The Popular Mechanics 2012 Breakthrough Awards winners (pictures)
The magazine's editors award its highest honors to 109 products and a group of innovators whose work is changing the world.
Breakthrough Awards
Leading the way this year is Elon Musk, founder of both SpaceX and Tesla Motors, and clearly one of the people bringing the future to us -- right now.
The award-winning products range from a revolutionary hands-free motion control system to a do-it-yourself 3D modeling software suite to shingles that double as solar panels.
In the following slides, take a look at six of the award winning products.
Leap Motion
Expected to cost $70 and be released sometime early next year, the Leap should significantly advance the state of the art.
See the whole list of Breakthrough Award winners here.
Lytro camera
What that means is that Lytro cameras can shoot a 3D image of whatever is in front of it, allowing photographers -- and anyone who comes across a Web-based Lytro photo -- to choose what in the photograph to focus on.
See the whole list of Breakthrough Award winners here.
Autodesk 123D
Autodesk is clearly expecting that the tools, used by themselves or as a comprehensive suite, will be very attractive to anyone wanting to prototype new products, art projects, or furniture. O anyone simply hoping to create their own models of real-world objects.
Users can take their 3D model designs and upload them to Autodesk's servers. The company will then produce a physical 3D printed model made from it.
See the whole list of Breakthrough Award winners here.
Cube
Most of the attention in this area has gone to MakerBot's Replicator, but Cubify, a division of 3D Systems recently came out with its $1,300 Cube personal 3D printer, a system designed to bring the excitement of the hot technology home.
Users can design their own 3D models, or can choose from an library of existing designs. And, if a design is too big to print on the Cube, Cubify will print it for you. For a fee, of course.
See the whole list of Breakthrough Award winners here.
Dow PowerHouse Solar Shingles
The system comes with an AC/DC converter and a home energy monitor designed to track how much power the shingles are producing, as well as how much is being used.
See the whole list of Breakthrough Award winners here.