charge

Forgot your charger? No problem. Scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that can generate enough electricity to juice up a cell phone or a mini-music player. If turned into clothing, the fabric would get its power from the action of your daily movement. The material uses zinc-oxide nanowires that are arranged in pairs—one wire in each grouping is coated with gold, and serves as the electrode. When the fabric moves, the wires move and bend, and the fabric translates this mechanical energy into electricity.

A: Tagging is the act of assigning your own keywords to things online-photos, blog entries, bookmarks-so that you can easily categorize, locate, and share them in the future. One of the best examples is del.icio.us, which lets you save Web bookmarks to a page on the site instead of to a file stashed away on your computer. This way, you can access them from anywhere and let other people see what sites you like.