Even if you dote on Facebook and Twitter, spending time with them can feel like getting pelted in the face by thousands of undifferentiated updates from your friends exhilarating, perhaps, but also exhausting. The killer iPad app Flipboard ends the chaos by grabbing updates, photos and links from your friends and other interesting people, then reformatting everything in a wonderfully browsable, magazine-like format. You can also add feeds from your favorite blogs and websites and share items with friends via social media and e-mail. With its oversize images and crisp typography, it's a glossy digital publication that feels as if it's been edited by your pals just for you.
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