THE 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week came across as rather bland for most attending technology analysts and journalists.

Bigger and slimmer TV screens, Blu-ray dominance and better video resolutions were the main staples, but they did not really raise major eyebrows. But two keynote addresses by industry notables Microsoft’s chairman Bill Gates and Yahoo!’s co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang did highlight that the path for the technology industry is clear: easier-to-use applications and services and location-based services.

Gates foresees that all media entertainment will be software-driven, and this will apply to all avenues, including consumer, business and entertainment activities. All these elements will come together for a better user experience.

At the current rate of expansion, Microsoft believes that phones will become more important and that the next digital decade will be more people-centric. “Input”, a main barrier to making technology acccessible, will no longer be a problem. The Microsoft Sync operating system found in the Mercury and Lincoln Ford models is an example.

Described as an automatic PC, Sync not only allows your Zune music player and Windows Mobile-powered phone to synchronise with your car, but also allows applications and services to run through voice commands such as playing music, calling up friends and contacting emergency services when the airbag is deployed.

A million of such cars are

expected to be sold next year.

TV is going to be different, too. NBC with help from Microsoft will feature online over 3,000 hours’ worth of video for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And those on Xbox Live will be able to get TV shows and movies from ABC, Disney and MGM. British Telecom will be the first to sell the Xbox 360 as a set-top box.

Meanwhile, Yahoo is striving to make the Internet more accessible to the possible billions it could reach on mobile devices. The company is focused on creating the “monetisation engine” for the mobile Internet – enabling publishers to monetise their services, and advertisers to reach their target audience on an even larger scale. This can be seen in the Yahoo! Go 3.0 beta client where customised advertisements can be selected to bring up product information of interest to the user such as discounts and localised information.

Yang also demonstrated how Yahoo! could determine the user’s most relevant personal connections across both Yahoo! and multiple social networks. The result? A smarter mailbox that prioritises the most important messages from the most important people.

The user also will be able to drag and drop, for example, a dinner invite to widgets for further information such as reservations and locations. The invite can seamlessly be shared with other friends on the list. And interestingly, all this can be done in one browser window.

Looks like a connected life while being away from the PC seems possible as the Internet in your pocket fast becomes a reality with just a small learning curve needed to use such devices. Would this mean that technology geeks will have less to trump and harp about to the less technology savvy? Well, only time will tell.