Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a laptop desk/pad that keeps both your computer and your legs cool. But it’s also got a built-in speaker system that gives your laptop a lot more sound and fury.

The Story: You’re already using your laptop to listen to music, play games, and watch movies, TV and videos. You’re already using it on the couch and on the bed. But you’re looking for a way to be comfortable, and you know what a difference high-quality audio can make when you’re enjoying good entertainment. For a theater-like …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a concept vehicle that runs on power conveyed by magnets from underground lines. And this one charges the electric motor on the fly, of course without relying on a drop of gas.

The Story: Magnets. It runs using magnets. Magnets buried under the ground that have a blue line painted on the pavement above, so that when the tram follows that line, the magnets recharge the electric motor located inside the vehicle. A vehicle which just so happens to be a trolley train of three or four …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s technology that enables you to speak silently on your mobile phone and having the other person on the other end of your call understand what you’re saying.

The Story: How many times have you wanted to jump on your cell phone to make a call, but thought it might not be advisable in a particular venue — like a movie theater, or a public bathroom stall? Well, some researchers at the Institute for Anthropomatics at The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a technology that …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a new system that works via computer that is designed to remove the guesswork from watering and growing houseplants.

The Story: How many houseplants have you killed? Most of us have either drowned our houseplants in water, or starved them from their necessary sustenance for so long, not even a breakthrough defibrillator could bring back your long-dead plants. Thankfully, an answer has grown from the fields of breakthrough technology. It’s called the Click & Grow system, and it takes the maintenance out of maintaining houseplants. Specifically, the …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a “metal foam” that has a similar elasticity to bone, yet would avoid the body’s rejection of it due to its component materials.

The Story: In a new paper, researchers have reported recent findings that, in addition to the extraordinary high-energy absorption capability and light weight of their novel composite foams, the “modulus of elasticity” of the foam is very similar to that of bone. Modulus of elasticity measures a material’s ability to deform when pressure is applied and then return to its original shape when …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s comprehensive and understandable information on cancer for patients, all available for download on an iPhone at the Apple App Store.

The Story: Getting diagnosed with cancer is like getting sucker-punched, according to doctors who have to deliver the news. But arming one’s self with information is an effective way to fight back. Which is exactly why the Institute for Medical Informatics (IMI) at Oslo University Hospital in Norway has just released iOncolex, a new iPhone application aimed at helping cancer patients. By providing up-to-date information on diagnosis, …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s the world’s first and only non-surgical and removable hearing solution that imperceptibly transmits sound via the teeth to help people who are essentially deaf in one ear to rejoin the conversation of life.

The Story: A nearly invisible digital audio device called SoundBite™ relies on a well-established principle called bone conduction to deliver clear, high quality sound, and is intended to restore normal hearing functions to people with either single sided deafness, conductive, or mixed hearing loss. The SoundBite system consists of an easy to insert …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a free mobile and web resource that helps aid disaster relief.

The Story: Unbound Medicine, a leader in knowledge management solutions for healthcare, announces the release of Relief Central™, a free web and mobile resource that delivers reference information and news to relief workers, first responders, and others in disaster relief situations.
Relief Central has been designed by staff and friends of Unbound Medicine to provide timely answers to those who serve in disaster relief situations around the world. Users can search The World Factbook from the CIA …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s the National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus health information data base, now, for the first time, completely available to the public via mobile phone — for free.

The Story: Wondering what the side effects are for your new prescription? How about instantly looking up the symptoms of H1N1 flu if you’re at the supermarket and your child’s school calls you to tell you he doesn’t feel well. The answers aren’t just at the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) MedLine Plus, they’re now completely accessible via mobile phone.
The NLM’s …

Why it’s Breakthrough: It’s a safe, clinically proven and FDA approved way – through a prescription – to lessen the severity of these otherwise debilitating maladies.

The Story: Up until now, the most popular way to treat Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Insomnia was medicinally. And though there are medications that are highly effective in treating the above maladies, all those medications run the risk of inducing side-effects. Enter the Fisher Wallace Cranial Stimulator. It’s a drug-free treatment that clearly works.
The device works using low-frequency radio waves that stimulate the production …