CES 2010: LIVE from the Steve Ballmer Keynote

CES 2010 is here! And there's no better way to start things off than with the highly-anticipated keynote with Steve Ballmer from Microsoft.

Contrary to earlier reports, I did not drive to CES with Tuan Nguyen, although the thought of 20 questions and I Spy with our News Director makes me wish that I did. I flew to Vegas with Rachel Rosmarin from Tom's Guide. You can tell that CES is near when your entire Southwest flight is full of analysts, executives and journalists plugging away on iPhones and BlackBerries.

Over the last 48 hours, one CES rumor has dominated the Internet above all else: A Microsoft-HP tablet based on the Courier design unveiled earlier this year. If the rumors are to be believed, then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will have one on-stage during the keynote.

What else should we expect? Plenty of positive thinking about the future, praise for Windows 7, Office 2010 and a hopefully some yelling and jumping around by the CEO from Redmond.

I will be here for the duration of the keynote, so make sure you hit F5 as often and as fast as you can for the latest updates!

--

6:46PM - Power outage and technical difficulties, so the keynote hasn't started quite yet...