Slick touchscreen tablet computers and smarter devices for the home and the car took center stage as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) wrapped up on Sunday.

The always connected lifestyle was on full display at the annual gadget extravaganza as Internet technology ruled at a show traditionally dominated by eye-popping new television sets.

Tablet computers to rival Apple’s iPad were the hot new products on display along with powerful new smartphones, ultra-thin laptops and Web-connected and 3-D TV sets during the four-day event.

“The tablet wars are now launched, with everybody under the sun producing tablets,” said Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger Kay.

“A lot of companies, particularly Asian companies, are offering to create tablets for you on the fly if you want a tablet with your brand on it.”

Emphasis on mobile gizmos and making traditionally dumb devices smart with Internet connections made CES celebrities out of chip makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia as well as US telecom carriers Verizon and AT&T.

Rival chip makers showed off fast new processors combining graphics and traditional computing power.

“What that means is a lot more connected stuff,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said of the chip announcements at CES. “Everything thinner, lighter, more powerful and more intelligent.”

“The computer wasn’t even available a year ago,” said Benioff, who was making a larger point about the pace of change in the tech industry. “I never have seen anything like what’s happening now.”

“The level of innovation that I see coming from this next generation of leaders is awesome,” he said.

Many iPad sales are likely being driven by corporate spending, which includes people such as Michael Hedges, the CIO, vice president and head of global IT at Medtronic, who has purchased 4,500 iPads for his company. Medtronic employs 40,000 people.

Hedges may have been among the first corporate users to find an interesting use for the iPad. The device was released on April 3, a Saturday, and Hedges quickly arranged to buy 10 iPads and then ship them out for a trade show in Germany the following Wednesday.

Normally, Medtronic would have had large and very expensive displays at its booth, but in this case it loaded up its iPads with product information and then put them on display.

The iPad wasn’t being sold then in Europe and the devices were an immediate hit, Hedges said.

“It was such a huge success because people came to our booth not to look at the Medtronic product but to look at the iPad,” he said at Gartner’s Symposium/ITexpo. “I didn’t care — I just wanted them at the booth.”

But Medtronic is also buying iPads because they offer instant access to data and video, a particularly important attribute when showing product information to customers. Hedges said instant-on was a key business value, for the iPad or any tablet.

Hedges is trying to buy iPads without increasing the incremental cost of IT. One option being considered to acomplish that is the possibility of extending a three-year refresh rate for some desktops and laptops to four years, he said.

If the iPad seems like it is everywhere, market numbers released by Gartner back that perception up. It forecast worldwide media tablet sales, including iPad, to reach 19.5 million units this year and 54.8 million units in 2011, an increase of 181%.

This could come in handy if you use the iPad for controlling Garageband, as a digital audio recorder, for reading scripts or with other music and audio apps.

According to IK Multimedia, the iKlip is is constructed from dense thermoplastic molded components for “extreme durability and secure holding abilities under the most demanding situations”.

Features:

* Sturdy, durable thermoplastic construction with sure-grip touch points — securely holds your iPad without scratching or marring it
* Universal stand clip securely attaches to virtually any microphone stand
* Multi-angle adjustment allows precise positioning for optimal stage or studio viewing
* Quick-snap clips provide fast, secure iPad insertion
* Fast installation — iKlip installs on your mic stand in seconds with the twist of a knob
* All controls, buttons and connectors are accessible when your iPad is clipped into iKlip
* Multi-mount design provides both horizontal and vertical orientation of your iPad
* Can be mounted on the vertical part of a mic stand, or on a horizontal boom for limitless positioning
* Designed and manufactured in Italy

According to The Wall Street Journal, ABC says the app has been downloaded 205,000 times in the ten days following the iPad’s debut, and that is has been used to watch at least part of 605,000 TV shows.

Perhaps the best news for ABC, however, is that the app has served up “several million” ad impressions, although the exact number is apparently still being calculated, with ABC only adding that it is “pleased with the results.”

Also, the most popular single show watched with the app? Why the episode of Modern Family where Phil Dumnphy gets an iPad, of course.

The iPhone was the first phone that a Luddite could figure out in seconds and a hacker could tinker around with for endless hours. In an analogous way the iPad is going to be the computer a toddler can play games with and learn, and the same computer your grandma uses to send e-mails, browse the web and edit photos.

If you think about how a computer like this will impact people sociologically, suddenly the iPad is far more than a larger iPod Touch, as many have described it. It’s the computer for everyone: an idea Apple has been working toward for years.

That doesn’t mean the iPad will be the only computer for everyone and destroy every PC on the market, because that’s not even remotely likely. But it will introduce a significant new category.

For anyone plugged in to tech history, the idea of the child-friendly, super-lightweight computer is actually reminiscent of Xerox pioneer Alan Kay’s 40-year-old concept of the Dynabook (pictured in sketch above). I’ve been chatting with Kay about the iPad, but he’s waiting to provide his official comment on the device until he’s had a chance to try it out.

Tablet naysayers have anticipated Apple’s tablet would be a failure because of form factor, ergonomics and UI. But they missed out on the bigger problem: Nobody has cared to create content (be it web or native applications) for tablets — until now.

Say what you will about Apple, but Steve Jobs’ company is a market shaper, and the iPad is the only tablet that could shove the computing world in a new direction.

Apple has shipped over 75 million iPhones, and the iPhone OS continues to dominate mobile web traffic. Meanwhile, the App Store has served 3 billion downloads and claimed 99.4 percent of the mobile-software market.

Content developers need to see these kinds of numbers to have faith in investing in a new platform. At this rate, we’re all heading with Apple into the future of computing, and it’s looking quite bright.

Read the whole article.

But this year, with technology powerhouses like Apple and Google introducing whole new mobile devices and buying up ad firms specializing in the small screen, the forecasts may finally be right.

By now, the sales pitch is familiar: The mobile phone offers advertisers all the benefits of traditional Internet ads, including the ability to track their effectiveness. And it lets marketers reach consumers on the go, on a gadget they clutch intimately.

Industry analysts say that now, with the introduction of Apple’s iPad tablet, an entirely new approach to mobile ads could be near.

That is because the iPad, a cross between a laptop and an iPhone, looks more like an iPhone from an ad perspective. It does not support Adobe Flash, the software used for much PC-based advertising. So, to make their ads available to iPad users, marketers may have to develop new kinds of ads, rather than simply adapting existing Web ads.

Apple, seeing big potential in mobile advertising, recently agreed to acquire a specialist in that business, Quattro Wireless. That followed a deal by Google to buy one of the largest players in the field, AdMob. The combined $1 billion-plus cost was of a scale not previously seen in the world of advertising on the tiny screen.

Indeed, Windsor Holden, a principal analyst at Juniper Research, predicts that mobile ad spending worldwide will more than quadruple, to $6 billion, by 2014. And he does not shrink from the prediction.

11:10 am: iPad syncs via USB like an iPhone. Photos, music, movies, etc. all managed with a Mac or PC through iTunes.

11:15 am: iPad will come in variations with Wi-Fi and 3G. 3G services for the iPad will include a few variations, including 250MB of data for only $14.99 a month. Unlimited data plan for $29.99 a month. Services provided on AT&T. Plans include free use of AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots.

11:16 am: iPad 3G service plans through AT&T are pre-paid. No contracts! Services can also be set up on the iPad itself. No store visits.

11:17 am: iPad uses GSM micro SIMs and all models come completely unlocked. Apple currently exploring international deals.

11:18 am: I feel a lead up to pricing and release date info coming… Jobs is wrapping things up.

11:19 am: The iPad will start at $499. Frantic applause ensues.

11:20 am: 16GB iPad will be $499, 32GB model will be $599, 64GB will be $699. Each model comes in 3G variants costing $629, $729, $829.

11:21 am: iPad will ship in 60 days (Wi-Fi only), 3G models in 90 days.

11:22 am: Now for iPad accessories. Apple will be offering an iPad dock, which stands it vertically, and another with a keyboard built right into the base, making the iPad essentially a full computer. A new case for the iPad as well that serves as a stand.