The larger part of this morning's opening keynote kicked off by CEA President Gary Shapiro was consumer electronics giant Sony's chance to flaunt the company's global reach into multiple sectors of the electronics and entertainment industries. Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer's affable personality on stage almost offset the hyperbolicly pro-Sony teleprompter text almost all visitors to the stage quipped about, and the appearance of celebrities Tom Hanks, Reggise Jackson, Dr. Oz, and Usher turned the presentation into half glowing PR-speak, half theatrical presentation. Read on for a rundown of the highlights.

After an Angels and Demons trailer is shown on the two big screens at the front of the hall, actor Tom Hanks takes the stage and proceeds to perform an entertaining rip on the script he's reading off the teleprompter, including an quip about how the computer he uses isn't actually made by Sony ("I should have read this script before signing on...") and how his appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show every year is written into his contract by Stringer against his will.

When Howard joins him on stage they walk over to a kiosk with a set of prototype glasses that display a semi-transparent HUD enabling the wearer to view video content while theoretically still being able to see actual space in front of you. As they watch a clip from A League of Their Own, Hanks quips that they are incredibly useful for comparing how far he's fallen from how he looked 20 years ago. The trouble is, they look terrible (which Hanks doesn't hesitate to point out) and don't seem to be quite ready for prime time yet.  Moreover — is this an innovation anyone is really hankering for (if you are, let us know in the comments because we want to know why)? If driving while texting is dangerous, we can only imagine the perils that await those who walk and watch movies at the same time.

After Tom exits the stage literally rattling off a string of other company names whose presentations he would never want to appear in ("don't let me be trapped in the Casio universe!"), Stringer starts bringing up the state of the economy and how Sony plans to keep itself relevant by turning new technologies into "must haves at affordable prices." He laid out Sony's 7-point plan for creating the ultimate user experience:

1. embrace the fusion of industries
2. adopt a service oriented philosophy
3. be multi-functional
4. support open technologies
5. advanced the shared experience
6. create new value chains (high definition as an example)
7. go green

The last point is turning out to be a major trend here at CES 2009. Stringer says consumers want "big screens with big sounds and small carbon footprints." In terms of advancing the shared experience, Sony announced a plan to have 90% of their products able to connect wirelessly with each other by 2011. The new cameras in the Cyber-shot line connect wirelessly to the web and to Bravia TVs. A Sony rep in the front row has been taking photos during the keynote and Stringer shows us how he's already uploaded the images to the Sony website and nearby Bravia TVs ("and now watch him delete me...").

Next up, Stringer demos a concept for a smarter, more useful bedside alarm clock that collects content for the user overnight to help them start their day. Co-designed with Chumby Industries (makers of the compact Wi-Fi-connected touchscreen internet "appliance" the Chumby), the prototypical device uses Pandora to play music you like, collects news, sports scores and video clips based on your interests, local weather, photos emailed to it and other content. The re-envisioned alarm clock is always on and internet-connected, making it the "perfect bedside companion... well, almost perfect. If you're lonely it is."

The next segment concerns the rise of OLED technology in television manufacturing, and Sony's commitment to manufacture a 20-30-inch screen for the market later this year. He also showed off a working prototype of a small, flexible OLED screen and showed a PR rep squeezing the device while a music video plays on it: "who ever thought we'd be squeezing Beyoncé? I hope Jay-Z isn't in the house."

Next up is a discussion of the success of Blu-ray, with over 28 million titles sold in 2008. Disney and Pixar's John Lasseter takes the stage to talk about important Blu-ray is to the movie industry: "you can't go back after having it." He says, "At Pixar we sweat over those fine details," and now consumers are able to appreciate it at home. He mentions BD-Live as another selling point of Blu-ray and, although to date we still haven't seen too many must-have developments in that regard, the demo he showed was interesting if not entirely the holy grail of interactive content: the main content menu for the Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray reads the local weather based on your location and displays the weather conditions surrounding the Sleeping Beauty Castle accordingly. In Vegas it's sunny, but when we switch to a Tokyo location it's nightfall.

Next up is a segment on the PlayStation family with Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. He rattles off some statistics: 61.3 million user install base now for the PS3 and 17 million user accounts on the PlayStation Network which the company is positioning as a premier destination for digital content. He brings up LittleBigPlanet as an example of the power of PSN — at launch the game came with 50 playable levels, but thanks to the level-creation tools there are now over 300,000 playable levels of user-generated content playable, enough to play the game for 2 straight years. Also mentioned were Free Realms, the family-friendly massively multiplayer-online title currently in beta and slated to release on the PC and PS3, the portability of PSN content to PSPs and Bravia TVs, and a new partnership with MTV networks to deliver 2000 hours of video content to the network. He mentions the successful launch of PlayStation Home, with 3.4 million users having downloaded the software and logged in and $1 million in virtual item sales logged so far. Hirai also announced a content partnership with Electronic Arts for Home to deliver new types of content relevant to gamers and new contextual marketing opportunities for advertisers.

The next two segments brought on Dr. Oz to discuss a new health care television franchise and Reggie Jackson to showcase the new New York Yankees stadium being built and sponsored by Sony, followed by a return to a discussion of gadgets going green. A new recycling program states a goal of recycling 1 pound of consumer electronics equipment per 1 pound of new product produced by the company. Three new technology developments are in prototype in the realm of green, including a dye sensitized solar cell, sugarbased bio battery, and a Greenheart phone from Sony Ericsson.

Stringer begins talking about 3D video and Sony's initiative to jump-start 3-dimensional content in film and gaming. Jeffrey Katzenberg from Dreamworks came on to talk about how he sees 3D as the third major revolution in film following sound and color. We see some clips in 3D thanks to the glasses left on our chairs at the beginning of the event.

Sandwiched sort of randomly in between a discussion of Sony's efforts in the music industry is a mention of the new Sony Vaio P ultraportable we had a chance to go hands-on with last night. More discussion of the newly named Sony Music Entertainment branch of the company is followed by a performance from Usher, who afterwards joins in the general amusement about the overly gushing tone of the presentation: "You know I have two sons, both born at the Sony Hospital..."

By this time everyone is getting a bit antsy as the keynote has been going on almost a full 90 minutes. Stringer welcomes Gary Shapiro back to the stage for a wrap-up, and we're off to pound the vast show floor once again.