Making electricity in central power plants is so 20th century. K.R. Sridhar has a better idea: Create energy on the spot, right where it's consumed. His startup, Bloom Energy is developing a fuel cell that could kick-start the distributed-energy industry.

The problem with today's centralized approach is its vast inefficiency. In coal-and gas-fired power plants, almost 2/3 of the energy produced by converting fuel into kilowatts escapes as heat. Another 8%, on average,

Sometimes you hear about new technologies that sound scince-fiction...that's exactly what happened when I heard about this company: Eureka Aerospace, a company that has been developing a new approach towards impeding the progress of suspicious ground vehicles. They called it the High-Power Electromagnetic System for Stopping Vehicles (aka HPEMS), a compact, tunable power source and a high-gain antenna to beam microwave energy in the direction of targeted vechic

There's not much connection between Internet and building medical devices. But that's exactly the transition made by Barry Schuler, former CEO of AOL. His two-year-old startup, Raydiance, is taking aim at the $3 billion medical laser market with a technology called USP, or ultrashort pulse.

USP lasers are phenomenally accurate and of very high intensity, and when focused, they strip the electrons from atoms in a process that vaporizes the material with extraor

It is not just a fashionable mood ring for your single expresso. This coffee lid changes color with the temperature of your beverage (who hasn't burnt her/his tongue with Starbucks's beverages!!) and let users know how securely they're attached to cups giving retailers added protetion against coffee spills. Sidney-based Smart Lid Systems is solding out all its lids for just 5 cents a piece. Interested in reading more about it?:

Imagine a world where you don't have to deal with "toner low" messages from your printer or to buy pricey replacement cartridges. In this new world, you may not even need a printer - because there's one built into your cell phone or your digital camera. All you need is special paper on which your words or images appear like a Polaroid picture, but without the shaking or the waiting.

Welcome to the future as envisioned by Zink (which st