This afternoon, the One Laptop per Child project announced cutbacks that CEO Nicholas Negroponte called "unavoidable."

The nonprofit project that envisioned the $100 laptop that could be used in even the most remote settings has changed its vision to the $0 laptop, and as such has to eliminate roughly half of its workforce.

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It's Sony's answer to the netbook: its latest very slim P-series Vaio. But even that is taking a backseat to none other than Jeopardy!, another Sony property, complete with Alex Trebek live and in person.

Jacqueline Emigh, 4:39 pm PST: The show begins with Sony Senior Vice President for Communications Rick Clancy speaking, after having been introduced by none other than Alex Trebek. They're filming Jeopardy! at the booth next door.

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The question in advance of Sony's first press conference at CES (there will be more than one) is whether it would choose to talk about its financial condition first. The answer is apparently "no," as it premiered its secret Vaio PC.

But in typical Sony fashion, its late afternoon press conference got off the ground about a half-hour late, amid a sea of reporters. Many of them had been given advance word of the Vaio P series, which Sony is describing as "a new line of high-performance, ultra-portable notebooks that fuses Sony's eye-catching design and mobility."

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Facebook may have become the Internet's second most popular destination after Google, according to recent statistics. But that's if you're willing to believe that the social site is essentially acquiring a small state every day.

By any measure, the social networking site Facebook is becoming a phenomenal success. The BBC reported that it accounted for one in every 22 online visits on Christmas Day, according to Internet research company Hitwise -- up 69% from the same time in 2007 and with an overall market share of 4.65%, making it the second most popular site after search engine Google.

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No longer "Matsushita," and given a big boost with the pending acquisition of Sanyo, how will the world's most recognized brand in consumer electronics, geographically speaking, react to this sluggish economy?

3:43pm PT: And that brings the show to a rather abrupt end, the lights come up and the crowd naturally flocks to the 1/3" thin screen. We will snap some pictures and put them up shortly.

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In an era when HDTVs are being measured in terms of pinky-width, Samsung promises to squeeze that figure even more, while adding new interactive features to its displays' built-in IPTV functionality.

JE, 2:39 pm PST: On to camcorders: Samsung is announcing a flash-based camcorder that can record up to 12 hours of HD video.

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A very big room, journalists on the feedbag, and the tricky task of pitching big pretty TVs in an ugly economy made the noontime Sharp press conference at CES 2009 something of a tangled affair.

They're optimistic at Sharp, even though executives in agreement with Displaysearch stats that have sales of LCD TVs off 16% globally in 2009. There's always 2010 and an expected 10% uptick, and Sharp wants you to know that they're in it for the long haul and feel that tough times can strengthen a company. (And when someone gets up at CES and says anything different, Betanews will be the first to tell you.)

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Elvis! The season's first sighting of the King occurred at the Audiovox press event. The King was in relatively svelte form (for jumpsuit-era Elvis); also, Audiovox announced some products.

(Really, CEO and president David Geise reminded the crowd, it wasn't such a stretch; the 35th anniversary of Elvis's Aloha From Hawaii special, the first event ever broadcast worldwide live via satellite, is at hand. Only at CES...)

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Samsung has announced that its first DivX Certified flat-panel high-definition televisions will be available in March. The company announced a licensing agreement with DivX last year.

DivX is digital video technology that lets users create and watch content, and only a few years ago was relegated to the task of making ripped videos smaller on PCs' hard drives. But since that time, the company has made a surprisingly reliable video compression format, at least for IPTV. Having the Samsung HDTVs certified by DivX means consumers can play back high-quality DivX video on their displays.

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Vizio has announced its first Blu-ray disc player, also supporting BD-Live content and also priced at $199.99.

The VBR100 Blu-ray Player uses 1080p and upconverts from 720p and 1080i -- unlike Memorex', which also upconverts from 480p. Vizio promotes its unit's "super slim" dimensions of 17 X 11 X 2 inches. Memorex has not yet revealed the size of its player.

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Known worldwide as an infrastructure company, Cisco now plays a bigger role in the CE field for being the parent of major consumer router manufacturer Linksys, and for finding its way into the IPTV infrastructure.

1:54pm PT: Closing statements

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CES has been the scene of "environmentally sensitive" consumer electronics fare from its beginnings. But this year, more corners of the show than ever are going green.

Along with conference sessions focusing on green computing, CES 2009 is playing host to a new green pavilion known as Sustainable Planet. Inside the Pavilion and in many other nooks and crannies, vendors ranging from HP and Lenovo to little start-ups are fielding impressive numbers of eco-sensitive PCs and other gadgets, in an assortment of hues of green.

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Toshiba's press conference at CES 2009 this morning featured announcements in the areas of LCD TVs, DTV/DVD combos, and standalone DVD players.

Maria Repole, Toshiba's PR exec, began by making note of the high-def advertising display Toshiba installed in Times Square last summer. His deputy then took the stage to speak generally about Toshiba's contributions in the area of picture quality and connectivity. Consumers "increasingly want to access content wherever they are," the Toshiba rep told the crowd. "We are committed to meeting the entertainment needs of consumers today."

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Toshiba has released two ultraportable notebooks intended to be ecologically friendly -- but they're not ultra-low-price.

The R600 comes in two models, the S4201 for $2,099, and the S4202 for $2,999. Each has a 12.1-inch screen and starts at 2.4 pounds. The S4201 comes with a 160GB hard disk, while the S4202 comes with a 128 GB flash disk. They both include an optical disc drive and support WiMAX.

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Holding down its traditional CES-opening spot at 8:00 am, LG on Wednesday ran through a dizzying number of announcements across multiple product lines.

Life is good indeed for the Korea-based electronics giant, which reported $13.2 billion in revenues for 2008, up 16% year-to-year. Speaking to the press mob, CEO Michael Ahn said that the firm means to spend the recession building on recent advances in consumer awareness. (The company reports that LG now has 92.3% brand recognition among polled consumers, up from 83% in 2007 and 75% the year before.) There will be, he said, no cuts in R&D or in marketing.

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