The cellphone is the world’s most ubiquitous computer. The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real world. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information.

It has been 25 years since the desktop, with its files and folders, was introduced as a way to think about what went on inside a personal computer. The World Wide Web brought other ways of imagining the flow of data. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. New in one sense, that is. It is also as ancient as humanity itself. That metaphor is the map.

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Digital toys and Web sites for kids have had a mixed history. But the future is so full of techno-savvy kids that toy makers are finding they have no choice but to move into the digital realm by providing better online entertainment, as well as digital toys in the physical world.

Mattel (MAT) is going to do that by making its first full-scale appearance on the show floor of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which features a Kids@Play Summit this week in Las Vegas. Among the moves Mattel is announcing is a complete revamping of its online strategy, which will now target everyone from small kids to adults to bring out the “kid in all of us.”

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Do you like your documents shredded with a cross cut or micro cut? Here’s a hint: Shredders using the micro cut make the smallest cut, which slashes documents into such small pieces that it provides “maximum” security, while the cross cut shreds documents to provide just “enhanced” security.

In this era of corporate malfeasance, office supply retailer Staples, the official shredder supplier for the CES room, is touting the its latest line of high-tech shredders at the CES trade show.

We at the Digits blog didn’t know shredders could come with so much built-in technology. Staples is showcasing some shredders with V-Track, a blade technology that centers the paper as it shreds, which prevents paper jams.

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Toshiba expects the LCD television market to grow five percent in 2009, the company said this morning at a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Scott Ramirez, VP for TV Marketing at Toshiba, also said that he expects there will be “no real volume” this year in televisions priced above $2,500. He notes that the average 52-inch LCD TV in November sold for $1,948. He expects no significant sales of televisions above 55 inches.

Ramirez explained a flurry of new technologies. One is called “deep lagoon.” It basically allows the picture on screen to fade out past the bezel surrounding the screen, so one gets a greater sense of depth at all of the edges of the picture.

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Yes, this may be the worst recession America has seen since World War II. But the people who are bringing us the Consumer Electronics Show would like to point out that sales of tech products are actually faring pretty well when compared to what happened during previous recessions.

The evidence suggest that people’s views on devices such as televisions, notebook computers and mobile phones are changing, says Shawn DuBravac, economist for the Consumer Electronics Association. Through November of 2008, 17.22 percent of total durable good purchases were tech goods, the highest share in 50 years, he says.

“While these are typically discretionary purchases, consumers are treating them like nondiscretionary purchases,” says Mr. DuBravac.

That doesn’t mean that consumers aren’t making cutbacks. In fact, in many categories, consumers seem to be gravitating toward lower-priced items for varying reasons. For example, coming out of the 2007 holiday season, nearly 50 percent of all flat panel sales were over 40 inches. Today, Mr. DuBravac says, that numbers stands closer to 35 percent.

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Cisco (CSCO) has decided to be a player in the consumer electronics business.

Cisco is a company that tends to be associated with enterprise networking; at its heart it remains a manufacturer of big honking routers. But over the last few years, the company has made a concerted effort to get into the consumer business, largely through its acquisitions of Linksys, which makes home networking gear, and Scientific Atlanta, manufacturer of cable set-top boxes.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Cisco made a set of announcements that extend its consumer ambitions considerably.

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Well, everyone else is in the phone business, so why not Microsoft (MSFT)?

There are several reports suggesting that the company may soon do exactly that.

On Friday, tech news site TheInquirer.net reported that the company is developing a phone that will use an Nvidia processor called Tegra. The phone supposedly will be launched at the 3GSM conference this coming February.

Today, CNBC offered a slightly different version of the Microsoft phone rumor, asserting that the company will create a Zune-based phone code-named “Pink,” which could be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. There have been rumors about the nature of the company’s “Project Pink” going back at least a year; back in May, ZDNet reported that Pink consists of a set of consumer-focused premium mobile services, including some from its Danger acquisition.

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A Gizmodo writer has been banned from CES for a prank. But when I see some fellow press damning us for the joke, I feel sorry for them: When did journalists become the protectors of corporations? When did this industry, defined by pranksters like Woz, get so serious and in-the-pocket of big business? This is totally pathetic.

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When Marco Boerries and David Filo joined Jerry Yang on the stage of the Las Vegas Hilton Theater to show off new launches and upcoming concepts, the audience at their feet included most of Yahoo’s top management–among them Jeff Weiner, whom we last heard from here after he shook up the Yahoo Media Group. Weiner seemed a little taken aback by my comparison of Yang’s presentation with the one Terry Semel gave in 2006, particularly with how many elements of the strategy–for instance, Go, the three-screen approach to connecting–were still in place albeit evolving.

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If you want to know the theme of the Consumer Electronics Show, play taps. Fly the flag at half-mast, and say a few words for the proud monolithic corporation of years past. This year is not about products. It’s about partnerships. It’s about a marriage of the once-proud hardware makers, the defiant and boring Internet infrastructure providers, and the flashy, sometimes arrogant makers of content. It’s about even mixing in the input of consumers.

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Matters turned philosophical here at the Consumer Electronics Show in a discussion with Toshihiro Sakamoto, president and senior managing director of Panasonic AVC Networks. Sakamoto is charming, twinkle-eyed and at least a grade classier than the sell-at-all-costs, run-of-the mill American CEO. (And, as my friend Alex Pham of the Los Angeles Times put it, he sure is handsome.)

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Back in the Hilton Theater Monday afternoon for a session with execs from Hollywood–Albert Cheng, EVP-digital media, Disney-ABC Television Group; Dan Fawcett, president, Fox Digital; Tom Lesinski, president, Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment; and four days into the job, Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.

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CNet Networks, one of the original online media companies, would typically write about all the gossip and speculation at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas. Now, however, the company is likely to be the one talked about.

A consortium of prominent investment funds has amassed a 21% stake in CNet and is seeking to oust the company’s directors and take over a majority of its board, according to people briefed on the proposal.

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As you probably know, the Consumer Electronics Show begins tomorrow in Las Vegas, kicking off with a big keynote by the Beastmaster, where I’m guessing he will talk about all the new ways in which Microsoft hopes to add extra layers of frustration to people’s lives by turning ordinary everyday experiences like making phone calls and watching television into annoying, confusing processes that require you to integrate multiple unreliable and incompatible digital devices into a Frankenstein system that needs a dozen different remote controls (each one bigger and uglier than the others, with a zillion tiny buttons) and which freezes, hangs and crashes without warning. Or something.

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OMG, I can hear the fanboys battling already. Here’s a video from last night’s CES 2008 keynote, Bill Gates’s last for the foreseeable future. And I know it’s scripted, edited and contrived, but I’m sold: The man is a cool geek.

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