As has been CES tradition for the past three years, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the 2012 show with a keynote speech the night before the show floor opened. It's a role Ballmer inherited from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who gave almost a dozen CES talks over the past two decades.
But Microsoft said last month that CES 2012 would be its last, and the company opted to go out with a ridiculous bang. Its event featured Ryan Seacrest as host, a Cookie Monster skit and an Auto-Tuned Bill Gates montage.
The craziest stunt of them all: a "Tweet Choir" that featured about a dozen gospel singers belting out the day's Microsoft- and CES-related tweets, set to song. Ballmer laughed and clapped from the shadows at the other end of the stage, while the audience watched with mouths agape. -Julianne Pepitone
From ultrabooks to an obnoxious iPod dock, the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show ran the gamut from "great" to "really?"
