Even though they had a tiny booth at CES, Bug Labs seemed to strike a nerve. In addition to winning CNET's Best of CES Award for emerging technologies, the Bug team excited the crowd with the promise of one gadget to replace the ever increasing menagerie of devices on exhibit elsewhere at the show. Steven Cherry has already discussed why open source hardware is so revolutionary, but its best to just see the Bug for yourself. We talked first to Mehrshad Mansouri, who gave an overview of the device and showed off some of its initial possibilities:

Next up was Bug Labs' Jeremy Toeman, who explained how the bug base, modules, and software actually work together, and what sort of engineering challenges faced the team:

The Bug may not be the smallest or most attractive device out there, but it's as close as you'll come to one that's future proof. Do you think open source gadgets can become as successful as open source software? Let us know what you'd want your dream gadget to be able to do.