Avatar raised the bar for 3-D movies, but the eyewear lagged behind: 3-D glasses reduce the brightness of the image as much as 50%, and if you're nearsighted, you have to put them on over your regular glasses, doubling the nerd quotient. To the rescue come new products from Oakley Inc., which has partnered with DreamWorks Animation to create specs with optically correct lenses (more clarity, less ghosting), and Samsung, which is releasing prescription glasses for its 3-D TVs. In both cases, seeing will be believing.
Flying cars! Jet packs! Lasers that zap malaria-carrying mosquitoes! Here are the year's biggest (and coolest) breakthroughs in science, technology and the arts