The ballots are in and my 2011 gadget of the year is the Newer Technology Power2U wall outlet from Other World Computing.

I'll get to the product in a second, but let me first say this year's voting took a strange twist: the Power2U was a late entry, arriving on my desk last week and causing the judges to re-vote.

You might wonder who judges and I'm happy to say it starts and ends with me: one vote, no tie-breakers and no appealing the judge's decision.

As for the winner, every household should have several of these since our lives revolve around charging USB electronic gadgets.

The Power2U outlets have a pair of standard wall outlets but also have a pair of USB ports to plug in USB cables (not included) for directly charging an iPad, MP3 player, digital camera, GPS unit or just about any other iDevice.

This includes USB 3.0, 2.0 and older 1.1 devices needing a charge. All four plugs can be used simultaneously.

The plug is UL approved, meeting the official requirements for home use.

It's built with Smart Power technology, which allows it to output the correct amount of power for each specific device. Each of the USB ports has spring-loaded safety covers to keep the USB ports closed when not in use.

Newer Technology also sent along a few other gadgets that impressed me, including the NuTouch Gloves.

The gloves are made of soft cotton containing a special conductive fiber woven into all 10 finger tips to keep touch screens responsive in the cold.

Also, to help the world of touch screens is the NewerTech NuScribe 2-in-1 silver touch screen stylus and pen.

It's pretty simple, with a soft rubber tip on one end to work the screen and a ball point pen on the other.

Details: www.macsales.com Power2U $29.99, gloves $11.99 (small, medium, large or XL) and the pen is $10.