The worlds largest annual trade show for consumer technology gets underway in Las Vegas today. This years CES keynotes will include Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates sharing his thoughts on natural user interface, Sony CEO Howard Stringer bringing updates on the high definition video format wars and Intel CEO Paul Otellini offering a glimpse of Third Life.

Reena Jana reports that Microsoft conservatively estimates its widened definition of the Serious Games market to be a $9 billion opportunity. The above video shows some early offerings of Virtual Earth + 3DVIA. This along with the remixing of MS Flight Simulator which debuted as Microsoft ESP (a platform for visualisation simulation) shows Microsofts commitment to the space.

While 2007 was very much a proof of concepts year, 2008 will see wider experimentation and adoption of social computing within enterprises worldwide. GM is getting the year off to a good start with the launch of GMnext which incorporates a weblog and wiki among its offering. Interesting times indeed.