Drumroll Please: Last Gadget Standing Almost Final

Every year you can find me at CES hosting an event called The Last Gadget Standing. The idea behind the event is pretty simple. So many of the products we see at CES are flash in the pans. The darlings of the show floor often pull a disappearing act by the end of February. Can you pick which products are going to make it big? Stick around? Change the way we work, play, and entertain ourselves?

Together with Chris, Gina, Dory, and Ben (and a crew of other behind-the-scenes Yahoo! Techies), we start months before CES, casting a wide net to find out which products will be showcased. This year we had hundreds of entries. To name just a few of the memorable:

Cobra's radar detector/GPS system in one.

Anycom's solar-powered car Bluetooth.

Plantronics Calisto, which combines a wireless Bluetooth headset for VoIP and cellular calls with a DECT 6.0 phone for landline calls.

Jensen HD Radio, the first to be able to add an iPod to its receiver and accommodate satellite radio such as Sirius or XM too.

HP's Blackbird, the PC on steroids for serious gamers.

Gateway One, the sleek Mac-alike that puts Gateway back on the design map.

Motorola's new Crystal Talk technology, appearing for the first time in a new line of phones, including the RAZR2 V9m.

Pyramat's high-tech gaming furniture, including the G-Flex Game Booster.

Ultimately, we narrowed the field down to 10 finalists. Each finalist will showcase their product on Wednesday, Jan. 9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. They'll have exactly four minutes to make their case. Before they do, we'd like to hear from all of you.

Now for that drumroll please…next post comes with finalists.