IBM has broken its own record of computer processing speed by pushing its newest supercomputer past the petaflop barrier. The Roadrunner, a massive machine occupying 6,000 square feet of space, this week achieved a peak of 1.026 petaflops, or just over one million billion calculations per second. Just ten years ago, the fastest supercomputer in the world would have taken 20 years to finish a problem the Roadrunner is capable of finishing in a week.

Pumping beer too quickly leads to excess foam, so bar patron turned inventor Matt Younkle designed the TurboTap to reduce the turbulence of fast-flowing beer. The tap's tapered interior limits the beer's acceleration, and an internal diverter sprays it across the bottom of the glass. The result-now available at ballparks and bars-is a perfect pour in half
the time. $100

With nine processors and 234 million transistors, the Cell is the powerhouse of Sony's forthcoming PlayStation 3 console. The four-plus-gigahertz (depending on its application) chip calculates an unmatched 256 billion operations per second, making it 35 times as fast as the PS2's chip. The upshot: Characters react more realistically (like flinching when bullets whiz by). Next year Toshiba will offer an HDTV set that uses the chip to decode high-def signals.

It looks like Bubble Wrap, but BlastWrap isn't for cushioning eBay shipments. A BlastWrap-lined garbage can will dissipate a backpack-size-bomb blast in less than one thousandth of a second. The wrap's 2.75-inch compartments are stuffed with heat-treated perlite (the foamy pellets found in potting soil), a volcanic glass. The beads have a strong internal structure of sealed, air-filled cells. When a blast occurs, the cells are crushed one by one, minimizing damage to the surrounding area, while fire extinguishants snuff the fireball.

You may think you've seen these before, but you haven't. Although traditional clear soap bubbles give you a rainbow effect in the right light, Zubbles are the first truly colored bubbles-nearly opaque, with a single vibrant hue. The problem, which took Minnesota toy inventor Tim Kehoe more than 10 years to solve, was to create a dye that could not only tint the thin wall of a soap bubble but that wouldn't leave a stain when the bubble broke. His solution: invent an entirely new dye that simply disappears.

A Fuel-Cell Motorcycle With Portable Power
Riding the ENV is more akin to skiing or sailing than cruising on a 176-pound motorcycle. It's emission-free and as quiet as your computer. At the heart of this hydrogen-powered machine is a fuel cell, dubbed the Core. It breaks down hydrogen into electrons, which power the electric motor, and protons, which interact with oxygen taken in through the ENV's nosecone and are released as Earthfriendly water vapor and heat. The Core is detachable, so it can power a small house or boat. Available in late 2006. $6,000

In the never-ending quest for smaller electronics, IBM has produced a computer circuit so small that 200 billion could fit comfortably on your thumbnail. The world's most petite molecular circuit touts digital-logic elements about 260,000 times tinier than those used in today's most advanced silicon circuitry -- and uses 100,000 times less energy. "This is a milestone in the quest for nanometer-scale computer circuitry," claims physicist Andreas Heinrich of IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.