The Super MoneyMaker Pump—yes, that's the real name—sucks up water from sources as many as 30 feet below the ground, can spray it up to 40 feet high, and can even push it through 1,000 feet of hose to cover a larger section of land. In all, the pump can irrigate two acres of land, and costs only around $100.

MIT professor Martin Fisher and his team at KickStart, a nonprofit, invented the pump for small-scale farmers. Since it's human-powered and easy to use, it allows them to irrigate crops all year round, instead of just waiting for the rainy season.

[ Read Full Story ]

More than a billion people worldwide live in poverty—not a gadget hound's I-can't-afford-an-iPhone poverty, but devastating, living-on-a-dollar-a-day poverty. These folks have trouble paying for food, staying healthy, getting an education, and doing many of the other daily things you and I take for granted. In future postings of this column, we'll discuss new tech that tackles each of these specific problems. But to kick things off, let’s look at a new program that aims at the most obvious problem of the poor: They need more money.

[ Read Full Story ]

In the United States alone, there's at least $70 million in fake currency floating around. Fortunately as the technology counterfeiters use improves, so does that of the bills. Color-changing ink, special polymers and holographs are just some of the innovative technologies incorporated into today's banknotes. In 2007, the International Association of Currency Affairs picked the best new counterfeiting technologies and tactics.

[ Read Full Story ]

[ Read Full Story ]

To say that CES is a crazy scene is more than an understatement. Every January in Las Vegas, corporate executives, retail buyers, tech press, plain-old hardcore gear heads and, ahem, Vegas professionals can be found by the tens of thousands scouring four massive convention halls for the greatest new toys, dodging booth babes and insane infomercial-style hawkers (who may or may not be on unicycles) at every turn.

[ Read Full Story ]

Forgot your wallet? You’ll need a better excuse than that for passing on the check. By next year, you’ll be able to pay simply by swiping your cellphone a few inches from a cash register, with a new wireless standard called Near Field Communication. An NFC chip in your phone will send your credit-card number—stored on your phone or on the chip—by way of short-distance radio waves. An electronic reader at the checkout will decode the number and ring up your purchase.

[ Read Full Story ]

Thanks to advances in consumer tech, daily activities like stirring your coffee and ironing your clothes just might become obsolete. Think what you could do with all the extra time and energy you’ll save by not mowing your lawn or mopping your floors. You could write the great American novel, or start working on a cure for cancer. Or catch a few M.A.S.H. reruns…

Launch the photo gallery here.

[ Read Full Story ]

Launch the slideshow to see how titanium oxide reacts with light to zap dirt at the molecular level

Not so long ago, chemical engineers discovered how to use titanium dioxide to keep buildings free of discoloring pollution.

[ Read Full Story ]

First there were big screens. Then big flat screens. Now there are big flat screens packed with tricks, like the ability to record TV or access your home network. It’s all part of the push to minimize the number of decor-busting black boxes while maximizing entertainment choices—movies, slideshows, your music collection. Here are five reasons to chuck your TV in favor of a multitalented model.

1. The Laptop Impersonator
This 2.7-inch-thin flat screen takes its cue from the computer world, with two PC-card slots to handle its latest features.

[ Read Full Story ]

In the evolution of ride-over-anything mountain bikes, the ever-vulnerable rear derailleur—that gangly parallelogram that shifts the chain up and down the rear cogs when it’s not clogged with mud or bent by rocks—has been a glaring technical handicap. So GT (gtbicycles.com) got rid of it. With its $5,000 IT-1, GT moves gear-changing duties to an unsullied haven inside the bike frame, by way of an eight-speed internal transmission.

[ Read Full Story ]