Due to certain materials used in consumer electronics (especially in batteries and displays), gadgets are some of the most toxic consumer items out there, capable of leaking dangerous chemicals into the ground if they're not properly disposed of. New York, and 13 other states, have thus passed laws to create specific, stronger rules for these products. Unfortunately, in NYC, that means the members of CEA would have to go door to door to pick up products like televisions and monitors, at their own expense.

CEA is claiming that this pick-up service would clog the city's streets with smoke-belching trucks, which is bad for traffic and bad for the environment, and that the laws are unfair to electronics manufacturers. A spokesman claimed that it's "an unreasonable and unsustainable burden on manufacturers."

The CEA's argument isn't totally unfounded—it certainly would be a financial concern, even if we're not sure their environmental point about trucking is all that accurate. But the fact remains that somebody's got to take care of this stuff: It's either the state of New York, that needs to spend far more money extracting these gadgets from the trash, or the manufacturers that create the harmful products in the first place. And the fact remains that many other states and countries (Japan, South Korea) have enacted similar laws. So we're siding with New York on this one: We think it's worth a little trouble to get these products conscientiously recycled. [Wall Street Journal]

Apparently, a trailer for Angels & Demons. Tom Hanks is here! He has Betamax regret! His first real gadget was a Sony Trinitron. Hilariously self-conscious, mocking the fact he's shilling for Sony. All he ever sees is Sony, Sony, Sony. And uses Sony Sony Sony. Except the teleprompters! LG.

Here's Sir Howard Stringer. Tom: "I'm whatever Sony wants me to be, Howard." Tom is hilarious.

3D glasses, "unlike any other prototype before. They let you watch a movie while walking around. "Tom why don't you try?" "Oh look, they're so cool and hip...They're going to get even better than they are now? I'll be checking the Fedex." "Will you take the hold off my paycheck for Angels and Demons now?"

Tom exits, being pulled into realm of Casio and Samsung. "Howard save me, you're a knight!"

Howard: "I'm not recession proof." He has seven principles for the industry: Fusion of industries, open technologies (Linux, consumers expect choice), social networking, squeezing more money out of consumers (he calls this a "value chain" and "good business," go green, etc. Nothing unobvious or mindscrewingly revolutionary.

By 2011, 90 percent of Sony products will connect to Internet and each other.

Heeeeere's the G3 Wi-Fi web browser camera. They've already uploaded photos of Tom and Howard using the camera to Picasa, and then sent it to a Bravia TV on stage. Available now for "an extraoridinarily reasonable price."

Connected photo frame/alarm clock/screen thing with Chumby power—plays video, Big Ben alarm clock. Very cool. Quoting Letterman on weather from it: "It's so cold in NY right now, Bernie Madoff is actually looking forward to burning in hell."''

Flex OLED protoype, eco-friendly. "How many people get a chance to squeeze Beyonce? I hope Jay-Z isn't in the room."

Sony sells more HD products than anyone else, they think they'll benefit from DTV. We'll see!

Pixar dude John Lasseter is here. "Sound check: Is my shirt loud enough in the back?" I want one. He's here to pimp Blu-ray: "You can't go back." Showing Wall-E on Blu-ray. Man I love that movie.

He's demoing Sleeping Beauty BD-Live content—menu represents real-life weather, kind of cool. His kids beat his ass at Cars Blu-ray game. Trailer for their upcoming movie Up. Looks awesome, and funny. More Tom Hanks talk: He's working on Toy Story 3.

Talking PSP and PS3 and how they interact. Kaz Hirai coming up. Talking about PlayStation Network and how it's expanding what you can do with PS3.

New free MMO called Free Realm for boys and girls, tweens and teens. Launching on PC first. Looks like medieval Second Life. MTV dumping 2000 hours of programming on PSN video. Hello, Real World Brooklyn! EA is now onboard PlayStation Home, bring more games and yay, contextual ads to "savvy consumers." Overall though, no new PlayStation announcements. Where's Netflix streaming? Seriously dude. Even my pants has that now.

America's doctor, Dr. Oz is getting his own show thanks to Sony. Find out why your penis doesn't work the way it used to, everyday. Oh, by the way, you're a fatass. He just said Sir Howard is bulbous dude. He should be six foot six to match his weight. Drop your belly fat or DIE. Outside of a fried food convention, this has to be the most ironic place he could drop this speech. High fructose corn syrup is the devil, says Dr. Oz. I knew it!

Sony is all up in the new Yankees stadium. 550 Bravia LCDs. The whole park is on,e giant Sony commercial. Reggie Jackson is here. Says he can't wait to see the new Sonyized Yankee Stadium. New candy bar: Reggie Bar. Tom Hanks loves it.

Talking up green products: Greenheart bio-plastic, Eco Bravias, etc.

Here we go; 3D announcement. We're supposed to put on 3D glasses now. 3D Cars clip in Tokyo drag race. Gran Turismo in 3D. 3D footage from Virginia Tech at Orange Bowl.

Dreamworks Animation CEO Katezenberg up to talk about 3D. Two revolutionary events in the history of cinema: The arrival of sound, then the arrival of color. He thinks 3D will be the third. (How conveniently poetic.) "It's not your father's 3D." It's 3D that uses polarized lenses and dual projectors (so you do still need glasses, even though Sony insists that they're different 'cause they is state of the art and less dumb looking, from Ray Ban.) Showing 3D clip of CGI flick Monsters and Aliens, with a giant robot fighting a giant girl and some monsters—pretty cool.

Sir Howard's back up with a Sony Ericsson phone, has Gracenote for identifying songs. And hey, our friend the Vaio P.

Hello, Usher. He's in 3D too, but no glasses required. Usher: "Yeah I do.... know a lot about technology. *Pause* Sony technology." He just had two sons, captured experience with... Sony. Howard asks if Usher misses the album. Usher says Sony Ericsson lets him make an album. Also mentions Sony sponsored his Broadway run on Chicago, which Tom Hanks' wife was also in. Woooo, the incestuous commercialization—as entertainingly, ironically self-aware as they're trying to make it (and it is)—is mud-pie thick.

Howard wrapping up, talking about how they make dreams, rainbows and economic revitalization happen.

And that's it!

A bizarre clip meshing him into classic black-and-white flicks intro'd the speech, telling us how gadget companies are gonna save us from the Great Depression 2.0. It was made using a new service called Yoostar that'll let you desecrate old movies by embedding yourself into them, along with other warped personalizations. Shapiro gets pretty cutting: Gadget companies are bright light, not just because they're gonna breathe life into the economy , but they don't need no bailouts like certain other industries, dammit. But even that light's looking pretty dim this year.

Gary Shapiro loves some Obama, talking about how tech-loving he is, and how he needs to promote tech growth and innovation to keep America on top in tech (We're on top? Really?). But he has no love for other politicians stepping in to make rules about technology. They've got some innovation checklist (pictured) for dumbo politicians to follow so they don't hose the whole industry, and therefore, Shapiro says, America.

Hahahaha, he's talking about how trade shows matter more than ever in crappy economies, and how it actually saves money for companies. I thought saving money is why companies have been pulling back on their trade show explosivganza.

Overall, it's not a pretty picture for the industry when its cheerleader-in-chief lays out how grim stuff is, even if it's mixed with pillowy clouds of fluff about how great the industry is.

Or, if you want the quick and dirty, here's what unfurled in front of me, give or take a few guest presenters and some marketingspeak:

Ballmer comes out—my guess is he's smiling. He talks about the wonderful world of consumer electronics. He mentions this company called Microsoft. He also mentions the tough economic times we're all going to suffer through together. He will be optimistic, however.

He's going to talk about Windows 7. First, he'll announce the availability the Windows 7 Beta tomorrow for registered Microsoft beta peeps, January 9th for everybody else. He'll run through a lot of stuff we've already seen on Win 7, like DeviceStage, Homegroup networking, "Play To..." and other coolness like the Win 7 touch interface.

On the Windows Live front, he'll tell us that Windows Live Essentials is no longer in beta, and that you can now post photos on Facebook directly from Windows Live Photo Gallery, and save photos from Facebook directly to your Win gallery too. He'll also say that Windows Live Search and Essentials toolbar is gonna boot Google from Dell computers in February. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is going to implement Windows Live on VZW feature phones. IE8 is not out of beta yet, but it's coming.

For Windows Mobile, the big news, as presumed, will be full Adobe Flash support in the browser. (Sounds good to me, if only the browser was as good as, well, others.)

Ballmer is going to call Robbie Bach to the stage to talk about connected entertainment. Bach will start with some good Xbox stats—28 million worldwide, with 17 million active Windows Live members, and over a billion dollars spent on the service since inception.

Bach will introduce a number of sweet products:
• Windows Mobile app for managing Netflix queue
• Xbox Live community game builder called Kodu (already buzzed about)
• Windows Media Extender functionality in Toshiba products (announced earlier today)
• The latest edition of Ford Sync, which you can read about here
• Go back and forth on shows you didn't pre-record using Microsoft Media Room Anytime (I wonder what the advertiser stipulations are on that)
• Already known games Halo Wars and Halo 3: Orbital Drop Shock Trooper
• Xbox Live Primetime game 1 Vs 100 live gameshow coming in spring

What, no love for Zune? Almost everything's going according to plan so far, but stay tuned, because anything could happen. You know, come to think of it, Robbie Bach got to talk about a lot of the fun stuff. Is this the kickoff of the Ballmer Years? Or is it really the kickoff to the Bach Years? Steve would probably win at arm wrestling, but seeing the two of them on stage, I'm starting to think Bach could maybe take the bossman in a Cool Hand Luke-style a fist fight. [Full CES 2009 Coverage]

"I forsee a marked deterioration in American music...and a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines..." -John Philip Sousa on the Player Piano (1906)

"The public will not buy songs that it can hear almost at will by a brief manipulation of the radio dials." -Record Label Executive on FM Radio (1925)

More after the jump.

"But now we are faced with a new and very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the videocassette recorder." -MPAA on the VCR (1982)

"When the manufacturers hand the public a license to record at home...not only will the songwriter tie a noose around his neck, not only will there be no more records to tape [but] the innocent public will be made an accessory to the destruction of four industries." -ASCAP on the Cassette Tape (1982).

I'll add one more: "What is past is prologue." -William Shakespeare
– Charlie White

Consumer Electronics Association criticizes content industry fear-mongering [ars technica]