Best of what's new 2010 part 1

Security:

                                                    

                             Hydronalix EMILY

Ocean riptides drown an estimated 100 people every year in the U.S. . EMILY, the Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard, is a four-foot-long remote-controlled rescue buoy that can zip across choppy waves at up to 26 mph, reaching a drowning victim 10 times as fast as any swimmer.

Green Tech:

                       AquaPro Holland Groasis Waterboxx 

Drylands actually have enough water to sustain trees for decades, but it’s several feet beneath the surface. Because rain and irrigation evaporate quickly, many young plants die before their roots can tap that reservoir. The Waterboxx, shaped more like a doughnut than a box, helps plants survive long enough to make it through that layer of dry soil. Place the tub around a freshly planted seedling, and fill the evaporation-proof basin—just once—with four gallons of water

Gadget:

                                           Apple iPad 

After years of companies trying to cram a computer into a tablet—the resulting boxes have been too heavy, the software too sparse, the screen too small—Apple made what everyone wanted: a sleek device with a gorgeous screen and a dead- simple interface that makes you want to sit back and play. The trick? Rather than shrink a computer, enlarge a phone. By using the same multitouch gestures and App Store as the iPhone, Apple created an intimate gadget for updating your Facebook status, watching a movie, or reading a magazine. Making it look simple. 

Engineering:

                              Burj Khalifa

The 2,716.5-foot-tall Burj is not merely “the world’s tallest building”; it’s taller than any other building by more than 1,000 feet. In structure, scale and sheer weight, the pride of Dubai is “a different animal,” says Skidmore Owings & Merrill engineer Bill Baker, who designed the beast with architect Adrian Smith. The engineering has the potential to transform the world’s skylines. 

Health:

Trauma doctors have a saying: Time is blood. The quicker a physician can identify an injury or disease, the better the patient's chances of survival. Ultrasound can show doctors a patient's beating heart or blood flowing through a kidney, and now the Vscan, just a bit larger than a smartphone, puts the tool in every doctor's lab coat. As a doctor glides the sound-wave-generating transducer wand over the patient, circuitry inside it combines overlapping echoes into images of organs or real-time blood flow and displays them on a handheld screen.