Lisa Katayama

Using motion sensors, brain signals and a heap of creativity, several new technologies promise to do away with cramped typing fingers, videogame-fried eyes and hoarse phone voices. This past summer in Tokyo, for instance, a paralyzed man with electrodes attached to his head took his Second Life avatar on a virtual walk just by envisioning his character strolling.

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In 2002, an Australian company called Shark Shield released a brick-size transponder meant to keep away the worst fear of every diver and surfer: sharks. The thinking behind Shark Shield’s eponymous gadget is simple enough. Sharks have electroreceptors in their snouts, called ampullae of Lorenzini, that detect electric fields for navigation and predation. By emitting an irritating electric field, the idea goes, the Shark Shield would trigger a nasty sensation in the ampullae, forcing even the hungriest hammerhead to turn on its fin.

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Most of us fly for speed, but French industrial designer Jean-Marie Massaud believes that slow cruising in an airship could be the next step in air travel. Massaud has sketched airships since the age of five, he says, and has since collaborated with major brands like Yves Saint Laurent and Yamaha to design, respectively, perfume bottles and submarines. Now he’s partnering with Onera, France’s space agency, to create the world’s first luxury airship. The design of the Manned Cloud calls for a double-decker, 5.6-million-square-foot airship shaped like a whale. Boasting a top speed of 105 mph and outfitted with all the amenities of a cruise ship, it would ferry 55 passengers from Paris to Madagascar in four days, offering a turbulence-free, unpressurized flight at an altitude of a mere 9,800 feet.

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