Way back in the fall of 2001, when BoomTown was but a less-aged version of myself, I attended a keynote speech at the now-defunct Comdex show in Las Vegas, where Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates continued to bang the drum for one of his long-running obsessions: The tablet computer.

“The tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available whenever you want it, which is why I’m already using a tablet as my everyday computer,” Gates said at the time to the audience gathered at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “It’s a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.”

Well, that did not happen.

But Gates did keep his promise about using a tablet–he kept on doing so and also harping on the topic all the time, with Microsoft even releasing a giant tabletop Surface several years ago and supporting multitouch in the coming Windows 7.

I recall Gates talking about the idea of how important the tablet is on innumerable occasions, more than any single concept I can recall.

It is ironic, then, that all the hype has suddenly and firmly coalesced around the particulars of the tablet that Apple (AAPL) will be unveiling in the coming months.

And now that CEO Steve Jobs is back fine-tuning the whole shebang, the obsession has moved into overdrive, punctuated only by endless stories about every single new app for the iPhone and fights over some of those new apps for the iPhone.

It’s a complete aside, but how ironic is it that Apple has somehow managed to make Google (GOOG)–the Skynet of the Internet–seem like a victim over this Google Voice shrillathon?

Back to the Apple tablet, which is playbook hype for iconic computer giant.

Besides being a secret project everyone in Silicon Valley seems to know about, the coming device is enjoying full-on breathless reportage of every single possible button and every possible feature, with every single bit of functionality parsed, dissected, masticated and spat back out.

But let’s be honest–in the end, this Apple tablet is probably going to be some kind of giant, sleeker, more glorified and doubtlessly niftier version of the iPod touch, called the iTab or the iPad or the iAmSoCoolAren’tI?, at three times the price.

Now, as it turns out, Microsoft (MSFT) is also at work on a table device, this time called the Courier.

This development became known recently after a demo video of it in use was somehow “leaked”–three guesses about which software giant in Redmond, Wash., put that out, and the first two don’t count!–to Gizmodo.

It seems to be some kind of tablet mixed with a journal mixed with a day planner, with a hinged two-page look. Digital writing and a stylus are involved, but also lots of touchscreen action.

Well, I say, good for Microsoft, and perhaps for Gates, who has now mostly disengaged himself from the day-to-day particulars of the behemoth he built, including the Courier.

Nonetheless, in all likelihood, Apple will still garner the most buzz in this tablet faceoff and will, more than likely, sell more.

A delicious irony, given that in their fascinating and long-running rivalry, it has usually been Jobs playing the hopeless dreamer and Gates the one who makes bank from the dreams of others.

No longer, which should make this round between Microsoft and Apple the most interesting of all.

Speaking of dreaming of dreams, it is always a good time to post the video of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream”:

Here are two very funny online videos making the viral rounds of late.

The first is from “The Daily Show” earlier this week, in which Samantha Bee perfectly mocks products from iRobot (IRBT)–best known for the automatic vacuum called the Roomba–as killerbots.

In the second, local Chicago anchors from WGN News, Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange, do a very impressive Las Vegas-style routine during the commercial break. It is hard to look away.

Here are the videos:

Future Shock–Roombas of Doom

What News Anchors Do During Commercial Breaks

When attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, BoomTown moderated what turned out to be a fascinating panel discourse of what was to come in the tech sector.

No, it was not a gathering of Trekkies.

The CES SuperSession panel, titled “What Will They Think of Next? Consumer Technology in 2025,” was less Jules Verne than a logical analysis of where gadgetry is headed by looking at both the past and the present.

Overall consensus: Touch screens everywhere, 3-D imaging in wide use, no device wires, ubiquitous high-speed wireless networks and more.

Of course, there were some edgier ideas, like being able to tell exactly when it is going to rain to the minute, via massive computing of weather patterns.

In addition, one of the panelists, Greg Harper, brought back what was popular in 1994, the same number of years back that 2025 is forward. Yep, he dragged out for display the Apple (AAPL) Newton and brick-sized cellphones.

The panelists were: Stephen DiFranco, VP and GM, Americas Consumer Group, Lenovo; Gregory Harper, co-founder, Gadgetoff and president, Cerberus; Len J. Lauer, EVP and COO, Qualcomm (QCOM); Sean Maloney, EVP and GM, Sales and Marketing, Intel (INTC); and Phil McKinney, VP and CTO, Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packward (HPQ).

Here’s the video with interviews about 2025 with all of them–and don’t miss the very funny poster at the end from Microsoft (MSFT) about its vision of the future:

As BoomTown did last year, I took to the much-less-crowded floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week with tech review kingpin Walt Mossberg and Mossberg Solution columnist Katherine Boehret to get their take on the scene.

Big news for Walt was the Palm Pre launch and the Yahoo Connected TV initiative. For Katie, it was a $2,000 cellphone.

As I also said last year, I jokingly call Walt the “Brangelina” of CES, since he is stopped constantly on the floor by fans who want to meet him in person and those who just want to kibitz with him about the latest and greatest trends in the tech sector.

So, here are this year’s video ruminations:

BoomTown did a video interview with Palm’s sugar daddy investor Roger McNamee at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, after the debut of its Pre smartphone.

Via Elevation Partners, McNamee has invested a total of $425 million in Palm, aimed at reviving the company that pioneered the smartphone market.

But Palm soon saw its business gobbled up by the BlackBerry from Research in Motion (RIMM) and the iPhone from Apple (AAPL). And, of course, there is the G1 phone from Google (GOOG) too, along with competition from Nokia (NOK) and many others.

And Palm is following the less-than-stellar last launch of the Foleo in 2007.

Thus, the company and the private equity firm have banked a lot on this revival, so McNamee was out in full force at CES in Las Vegas, talking up the Pre.

The Pre launch was indeed the highlight of the show, and also gave Palm’s moribund stock a boost.

And, indeed, the Pre does look pretty cool, with a sleek design and a new operating system, although the real proof will be when it debuts to consumers later this year.

In any case, here is the always hopped-up McNamee giving it his best for the Pre:

Here is BoomTown’s first video from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which kicked off last night with a keynote speech by Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer.

So far, it’s been a definitely thinner crowd, a reflection of the weaker economy, with more taxis in line than lines for taxis.

But CES is still a reliably noisy, often pointless, gadget cavalcade–with introduction of a new smartphone from Palm (PALM), called Pre, as the highlight so far.

Here’s some chit-chatting with attendees and looking at some products, including a guy who looks like a member of ZZ Top, showing off a new music device from Disney (DIS):

BoomTown loves a good memo and here’s one that two of Microsoft’s top online execs, Yusuf Mehdi and Satya Nadella sent out about the deal the tech giant signed with Dell (DELL) and Verizon (VZ) to distribute its search and other products.

Microsoft (MSFT) is opening its fat wallet to do such a deal and try to best archrival Google (GOOG). It was announced last night at Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote kickoff for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Here’s the memo:

From: Yusuf Mehdi
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 6:29 PM
To: OSD R&D FTE World Wide; Online Audience Business Group FTE; APSP FTE–Adv & Pub Solutions Platform
Cc: Yusuf Mehdi; Satya Nadella; Qi Lu
Subject: Announcing Dell and Verizon Strategic Partnerships!

Satya and Yusuf

With Macworld out of the way (basic verdict: Phil Schiller did not bomb), a chunk of the crack All Things Digital squad is now winging its way both east and west to the annual gadgetopocalypse in Las Vegas, a.k.a. the Consumer Electronics Show.

Despite the fact that the show is feeling the pinch of the economy–I was able to get a better room at a cheaper price last night, which was unheard of in the past–and that there are really no big products to speak of, except perhaps the new Palm (PALM) smartphone, CES is still one of the biggest and most important gatherings of the tech year.

Las Vegas turns into a geek moshpit every year–with the spicier pornies thrown in, with that industry’s convention also taking place at the same time–as legions of vendors, buyers, press and others converge to be overwhelmed for days by noise, long lines for cabs, keynotes, demos and more.

That also means the ATD team, including: Walt Mossberg, who gets the kind of attention from techies at CES normally reserved for Brangelina; Mossberg Solution columnist Katherine Boehret, who trolls the convention center floor looking for cool new products; MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka, who has scheduled himself to the gills; and me, who has not.

Still, there will be parties thrown by Facebook, CBS (CBS) and more to attend, a cornucopia of gadgetry to try and panels to moderate (I am manning one supersession called, I kid you not: “What Will They Think of Next? Consumer Technology in 2025″).

Also, I’ll be honest, gambling at the Pussycat Dolls Lounge with a passel of nerds.

Between the hands of poker, look for our ongoing coverage over the next few days, including interviews, videos and news (we hope!).

It will all begin tonight with coverage of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s preshow opening keynote, taking over from longtime first-nighter Bill Gates.

Until then, here is the fabulous Ann-Margret doing a mean bugaloo in “Viva Las Vegas” (the Pussycat Dolls have nothing on her) with super-handsome-phase Elvis Presley singing like a dream:

Actually, it is always time for a dancing dog video.

That’s especially true before boarding the Southwest Airlines bus to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later today and, thankfully, leaving behind the Steve-Is-Dead meme (but did you know if you spin an iPod wheel backwards, you can hear…).

So here is a good one from the most recent season of the U.K. television show, “Britain’s Got Talent.”

In the finals, of course, were Kate and Gin, a 16-year-old student and her dancing border collie, an endearing pair who became an offline and online sensation earlier this year.

BoomTown is not saying it’s going to be like watching grass grow.

But 2009 is not exactly getting off to a rousing start this week–with a pair of definitely underwhelming blockbuster tech events taking place that already have more of an air of whimper than of bang to them.

That would be the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual egregious gadgetfest in Las Vegas, and the final appearance by Apple (AAPL) at Macworld in San Francisco.

Of course, while CES tries to fend off the spate of no-one-is-going-to-CES stories–well, I am!–the absence of his digital Holiness and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld has really generated most of the glumness.

[UPDATE: In a public letter, Jobs says he has a "hormone imbalance" and will stay on as CEO as he recovers.]

Still, the keynote cancellation by Jobs–which started off a new round of is-he-sicker? rumors–is profoundly depressing for Macworld.

After all, it was only two years ago that he practically blew out every geek mind with the introduction of the iPhone there. (See a part of that masterful performance in a video below.)

Thus, it falls to Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, to be thrilling–with exactly what, it is still unclear. Rumors abound, none of which are very promising (New iLife and iWork! New Mac mini! Zzzzzzzz).

There is, of course, the vain hope that Schiller will end his speech by uttering Jobs’s patented “one more thing” line, wherein Jobs will walk out (without a walker!), wave and create what would be a genuine frenzy, especially since the last sighting of him was at a yogurt store.

As to CES, there is no big or new product trend to point to, except rumor of a possibly exciting intro of a touchscreen smartphone from Palm (PALM) with a slide-down keyboard. Wheeeee!

Some keynote speakers include Sony (SNE) CEO Sir Howard Stringer, Ford Motor Co. (F) CEO Alan Mulally, Intel (INTC) Chairman Craig Barrett and Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers.

Interestingly, the absence of former Microsoft (MSFT) head Bill Gates at CES–long announced, after more than a dozen times there–caused no weeping and rending of garments, as did Jobs’s nonappearance.

In his place, there will be a keynote by the software giant’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, in which no major announcement seems to be coming.

Still, one can dream, and I desperately hope Ballmer will say “one more thing” and out will come Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang to announce a big honking search deal, finally putting to bed one of 2008’s longest-running soap operas.

What can I say? This is tech and, for us (okay, me, at least), that would be exciting.

Speaking of gripping, I dare you to watch this 2007 iPhone intro performance by Apple’s Jobs and not be deeply impressed by his stylings:

Here’s a video interview I did yesterday at the San Francisco event where Yahoo finally launched a lot of the new open and social elements that it has long said it was injecting into its most popular products.

BoomTown talked with the key movers of the initiatives: Ash Patel, Yahoo’s EVP of its Audience Product Division, and Tapan Bhat, its SVP of its Front Doors, Communities and Network Services.

(You can see screen shots and an official Yahoo video of the new features here.)

The initiatives Yahoo (YHOO) finally released into the wild have been long in the making, first discussed as just vaporware by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (see that video below too).

Yahoo also hosted a session at its Sunnyvale HQ about its open plans in the fall.

And, after the longest of gestation periods, they arrived yesterday, in an impressive rollout.

The changes include some very deft rejiggering of Yahoo Mail, called a “smarter inbox,” with a new dashboard welcome page, easier ways to make connections, more filtered views, updates and third-party apps integrated into the application.

I thought the changes to the mail product were the most interesting, especially given the hundreds of millions of people using the product. It’s an interesting choice for a social entry point, aiming to give nonsocial-networking types enough of a taste of it without inundating them.

Of particular note were the third-party applications, such as for WordPress and Flickr, that launch nicely right in the email program.

Also cool was one app from Xoopit that surfaces old photos and photo links lost in the musty archives of old emails.

Yahoo also debuted an enhanced version of the homepage (previously announced in September) and My Yahoo, as well as a new toolbar and socialization elements added to its popular media properties.

It remains to be seen how popular these changes will become, especially since many consumers already have their social-networking lives on Facebook or MySpace.

In addition, both Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL and Microsoft (MSFT) have rolled out similar social and open changes to their sites recently, making it super-confusing for everyone.

But, better late than never, I always say, so here’s Bhat and Patel talking about Yahoo’s new stuff.

I had to load the video onto YouTube, as Brightcove had snafus (also below is Yang talking about the concepts at CES in January 2008):

Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel

Jerry Yang at January 2008 CES

So, I have been standing by, trying to make sense of the debate that has swirled around Apple CEO, Co-Founder and font-of-all, Steve Jobs, with regard to his health or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations from stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Why?

Well, any Apple (AAPL) investor has to know by now that Jobs suffered from a rather serious bout with a curable version of pancreatic cancer some years ago and that recovery includes inevitable complications.

That was on display when he took to the stage of Apple’s most recent Worldwide Developers Conference in mid-June and looked really gaunt and unhealthy. It was obviously hard to look away.

People immediately reacted like it was the end of the world–which is no surprise given Apple’s rabid following–and began to suddenly acquire instant medical degrees and diagnose Jobs on the spot.

In its typically secretive style, Apple did not help matters by throwing out a thin gruel of information and noting it was only a common bug.

Of course, that felt like a bigger whopper than usual–even if he did, in fact, also have a cold, it kind of begged the question of what accounted for the rest of his haggard appearance.

In any case, the chatter went on and on, right up until the most recent quarterly earnings call when Apple’s CFO said, when asked that Jobs’s health, that it was a “private matter.”

Immediately, that sent the debate into a frenzy, as armchair word detectives went into overdrive about exactly what that meant. (Personally, I think it meant that Apple was saying Jobs’s health was a private matter.)

This weekend, the noise level reached a quantum level after Jobs made a can’t-make-this-up statement to New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, who was inquiring as to Jobs’s well-being:

“This is Steve Jobs. You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”

Now that just cracked me up, given all that had gone on before, although some were once again indignant over the gall of a major company CEO making such a statement.

Obviously, they have never met or heard Jobs, who is well known for doing such things pretty much all the time.

And that’s the problem here and my main argument for leaving him be:

1) As I said, Apple investors who have not figured Jobs’s precarious health–after a round with any kind of cancer–into their investment strategies about Apple going forward need some serious reality medication themselves.

Guess what? Jobs has been really sick and it means he is going to have a harder time with any kind of infection or complication for the rest of his life, and he will likely be more delicate than someone who has not had cancer.

By the way, the take-away from the Nocera article and an earlier one last week in the New York Times was that Jobs had been quite ill, but not life-threateningly ill. Which was Jobs’s way of getting out the news.

2) Jobs is one of the most important CEOs, in relation to his company, around. (Warren Buffett, who did choose to reveal all when he was sick, is the other.) And that’s another thing investors should be figuring into their calculations on the worth of the stock.

As Jobs himself said in a famous commencement speech to Stanford University: “No one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.”

You don’t have to get as dramatic as all that to know that when you are talking about such a charismatic and critical CEO as Jobs, any lack of involvement by him–like say going on a year-long yoga retreat–is going to be a problem that investors are buying when they buy the stock.

Of course, there are other Apple employees making things work at the company, although it sometimes feels as if Jobs is crafting every iPhone that goes out.

But it’s obviously the Steve Jobs Show, and investors risk that when they buy such a ticket–kind of like anyone who bought a ticket to Celine Dion’s recent show in Las Vegas and hoped she would not get, like, a common cold!

3) And, of course, we get to the secretive Apple culture story line in every single story, which is trotted out like it is a surprise and we should all be so angry about it and demand change.

Again, have we not been paying attention all these many years? When has Apple not been secretive, except when it suits itself?

Here are a few more shockers for those still stewing about Apple’s secretiveness: Sen. Barack Obama is African-American and Sen. John McCain is old and some people in the country are racist and ageist and may hold those things against them in the upcoming Presidential election!

All kidding aside, it’s the same media that wait in eager anticipation when Jobs doles out the often-disingenuous tidbits about various Apple products coming and then hype them to the high heavens for him when he deigns to unveil them.

In other words, the Steve Jobs you are getting right now is the Steve Jobs you have always gotten–on his terms, what he wants to say and when and how.

So don’t be surprised when he does just that.

Meanwhile, Jobs has come to our D: All Things Digital conference many times and chatted up a storm. Here he is in a highlights reel of the historic joint interview with Microsoft CEO and Founder Bill Gates in 2007.

In it, Jobs is quite voluble about their longtime rivalry and also reveals their secret relationship that dares not speak its name (he is kidding):

I am back in Sin City to appear on a panel at the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) conference here today, along with former Walt Disney head Michael Eisner, former Viacom head Jonathan Dolgen and Dmitry Shapiro, founder and CIO of Veoh.

Titled “Possibilities and Perils of Internet TV,” it should be an interesting discussion, since I think it is all peril at this point with very little to show in the possibility column.

While there have been a lot of attempts to create Internet TV–and by this I don’t mean delivering traditional television via IP–most of what is out there is repurposed professional content that Hollywood hopes we will think is newfangled and, via easy-to-post user-generated material, a more massive version of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

In other words, bad Web programs and a whole lot of videos of cats on skateboards. As for profits from all this: Not so much.

Nonetheless, the television industry is changing dramatically. With the backdrop of the writers’ strike, the situation is even more volatile, as viewers migrate away from the network model and toward, well, who knows?

Both Eisner and Dolgen are investors in Veoh–one of the many online video services out there, this one aimed at professional content. And Eisner has been dabbling in the new media content space to mixed results.

I wrote about Eisner back in November when he jumped on the Blame-Steve-Jobs bandwagon, saying Apple was to blame for Hollywood’s woes.

Said Eisner–whose tense relationship with Jobs was well known–then: “[Movie and television studios] make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who’s making money? Apple! They should get a piece of Apple. If I was a union, I’d be striking up wherever he is.”

I will be sure to ask him about that comment.