-Mobile does have the smallest 3G footprint of any of the major U.S. wireless carriers.

For international users, this is really enticing, because the phone should be compatible with all UMTS bands in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia/New Zealand.

Now all we need is a solid release date and a price.  My friends are ready to buy this sight-unseen.  What about you?  android, Google, nexus oneWhat do you think of the Nexus One?

LinkedIn came out with the latest version of their iPhone app today. As you might expect from a 3.0 release, the app has been much improved, namely in its user experience.  In fact, it looks a lot more like Facebook’s iPhone app now.

As you can see, there is a new main screen that features 12 main buttons.  Yes, this is just like the new Facebook app main screen that features big buttons.  With LinkedIn’s you’ll get easy access to “All Updates,” “Status,” “Profiles,” “Discussions,” “Connections,” “Favorites,” “Inbox,” “Invitations,” “Recents,” “Reconnect,” “In Person,” and “Themes.”  Of these, the Reconnect, In Person, and Themes areas are entirely new.   Reconnect allows you to find people you likely know on LinkedIn with the click of a button. In Person lets you use the iPhone’s Bluetooth to easily swap contact information with any other LinkedIn iPhone use you happen to be nearby at a conference or event.  And Themes allows you to change the color of the main screen icons — you can choose pink, orange, gold, and a bunch of other crazy colors to ugly-up your app to your heart’s content.

Previously, the app featured a more standard bottom-bar iPhone navigation where you could switch between updates, your inbox, search, and other elements. This new layout gives you access to a lot more information quickly. The updates areas (All and Status) has also been been made more Facebook-like as each now features a user profile picture next to each update. You can also now comment on each of these updates right from within the app — again, yes, just like Facebook.

It’s also now very easy to “star” any profile to mark it as a favorite, to give you easy access to it.  Doing this also creates a filtering mechanism for the update streams.

Find the 3.0 version of the LinkedIn app, available for free in the App Store here.

Could the Google phone be the death of the newly released Android?? The HTC-built device called the Nexus One was handed out to Google employees last week in the “mobile lab”. The rumor is that these phones would be sold unlocked directly to consumers.

The million dollar question is: How would Google bring an unlocked phone to market? There are really only three ways to sell phones.

1. License spectrum from a carrier and become a mobile virtual network operator or MVNO — a business model that time has proven to be a failure.

2. Of course, is to partner with carriers and offer phones at discounted prices through carrier subsidies, which is more or less the case with every successful device on the US market today.

3. Sell unlocked devices at full retail price that can be used by consumers on the network of the their choice. This is allegedly the model Google will be using to sell the Nexus One.

Stay tuned… we’ll see when and if the phone comes out to the market anytime soon.

On the consumer side of things, Google has just released a bevy of new features like Google Goggles and real-time search. But the search giant hasn’t forgotten about its business users. For you they offer up a holiday present.

Now Google Analytics users can add annotations to dates in order to better document spikes in traffic, use custom variables in advanced segments and view them in custom reports, and even use a super simple analytics tracking code wizard for setting up specialized situations.

Google also took to their Analytics blog to announce that a new version of the Analytics API is coming soon and will support advanced segmentation.

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Annotate Your Graphs

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The majority of Google Analytics users will get the most value out of annotations, especially since the notes can be used to designate why there were peaks or dips in traffic, campaign launches and other information to help team members process traffic data.

To use the annotations, simply click the tab below the date on the graph. The tab will expand to include a date field and text entry box for your note, which will be attributed to you once you save. You can also save your note as private or edit previous annotations.

As the post points out, the use cases for annotations are manifold:

“Annotations can become your central repository, or logbook, for all online marketing and website design actions within your business. So even if you have multiple marketing teams, agencies, or webmasters, or if you have employee churn or other disruptions, you can always see which events may have caused conversions to increase or decrease.”

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Go Custom: Advanced Tools for Tracking

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If slicing and dicing data is your thing, the refreshed Google Analytics also offers up custom variables in advanced segments plus specialized variables in custom reports. This means that “if you’ve created a Custom Variable such as ‘Logged-In Member,’ you can also create an advanced segment based on that variable and see it across all of your reports.”

Should comprehensive traffic tracking be more your style, look no further than the new tracking code set-up wizard. The wizard will automatically generate the right tracking code for your site profiles, so you can more easily track cross-domains, multiple sub-domains, mobile sites and the like.

On the whole, the new Google Analytics features are perfect for data-crunchers and Web site admins looking to better understand their site metrics.

A year ago, Swype launched a new way to type on a touchscreen phone at TechCrunch50. Swype was created by the inventor of the T9 predictive typing system used on most phones today because he felt that new text input methods for small touchscreens are sorely needed. Today, the startup announced the first phone to use the technology will be the Samsung Omnia II on Verizon.

As you can see in the video above, which shows a side-by-side comparison of typing on the Omnia II versus on an iPhone, the way you type with Swype is you literally swipe your finger from one letter to the next as fast as you can. In the video, the Swypist beats the iPhone typist hands down, so to speak. But the comparison is more illustrative than definitive. A practiced iPhone typer can bang out a few sentences just as fast. I tried it myself and was able to basically tie the Swype user on the video. Still, I’ll withhold judgment until I can actually try a Swype phone myself.

More phones with Swype built in will be launched next year. The Omnia II is a Windows Mobile phone. But Swype will be included in a new Android phone in the first quarter of 2010.

Will Swype give Android an edge over the iPhone?