Comdex, the massive annual computer and technologies show in Las Vegas, reigns supreme as the show that gets all the media and techie attention. So large that it has to spread out between the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Hotel and the Hilton, Comdex this past week drew in some 2000 exhibitors from 20 countries and, said the organisers, more than 200,000 visitors.

Yet, although it is widely understood (by Americans, at least) to be the largest computer show in the world, it is actually dwarfed by its European counterpart, CeBit. Late every winter, CeBit rolls into the colossal setting of the hulking exhibition halls in Hanover, Germany, and packs in the world's technology and telecommunications industries.

According to its organisers, it attracts 7,800 exhibitors from 70 countries and an incredible 780,000 visitors.

In terms of size, CeBit certainly wins hands down - or perhaps, feet down, since those are the appendages most aware of the fact that you've attended the show. Extremely comfortable shoes are essential and the seasoned visitor knows to make frequent use of the shuttles that travel between the halls.

It's nearly impossible to do all the halls in a single day unless you move at a pace that negates absorbing any information and that would put your feet in traction for a week afterwards.

Comdex, on the other hand, is entirely manageable in a day, if you just want a brief overview of trends, technologies, and a whiff of atmosphere. But that's not the reason most people go, of course.

First of all, the daily schedule is packed with keynote speeches by the alpha males and females of the technology business world. This year, Bill Gates kicked off as always, followed on later days by Hewlett-Packard's Carly Fiorina, Dell's Michael Dell, Oracle's Larry Ellison and others.

Many show-goers are tempted by the lively round-table sessions on subjects ranging from the future of wireless devices to digital content to "extreme knowledge" (um, a panel of science fiction writers discussing the future). Also on offer are small sub-conferences on topics such as e-mobility, and Linux and open source programming, which included an appearance by Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

And of course, there's the setting - no one goes to Las Vegas and ignores the casinos, the shows, the exuberant if always somehow vaguely disturbing excess.

Then there are the parties - this year you could have watched Mr Gates at one party boogie down with two women at the same time. Yes, I know, it's not an image one wants to hold in one's mind in the morning with a hangover, but such are the risks one takes and the sacrifices one makes at Comdex.

In a week during which media badges are gold dust (they supply entry to basically every party, everywhere), the big tech companies vie with one another to line up big stage rock acts for their parties. In some cases last week these were oldies but goldies like the B-52s. Not exactly on the cutting edge of the techno dance floor scene, granted, but a group very likely to win over the hearts and minds of the 30 and 40something programmers and "sales executives" (which means plain old salespeople to the rest of the world).

Other faded fixtures such as Ziggy Marley also featured, but the party of choice for live acts was definitely EDS's - they draped an intimate little airplane hangar with white fabric and spacey decorations, trucked in the sushi and several little barlets, each featuring a different cocktail (the Cosmopolitans hit the spot but I wasn't too sure about the alarmingly-named White Kittens), and let rip with Macy Gray and the Barenaked Ladies. The Ladies (appropriately named for Vegas, but neither bare, naked, nor ladies) even did a little rap promoting EDS and its chief executive Dick Brown's keynote speech.

Very scary. Whatever happened to smashing guitars, throwing TVs out of hotel windows and offending public figures? Maybe only the British bands are good at that any more.

Down on the exhibit hall floors, this year's trends were pretty clear: anything wireless, anything with the word "Bluetooth" (the wireless protocol from Sweden) in it, all types of Net access information devices from the keyboard-less Web tablet waved about by Gates during his keynote, to the usual handhelds such as Psion, Palm and Handspring organisers, to the latest mobile phones.

Something called "the networked home" was touted about, though it seems to raise serious questions about surveillance and privacy if all your appliances and household belongings can chat with shops, utility companies and local government on your behalf.

Boeing, the aircraft company, created a stir by revealing a system with which it plans to offer in-flight Net access next year. This will introduce complicated flight protocol dilemmas. Added to the uncertainty over whether it's polite to recline your seat if you're in economy will be new anxieties over the correct response when you realise the guy next to you is downloading porn or weeping over a "Dear John" email. It was all so much simpler when inflight entertainment was limited to a crumpled edition of Cara.

Over the coming year, tech journalists will watch to see which of their Comdex predictions come true, which technologies win out with consumers, which fledgling companies become tomorrow's big names.

So will an enormous audience that did not and probably never would attend Comdex, but nonetheless plugs into the extensive coverage the event now receives from print and online newspapers and magazines, and increasingly even the major television and radio networks in the US. That's a sign of how mainstream technology has become in the United States - a story about a Bill Gates keynote or a Sony robot pet gets primetime coverage.

Ultimately, that's why Comdex appears to much of the world as the "biggest" tech show, because it's the one that gets the coverage, the glitz, the parties (as one News.com article pointed out rather witheringly, CeBit's entertainment highlights this past year included the Circus Flic Flac and an opera).

CeBit, despite its breadth, still lacks the same buzz and, certainly, the same phalanx of mainstream journalists (rather than the important but less visible trade press), though it too is finally getting some column inches in the US press each year.

I'm not sure whether these differences are necessarily deeply significant, but the contrasts between Comdex and CeBit and the place each holds in the psyche of two continents certainly highlights intriguing differences in technology industry mindset between the US and Europe.