Last Gadget Standing Winners

We just finished our Yahoo! Last Gadget Standing SuperSession event at CES, and boy was it ever a blast. The people have surely spoken. The event was created to give the people here at CES a chance to rest their weary feet and see some of the most innovative products on the show floor in an entertaining and action-packed series of demos.

Each presenter got four—yes, just four minutes—to show their wares before they were booted off the stage when the timer went off. Each of our ten finalists demo'd their hearts out, but the winning votes went to the Tornado DataDrive (at the live event) and the HP TouchSmart PC (the online vote). Both touched a nerve because they take the tough stuff in our lives and make it simpler.

The Tornado DataDrive looks like a retractable cable, but it has the smarts to back up and transfer data between machines without software and an interface so easy to use that even a chimp could do it. As a matter of fact, the demo featured Cody the Chimp, a chimpanzee that beats out two geeky guys who weren't lucky enough to have a DataDrive to do their file transfer.

The HP TouchSmart PC is one of the few PCs at CES that's gone beyond the traditional box. It's meant to live in your living room or kitchen right along with your family, acting as communications central. With touchscreen controls; voice memos; a cool calendaring and sticky notes program; as well as fabulous control over photos, music, and video, it won the hearts of voters looking for something new and different.

Other show highlights? Pure Digital's Point and Shoot Video Camera got audience oohs and aahs when it went from capturing video to moving it directly to the computer via its retractable USB. And the audience let out a collective gasp when it was thrown from the stage to demonstrate just how rugged a $129 device could be.

GreatCall's Jitterbug phone, designed for seniors, did a demo that listed the top ten reasons it should be a winner, Letterman style. #1 reason? If you squint at your phone, you're bound to wrinkle.

The Melitta Smart Mill and Brew team gave new meaning to the term "caffeine wired" when they showed how to get Internet weather reports while your coffee perks. They even carted out a live Elvis on stage for support.

The phone demos were hot on features. D-Link's V-Click phone showed the promise of phones that move fluidly between GSM and Wi-Fi connections, Nokia showed the new N95, a phone that does just about everything but dance, and Samsung played tunes on the company's newest Ultra Music phone with its two LCDs in a slim package.

Personal entertainment got more personal when Archos showed the Archos 604 WiFi device that plays music, movies, photos, and records from your TV. And the WowWee RS Media robot told bawdy Las Vegas jokes as it showed the crowd its personality.

The voting was done by audience applause, and I gotta tell you the room was rocking. All in good fun, all great products, and all indicative of great technology in 2007.