Samsung's Kevin Packingham at the CES 2012 press conference. (Getty)

LAS VEGAS – Today is the day before the first official first day of CES 2013. It’s called press day. That means that thousands of journalists from around the world pile into large ballrooms to see companies from Netgear to Intel to Sony to Panasonic announce their biggest products.

Yes, there are a lot of news conferences here in Vegas today, but Samsung has notoriously held some of the most memorable events at the annual show. One year, it had circus dancers. Another it had a young child-creature named Zoll announce the products.

What does 2013 hold? We will only know for sure when the event starts at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET. You can tune in to our live blog below to get all the updates as they are happening. See you then!

Note: The updates in the CoverItLive module below will come through automatically when the event begins; no need to refresh the page. Just keep it locked here!

SpareOne is an emergency phone that runs on a single AA battery. Joanna Stern/ABC News.

Sure, CES 2013 is full of groundbreaking smartphone technology — the newest screens, processors and connectivity for our powerful phones — but sometimes all those fancy features can fail you, especially if they drain your batteries.

That’s why SpareOne decided it was time to make a really low-powered cellphone that runs on a single AA cell. Just put one in the back of the dumbphone and you can make calls for up to 10 hours. You can also pop your SIM card in to use your regular phone’s number. It’s really that simple.

SpareOne says the idea really isn’t to replace your more complicated and powerful smartphone. “This is meant to be an emergency and secondary phone for outdoor use or travel use,” Christian Scheder, the president of SpareOne, told ABC News. “The battery life of phones s getting worse and worse. We know there are a lot of times and people who cannot charge their phone.” Scheder cited Hurricane Sandy and other natural disasters as proof that it’s good to have a spare phone around to make emergency calls.

MORE CES: Photos from the Technology Show

The phone comes with a waterproof bag, and SpareOne says a dry cell, unused, can keep its charge for years. There is a large emergency button on the phone for calling 911 — no SIM is required to make those calls. And there is a flashlight on the top, which provides 24 hours of continuous light.

SpareOne also makes an app that lets you use your smartphone to track people’s locations during emergencies.  The SpareOne is available now for $99.99.

LAS VEGAS — How badly have you wanted to turn your iPad or, better yet, touchscreen all-in-one PC into a table?

OK, so maybe you haven’t thought of it. But don’t worry, Lenovo has. At CES 2013 the company unveiled its IdeaCentre Horizon, a 27-inch desktop all-in-one that transforms into a table.

The all-in-one can actually be purchased with a separate table stand with wheels. But… why would you want to do that? It’s all about the software you can run on the desktop. Yes, it is a normal Windows 8 PC, but when you push the screen back so it lies flat, it automatically launches Lenovo’s own Aura software.

The software brings up a circular widget with shortcuts to photos, videos, games, music, etc. Tap on the video or photos widget and you can move things around and pinch to zoom. Then flick four fingers on the screen and you can send all those open photos and videos off the screen. The display supports up to 10 fingers, and you might actually care about that spec with this one, especially when you hear about the games.

MORE: Photos from CES 2013

The highlight of the machine is the game play. You can launch a series of tabletop games, including air hockey, Monopoly and even roulette, and the whole family can gather round to play. Lenovo will also sell physical game accessories, including e-dice, joysticks and strikers. We got a chance to play air hockey, and while there’s no excuse for our bad eye-hand coordination, the screen and computer were very responsive and kept up.

That’s because inside there’s a quad-core Core i7 processor and Nvidia’s GeForce graphics. There’s also a giant battery inside the table/tablet, so you can roll it around without being tied to the wall. Unfortunately, the battery isn’t going to last too long in this one, but it should get you through a couple of rounds of air hockey.

Of course, all of that is going to cost you more than the average all-in-one. The Horizon will cost $1,699 when it goes on sale this summer.

Want more CES News? Check out abcnews.com/tech.

                  Apple's App Store tops 40 billion downloads with almost half in 2012                  Image credit: Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images

Apple marks another highlight and first for the global tech company.

Apple announced that iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users have downloaded over 40 billion apps, with almost 20 billion in 2012 alone. In March, Apple reported that it had seen 25 billion downloads.

With over 500 million active accounts, Apple’s App Store saw a record-breaking December with over 2 billion downloads during the month. Apple isn’t announcing how many devices it sold that month, but with lots of people opening brand new iPhone 5s, iPad Minis and regular iPads during the holiday season sales likely spurred downloads. The App Store saw continued success within its app development community as 775,000 new apps were created and featured in the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users. As a result,  app developers pulled in over $7 million by Apple.

MORE: 50 Best Apps for Your iPad 

“It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said in a statement. “We continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.”

According to Flurry, the holiday season saw huge growth in app downloads across all platforms.  From Dec. 25 through Dec.  31,  1.76 billion iOS and Android apps were download.  Just on Christmas Day, 328 million applications were downloaded on both platforms.

Breakdown Apple’s App Store and users will see no shortage of areas and interests to browse from including 23 categories of news, sports, travel, entertainment and fitness apps.

Image credit: FitBit

LAS VEGAS – And you thought the fitness gadget war had hit its peak. Nope, here at CES 2013 there’s lots of talk of how to use gadgets that pair with your phone to track your steps and fitness activity. And the first two products actually come from companies that have some serious experience in the space.

FitBit, which recently came out with its new Zip and One fitness trackers, has announced a new version that you can wear on your wrist. Similar to the Jawbone Up or the Nike Fuelband, the Flex looks like a high-tech bracelet; it comes in different sizes and five colors. Its Zip and One clipped on to your pants or a pocket and were easier to conceal.

MORE CES: CES 2013 in PHOTOS

Like those, however, it tracks your steps, distance, calories burned and sleep quality and then pairs with your iPhone or Android wirelessly via Bluetooth 4.0. You just download the app for the iPhone and now select Android phones (Samsung Galaxy S 3 and Note) and you can see all the data on the fly.

The Jawbone Up has to be plugged into the phone and the FuelBand uses Bluetooth 2.0, which drains the battery faster. There are LEDs on the band to tell you how close you are to your goal, but there is no display to show more details like the other FitBits or the new Withings Smart Activity Tracker.

Withings’ new tracker, which looks a lot like FitBit’s One, tracks many of the same things: steps taken, distance covered, calories burned and quality of sleep. But it also now adds pulse measurement and strides run. Similar to the Flex, it pairs with your phone via Bluetooth Smart to the Withings Health Mate App to give you all the data, though you can see some of it on the small LED screen. The app is available for iPhone and Android.

The FitBit Flex costs $99.95 and will be available  this spring. The Withings says it plans to announce pricing and availability at a later date.

Image credit: Acer

LAS VEGAS — “This is a product for new users.” That’s how Acer President Jim Wong described the company’s new $130 Acer Iconia B1 tablet, which will be sold in some areas of the world for as low as $99.

“Some places will have a special promotion for $99 but most of the channels will have it for $129 to $149,” Wong explained during an interview with ABC News Sunday at CES 2013.

The Android 4.0 tablet, which will launch first in Asia and in South America this month, is obviously going after the lower-end $199, 7-inch tablets, like the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. However, the $70 to $100 gap does take a hit on the specs and user experience.

Unlike the Nexus and Kindle Fire, which have higher quality displays, the B1 has a TN 1024 x 600 resolution screen. It also doesn’t have higher end dual- or quad-core processors  from Nvidia or Qualcomm. Instead, it has a MediaTek processor and just 512MB of RAM.

MORE FROM CES: Toshiba Kicks Off the Ultra HD Flood 

“Performance is very similar [to competing tablets], especially from the point of view of applications users use. You don’t tell the difference unless you are a gameaholic,” Wong said.

We got a look at the tablet here at CES and it’s very clear that this is a lower cost tablet than the Nexus 7 or the Kindle Fire. The plastic back is thin and the screen quality suffers when you hold it at different angles. The performance also seemed noticeably slower than the Nexus, browsing was certainly functional, but taps on the keyboard didn’t instantly register.

Acer is also introducing its AcerCloud apps for the iPhone at the show. The apps let you sync your music, files and documents across your Android, Windows 8 and now iOS devices. Cleverly, you can instantly access any document on your computer; you don’t have to drag the file to a folder like with Dropbox or Google Drive. Wong says he hopes the software will build awareness for the brand as a mobile company in the U.S.

Speaking of the U.S., he didn’t say when the tablet would be available to Americans, but did say he plans for it to be sold worldwide.

You can find all of our CES 2013 coverage at ABCNews.com/tech. 

(Toshiba)

LAS VEGAS — Get ready for it! The UltraHD TVs are coming by the droves here at CES 2013, and the first company to formally announce theirs is Toshiba with its L93000 Series Ultra HD 4K LED TVs.

For those new to this 4K or Ultra HD phenomenon, these new TVs have four times the resolution of the current 1080p TVs. That crazy high resolution makes content look even crisper and brighter than what your eyes are used to now with the current generation of HDTVs on the market.

Toshiba plans to release its 4K TVs in three sizes — there will be  58-, 65- and 84-inch versions of the L9300. All of them will have an “ultra-slim” bezel and gun metal trim and stand. Powering the ultra-high resolution video is Toshiba’s CEVO 4K quad and dual core processor, which also helps upscale the content. It also has Toshiba’s ClearScan 240Hz refresh rate for smoother fast motion video.

MORE CES: Five Things to Expect at CES 2013 

But with lots more 4K TVs being announced this week, what will set Toshiba’s apart?  Toshiba’s VP of product marketing and development, Scott Ramirez, says it’s Toshiba’s image quality.

“What Toshiba brings is experience in image processing,” Ramirez said. “We’re taking a 1080p image, restoring it up to an Ultra HD level as well as upscaling it all the same time using our proprietary CEVO 4K Quad+Dual Core Processor — a quad core processor with two extra cores.”

Toshiba isn’t commenting on the pricing of the L9300 series, but says it will be on sale this summer. Its new LED TVs — the L2300, L7300, L4300 series — with its Cloud TV services, which includes stream services and other news content, will be available in March.

Toshiba also released a new 14-inch Windows ultrabook, 17.3-inch Qosmio X875 gaming notebook  and other mainstream laptops at the show.

Stay tuned for much more as CES begins Monday. You can find all our coverage at ABCNews.com/tech. 

                                                                                                (Image Credit: John D. McHugh)

App Name: Marksta

Price: $1.99

Available Platforms: iPhone

What does this app do? Photojournalist John McHugh knows the pain photographers feel when others use their work without attributing credit. And so, he created Marksta, a photo app released this past week for the iPhone that allows users to add watermarks to their photos before sharing their work through social media. Through text-editing tools, users can copyright their images, as well as add twitter and website addresses.

“If I get lots of people putting their names on photographs, I hope it will give them an idea of ownership,” says McHugh, who spent the past year creating the app with an independent developer. “Hopefully, it will make people less cavalier toward taking others’ creative works.”

To that end, McHugh’s goal was to make a simple, intuitive app easy enough for novice users to figure out, but complex enough for the most adept professionals to appreciate. Load a photo from an album or the iPhone’s camera roll, tap the text on the image to begin creating a watermark, and then choose from a handful of tools represented by a row of icons on the bottom of the screen. Press the “A” button to select from a series of fonts or tap the color palate to adjust the shades of your text, for example.

Marksta contains editing features photographers will recognize such as the ability to create layers and templates, as well as the option to add a border and adjust its size and color. Within each layer you create, you can add drop shadows or reposition the watermark by tapping the effects key.

Is it easy to set up? Yes, you can begin working with Marksta as soon as you download it. Press the “I” button on the top right hand corner to view tutorials as you work, too, making it simple for first-time users to learn.

Should I try it? Many of the features within the app can be adjusted or turned on or off within the iPhone settings, which gives the app versatility and flexibility. In testing the app, however, we found it difficult to add and resize an image to a watermark. The function was buried in the layer tool and, try as we might, we  could not adjust the size. Still, Marksta provides a comprehensive set of tools and the app’s creator, McHugh, makes up for any small downsides with his communication skills; logon to the app’s Facebook page and you will see a steady stream of posts and responses to users’ questions and posts.

                                                                         (Image Credit: Sundance Institute/AP Photo)

Wondering when you’ll be able to see Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs on the big screen? Open Road Films and Five Star Feature Films, which have partnered to release the film, announced that ‘jOBS’ will be released in April. The movie will premiere later this month at the Sundance Film Festival, which runs from Jan. 17-27 in Park City, Utah.

But Kutcher won’t be playing the young and shaggy Jobs the entire time. Produced by Mark Hulme, the movie details nearly 30 years of Jobs’ life – from 1971 to 2000 – and focuses on the major milestones and characters that influenced the Apple founder. Josh Gad plays Steve Wozniak, and Dermot Mulroney and Matthew Modine also star alongside Kutcher.

“jOBS plunges into the depths of his character, creating an intense dialogue-driven story that is as much a sweeping epic as it is an immensely personal portrait of Steve Jobs’ life,” Open Road Films says of the movie.

The filmmakers were also “granted unprecedented access” to the famous garage in Palo Alto, Calif., where Jobs and Wozniak first started making Apple computers.

Another Jobs biopic, written by Aaron Sorkin, is also being planned.

The only question left: What does Apple itself have in store for the March-April time frame?

Image credit: iHip

Snooki hasn’t only spent the last couple of months nurturing her baby son Lorenzo. She’s also been preparing her new line of audio gear.

Oh yes, you heard that right. Snooki, who partnered with iHip last year to release a set of headphones, is back at it again this year. But with much more. Next week at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, “Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi will be unveiling her new line of tech gear or the “Snooki Couture by Nicole Polizzi” collection. The collection goes beyond headphones and earbuds with a portable speaker and even iPhone and iPad covers.

“I’m so excited to have headphones with style! I love listening to my music and being accessorized. iHip worked with me on incorporating my signature style with the best sound quality and a comfortable fit,” Polizzi said in a statement.

And style seems to be a large part of the new products. The “attitude” and “personality” of Snooki has been intertwined into the products, says iHip. That means rhinestones, sequins, feathers and animal prints. Some  of the products will also be bundled with hair accessories.

Polizzi will be taking the stage on Wednesday, Jan. 9 in Vegas to detail the new line. iHip has already confirmed that products will range from $25 to $60 and will be available in thousands of retail stores this year.

But, of course, Snooki won’t be the only celebrity at the show next week.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of celebrities coming,” Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which puts on the big tradeshow, told ABC News. “Will.i.am will be at various events and a lot of others which I cannot reveal.”

We’ll be bringing you all the details — straight from Snooki’s mouth to your ears — next week at the show. GTL!