CNET

We just arrived back in San Francisco after a whirlwind four days at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and while we're still processing the stats, data, information, and products we've seen, there is one thing we noticed: there's an obvious disconnect in the ratio of men to women at the show.

CNET brought together some of the most influential and powerful women in the tech field — including Padmasree Warrior of Cisco, Marissa Mayer of Google, Caterina Fake of Hunch, and Lindsey Turrentine of CNET — at this year's CES to talk about the state of the tech industry, pink gadgets, and how to strike a balance between work and home. You can see the entire panel (it's about an hour long) in the embedded video after the break, but first, a few highlights:

• The general consensus is that women have come a long way in terms of the technology field, but there's a lot more work to be done.
• Marissa Mayer says that more students (men and women) should be exposed to computer science at the high school level, so that they have more of a chance to get into the technology industry after college. "When speaking about women in technology, it becomes a numbers game, but it's not about the size of the slice of pie, it's the size of the pie as a whole; we need to make the pie bigger, and expose women to computer science earlier."
• Caterina Fake lets her daughter in on her work life in order to make her feel included. She conducts family meetings every morning around the breakfast table to talk about what worked yesterday, what they could do better today, and the goals they have for the week ahead.
• Lindsey Turrentine says that one of the most important things you can do for your children is to show a strong partnership at home. When raising kids — girls and boys alike — it's important to show that you can do both: have a strong family and lean on each other to pick up the slack when work needs to be done. No one's career is more important than the other.

See what all of the amazing women had to say about the state of the tech industry for women in the full video after the jump.

Welcome to the 2010 edition of our annual Geeks We Love series! As we count down to the holiday of amore, we're also giving some love to some of the most talented and adored geeks in the industry. This year, I thought I'd kick off the geek love-fest with a gal after my own heart: gadget geek Natali Del Conte!

When Natali isn't reporting for CNET's Loaded, she's covering the market and giving her tech-spert opinions on The CBS Early Show in NYC. Needless to say, this is one girl who's always on the move. But how does she keep it all together, and stay in touch with those who are most important? Well, with the help of tech of course. But Natali isn't all business, all the time. She's also down to earth, and totally relatable. Find out more about her in the interview below!

We know you from CNET, and CBS, but are there any other projects you’re working on now?

In addition to CBS, I do several speaking engagements. I am currently working with CEA to chair the 2010 CEA Line Shows in June here in New York. We are putting together a really fantastic lineup of speakers and panel discussions for the show and I'm really excited about that. 

Were you always the tech diva in your house growing up?

Kind of. My sister didn't have to do the projects that I did. My dad would buy software and make me learn it on my Summer vacation. I had to print out reports on a dot matrix printer to prove to him that I was following his assignments. I didn't love it back then but I'm grateful for it now. These programs came on the big black floppy discs and the manuals were not written for pre-teen girls, let me tell you. But it got me where I am today so I can't complain. And what else was I going to do with my time? Ride bikes and play Nintendo? I did my share of that too. 

To hear what Natali has to say about Valentine's Day, her relationship status, and dating for geeks, just read more