Better 3-D Glasses

Avatar raised the bar for 3-D movies, but the eyewear lagged behind: 3-D glasses reduce the brightness of the image as much as 50%, and if you're nearsighted, you have to put them on over your regular glasses, doubling the nerd quotient. To the rescue come new products from Oakley Inc., which has partnered with DreamWorks Animation to create specs with optically correct lenses (more clarity, less ghosting), and Samsung, which is releasing prescription glasses for its 3-D TVs. In both cases, seeing will be believing

The Deceitful Robot

O.K., its nose doesn't grow. But Georgia Tech's new robot, which uses algorithms to detect conflict and then assess the best method of escaping from it, can create a false trail, send erroneous communications and hide from an enemy. Although its main purpose will most likely be to aid military search-and-rescue operations, its ability to deceive also brings it closer to successful interactions with humans. And it would make the Jetsons' Rosie even more annoying.

Amtrak`s Beef-powered Train

Compared with its ultramodern counterparts in Europe and Japan, Amtrak is not a font of innovation. But on its Heartland Flyer - a daily service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, Texas - Amtrak is taking tentative steps toward a greener, low-carbon future. Since spring, the Heartland Flyer has been running on 20% biodiesel rather than the carbon-heavy diesel fuel on which Amtrak's other trains - with the exception of the electric Acela Express - currently operate. The biodiesel reduces air pollution and helps cash-strapped Amtrak save on fuel. And appropriately for a train in cow country, the biodiesel is made from rendered cattle fat. Biodiesel from beef burns cleaner than plant biodiesel, though it may not be scalable outside the beef belt.

Google`s Driverless Car

Is it an autoautomobile? An aut2.0mobile? Whatever you call it, Google's new Prius - tricked out with radar sensors, video cameras and a laser range finder - has driven itself 140,000 miles without an unscheduled meeting with a light pole. Other geek squads have been running driverless vehicles in the California desert for years, partly at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense. But only Google can rev the petabyte-sucking mapping technology that guides its car along busy streets and highways. The goal is safety - an admirable one given the world's million-plus auto fatalities each year. Driverless technology is logical and efficient, and in the near future, it could transform your commute into stress-free transport on a motorized sofa. The sad part for road hogs: if Google is successful in marketing its technology to automakers, you may never get to flip the bird at another driver again.

The Plastic-Bottle Boat

In the four months it took British adventurer and banking heir David de Rothschild and crew to sail a boat made of discarded soft-drink bottles from San Francisco to Australia, Americans used some 8.7 billion plastic bottles. Drawing attention to that waste was the point of Rothschild's voyage aboard the Plastiki, a 60-ft. catamaran built with 12,500 recycled plastic bottles and a fully recyclable plastic material called Seretex and held together with organic glue made from cashew-nut husks and sugarcane. The bottles were packed into the Plastiki's pontoons in a pomegranate-like structure, giving the boat 68% of its buoyancy. Rothschild's mission to change the public's perception of plastic continues as his team brainstorms new ways to reuse the commonly discarded material in everything from surfboards to wind turbines. "Every year in the U.S., we are throwing away a billion dollars' worth of building material," he tells

The English-Teaching Robot

Call it the job terminator. South Korea, which employs some 30,000 foreigners to teach English, has plans for a new addition to its language classrooms: the English-speaking robot. Students in a few schools started learning English from the robo-teachers late last year; by the end of this year, the government hopes to have them in 18 more schools. The brightly colored, squat androids are part of an effort to keep South Korean students competitive in English. Not surprisingly, the proposal has worried a few human teachers - and with good reason. Experts say the bots could eventually phase out flesh-and-blood foreign English teachers altogether.