Microsoft will decline to provide a keynote speech or booth at CES

Last night's performance finale featured random celebrity duets (so that we could hear the Top 3 drowned out moncler jackets by actual famous people) and a reprise of the finalists' audition songs (so that we could hear the Top 3 sing something we already knew they could sing). It was thrilling. My favorite parts of the show were Steve Jones' awkward interviews with crazy people who could barely hear him in the contestants' hometowns and the dark chocolate cinnamon roll atop Nicole Scherzinger's head. Now and forever, I will always think of its potential secrets.

Let's get to the songs! First up we had Josh Krajcik attempting Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited" in a creepy black-and-white enchanted forest that, in a very good way, resembled an Edward Gorey illustration come to life. Wouldn't you know it -- that's where Alanis herself has been living this whole time! Alanis (you may know her as God) emerged from the woods with her shiny hair and huge voice just to sing with our former burrito slinger. Was it just me or did Josh sound like he was auditioning for the opera here? I appreciated his ability to harmonize; it just seemed like he was concentrating so hard on getting it right that he ended up holding back.

Next up was Chris Rene, joined onstage by…Avril Lavigne. With the black and green strobe lights and two wildly different performers -- she yelling, he whispering -- this performance was almost as "Complicated" as Denise Richards. I was especially confused when Chris yelled "THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR….AVRIL LAVIGNE!" And here I'd thought we'd all been waiting to hear the best solo performances our Top 3 acts could offer. I'm seriously such a moron. I look like a fool to me-ee-eeeee. Anyway, Avril completely Women - moncler jackets drowned Chris out and how could she not? He's got a weak voice.

No mattah! "It isn't about note-for-note being perfect," said Paula. "The light around you was so flippin' infectious," said The Girl With a Draggin' Hairdo. "That could be a record," offered Simon. "That could be a number one hit," L.A. corrected him. Four yeses!

Starting in 2013, however, Microsoft will decline to provide a keynote speech or booth at CES.

“We have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES,” Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of corporate communications, wrote in a Dec. 21 posting on The Official Microsoft Blog. “We won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.”

Microsoft will continue to participate in CES, he added, “as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries.”

At the 2011 CES, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used his keynote to highlight the company’s forays into the consumer realm, suggesting that the hands-free Kinect controller and Xbox 360 were on the verge of becoming a true household entertainment hub. He also detailed progress of Windows Phone, the company’s smartphone platform.

Heading into that keynote, analysts had expected Ballmer to make some sort of announcement about Windows-powered tablets. He did, following up on an earlier statement that the next version of Windows would support system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture, including the ARM-based systems popular on mobile devices such as tablets. However, he declined to show off any work in progress, and the tablets present in Microsoft’s booth on the CES show floor were ones running Windows 7 (and meant primarily for the Asian market). It wasn’t until later in 2011 that Microsoft whipped back the curtains from Windows 8, which will appear on a variety of tablets.

Some of those Windows 8 tablets could make their debut during Ballmer’s 2012 CES keynote, currently scheduled for Jan. 9 at 6:30 p.m. in the Palazzo Ballroom of The Venetian hotel and casino. Microsoft could also use that speech (and its booth) to show off the cheap moncler moka sub-gloss black long jackets outlet latest Windows Phone devices running Mango, a wide-ranging software update designed to bring the platform up to parity with Google Android and Apple’s iOS. Microsoft also uses the show as a venue for Xbox-related news.