Las Vegas — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s recurring theme through the company’s final keynote presentation at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show was Windows 8. Mr. Ballmer used the event to show off what’s in store for the next version of Windows on PCs, tablets and smartphones, and to indirectly show how the OS will compete with innovations from Apple’s own iOS and OS X operating systems.

The Mac Observer is packing up and heading out to the Consumer Electronics Show again, and we’ll be scouring the massive expo halls to find the latest and greatest in tech. This year, just like last, it already looks like the common theme for companies is to try to catch up with Apple, or even out-Apple Apple, and the show hasn’t even started yet.

As another Consumer Electronics Show gets underway in Las Vegas (TMO’s Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet are on location and will be filing reports), Apple’s lack of participation once again weighs heavily on the proceedings; the company hasn’t exhibited at the show since 1994. San Francisco Chronicle columnist James Temple says that ultrabooks will be a major factor this year, thanks to the success of Apple’s MacBook Air.

LAS VEGAS - We’re wrapping up our “Count the Tablets” coverage of CES with eight tablets that Intel was demonstrating. These were a mix of Windows and Android-powered devices, and they include one device (the Motion CL900) that we already covered from Microsoft’s booth, for a total of 51 tablets we were able to round up.

LAS VEGAS - Continuing our “Count the Tablets” coverage of CES, we have five tablets being shown off by Microsoft (only four of them are new to our Count, bringing). These tablets are the real deal in that they are definitely going to ship, if they haven’t already, and we got two added bonuses compared to the Android tablets we saw in other parts of CES: We could touch them and they were turned on and operational.

LAS VEGAS — Dexim is doing its part to help environmentally conscious iPhone users charge their battery and cut down on wasted electricity with the Visible Green Charger it showed off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Along with the ability to auto-power down when not in use, the charger cable lights up with a flowing stream of blue light when juice is flowing to your iPhone.

LAS VEGAS — Electric outlets aren’t easy to come by in the back country, so nPower came up with the idea of converting the kinetic energy generated by walking into electric cells that can be used to recharge your iPhone. The company’s PEG fits in your backpack and powers its charging cell from your own movement.

LAS VEGAS — Apple’s Magic Mouse connects wirelessly to your computer via Bluetooth, and two companies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are making it easy to recharge the pointing device’s batteries without any cords, too.

LAS VEGAS - Continuing our “Count the Tablets” coverage of CES, we have seven tablets from a Shenzhen, China company called Homeland that range in size from 7” to 10”, bringing our count to 40 tablets. Unlike many of the other companies we’ve covered in this series, Homeland had detailed specs for each of their tablets, but none of them were turned on.

LAS VEGAS - Continuing our “Count the Tablets” coverage of CES, we have four more devices from the Shenzhen district of China, three Android devices and one Windows device.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to see any of them actually working, but one company did, at least, let us see some specs.