The reduced technical complexity in a camera, ultrabook or smartphone means stripping out mechanics. These stripped down gadgets are for the most part connected devices with a simple UI  that people can touch and swipe. They require a long battery life so people may use them wherever they go. These are devices that can hold a discussion and understand what you mean when you gesture by waving your hands.

Never has that been more clear than with the gadgets at CES this year.

The gadgets at this monstrous annual event in Las Vegas show the deeper connections between systems, the apps that run on them and the infrastructure needed to connect. All this has to be done in a manner that engages people and allows them to use without the frictions of managing software and the complexities that comes with it. The following are five core technology advancements that help fulfill these requirements and define this year’s CES gadgets.

Flash Memory: Intel’s Ultrabooks are hot this year at CES. On these super slim devices, flash memory has replaced hard drives, reducing their overall weight and increasing the speed. The hardware complexity and moving components have been baked into the software. No more whirring disks and moving pieces. The shift to flash memory is not just limited to gadgets. All these billions of devices that connect online means the need for new infrastructures. For example, Fusion-io builds storage right into the server itself. Without storage infrastructure, software can  be used to increase the amount of data that passes through the server itself. So as much as gadgets are getting transformed, so is the infrastructure, too.

A New Generation of Operating Systems: The slimmed down gadgets at CES sport a new generation of operating systems that provide the guts for touch-based experiences. Android ,Windows 8 and Ubuntu Unity are all interfaces built or rebuilt for the new mobile market. Ubuntu TV is particularly exciting as it shows a new direction for the Linux distribution and provides a good alternative to Google TV and Apple TV.

New Development Stacks: The API is now the official digital glue for CES. The new AT&T API catalog includes APIs for MMS, SMS, location, and mobile-health capabilities. OnStar announced an API program for developers to build for its customer base. The news points to how REST-based APIs have become mainstream for connecting apps to any kind of device, be it a smartphone or a dishwasher. Additionally, JavaScript is now a first-class citizen in the tech world, thanks in part to new JavaScript engines like V8, which also enables JavaScript to run as a highly efficient server side langauge through Node.js. JavaScript is an integral aspect of HTML5, which it seems everyone is promoting it at CES.  In addition to its new family of APIs, AT&T is also set to launch a new store for HTML5 apps. Opera also announced today an HTML5 app store.

Voice and Gesture: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in his keynote last night that the company sold 18 million Xbox Kinects in the past year. Kinect’s popularity with mass society reflects the technology’s ease of use and unlimited applications. Expect voice and gesture technology to become a core aspect of the modern gadget in the years ahead. Opus Research is one of my favorite sources to follow for what’s happening in this new world of conversation interfaces.

Battery Efficiency: The ARM processor is known for its low power. It’s why Microsoft is planning to use it for Windows 8 devices and almost every tablet on the market.  Intel is developing its own energy efficient processors but ARM has a different business model that makes it unique. ARM is a design shop. It does not do its own manufacturing. It works with its own suppliers. These suppliers fine tune and add features  with the help of its own ecosystem of suppliers. Like Microsoft, HP is making its own investments in ARM with a new effort called Project Moonshot, ARM-based low energy server technology with hyper scale capabilities.  Moonshot is expected to prove popular with Web companies. And that fits right into what we are seeing this week at CES.

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Cory Doctorow says everything is a computer. You don’t drive a car anymore. It’s a computer with wheels. A dishwasher has enough technology to talk with a smartphone.

The technology on display at CES proves this in many respects. In the years ahead it will only become more true as fundamental advances in technology simplify the gadgets we use and more advanced in their ways that they mimic human life.