lithium ion battery

Boaters like spray and sun in their face, not exhaust. The first hybrid sport boat, courtesy of a co-designer of the Aptera electric car, delivers cleaner thrills.

A lucky and wealthy few drivers will soon be speeding around town in Tesla Roadsters, but fast electric vehicles are also tearing up amateur racetracks across the country. This past weekend, a rider pushed a lithium-ion-battery-powered motorcycle to 156 mph at the Portland International Raceway in Oregon.

The bike, known as the KillaCycle, cranks out 350 horsepower, and squeezes all that juice out of 990 laptop-like batteries made by the power pros at A123 Systems. The KillaCycle gets from 0 to 60 in just under a second. In other words, it's already catching up to the quickest drag motorcycles, which do it in about 0.7 seconds.

Yet this could just be the start. One battery expert even thinks that electrics could challenge the toughest drag-racing records within five years.—Gregory Mone

Via AP

A poor economy and a stagnant industry conspired to make last November´s Comdex, the largest U.S.-based computer trade show, a shadow of its former self. But even in this repressive environment, and with Las Vegas as the backdrop, sparks of innovation flew. They just weren´t sparks of computer innovation, at least not in the traditional sense. Here are our picks for best in show.

COOLEST GADGET:
The $299 Fossil Wrist PDA (left, top), a full Palm OS PDA watch.