Acer Iconia and DriveSafe.ly win public vote at CES

A two-screen laptop? It may sound like a solution in search of a problem, but the Acer Iconia won the audience vote at the Last Gadget Standing event at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this weekend. The equivalent honours in the Mobile Apps Showdown Contest went to DriveSafe.ly 2.0, the app of choice for people who like their music interrupted by e-mail while driving.

With all eyes on the hottest tech toys and applications, Living in Digital Times announced that Acer Iconia has been named the winner of Last Gadget Standing: and DriveSafe.ly 2.0 has won the Mobile Apps Showdown at International CES 2011. The 10 finalists in each contest were put to live audience and online votes to determine the winners.

The top 10 Last Gadget Standing finalists appeared on stage at International CES 2011 during a live session where a live voting audience determined the winner of Last Gadget Standing. Online voters selected a People’s Choice winner, Barnes & Noble NOOKcolor.

The lucky 10 finalists of Mobile Apps Showdown took part in a live demo competition at CES in front of a live and online audience. The winner was selected based on audience applause-o-meter and an online vote. Online voters selected a People’s Choice winner, Line2.

Last Gadget Standing is an annual favorite at CES. A distinguished panel of journalists selected the 10 finalists from more than 200 submissions. Past winners include such notable products as the Roomba, the Eye-Fi Card, and OnStar. Harry McCracken, founder and editor of Technologizer served as this year’s media partner and event emcee.

The Mobile Apps Showdown featured the top 10 mobile applications, selected by a panel of judges from more than 100 submissions. NetShelter Technology is the program’s media sponsor and partner.

Last Gadget Standing and Mobile Apps Showdown were hosted by Jon Hein and his special guest Gary (Baba Booey) Dell’Abate, who co-host The Wrap Up Show on the Howard Stern channels on SiriusXM Radio. Hein’s tech claim to fame is the creation of Jump the Shark which is devoted to the moments where there’s only one way to go: downhill. (Just ask Fonzie from Happy Days.) Dell’Abate, producer of The Howard Stern Show and author of They Call Me Baba Booey, is a home theater devotee who writes a column for Sound and Vision magazine.

Click here to view the Last Gadget Standing top ten finalists.

The top ten mobile applicatoins in the Mobile Apps Showdown Contest were as follows:

1. DriveSafe.ly 2.0, an app that aims to protect drivers from their own text-hungry fingers. 2. IDEAL Item ID, a free, open source, talking barcode reader and barcode maker that allows the visually impaired to identify things.. 3. Line2, which adds a second number to your iPhone or Android phone. 4. ooVoo Multiparty Mobile Video Chat, a video chat service with both video and voice calling that can accommodate up to six people. 5. Pageonce Personal Finance, which allows you to stay atop many of your personal finance accounts and all from a single place. 6. Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, a full-featured productivity suite to view and edit Microsoft Office documents. 7. Twonky Mobile, streams personal and online media from your Android phone to any Web-connected gadget or device. 8. SwiftKey, one of the smartest and swiftest predictive keyboards we’ve seen for a mobile device. 9. WebMD Mobile, which brings to the smartphone the medical resource site’s top tools, including its Symptom Checker, a comprehensive drug, supplement and vitamin treatment database, and essential first aid information. 10. iHealth BP Monitor, the first medical peripheral for iPhone: a blood pressure cuff that connects an iPhone via a docking station or a 30-pin connector.