The Industrial Designers Society of America recognizes well designed products with the Industrial Design Excellence Award. Business Week presents the winners. Cool stuff here, if you’re into design.

Scared of our nanotech future? Well, a little sensible precaution is laudable, but just flapping in a panic won’t do any good. So relax; after all, there are some sharp minds on the case, making sure we do the right thing in the future, as this (re-run) interview with the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology demonstrates.

Energy costs are on th4e rise, and it’s a trend that’s set to continue, at least until we crack cold fusion or really get on the solar power bandwagon. In the mean time, we can all do our bit to cut those bills down; you can insulate, you can buy efficient appliances, and you can install your own domestic wind turbine – if you can get planning permission, of course.

Even hippy peaceniks like me can’t resist the lure of big explosions on camera. So I’ll be spending a few hours trawling through the US Energy Department’s Nuclear Weapons Film Declassification Project, which houses lots of old movies of the most powerful force known and harnessed by mankind. Now, where are my sunglasses?

There have been some real advances in quantum computing, but the effects aren’t scalable to a useful degree. At least not yet – a team of physicists have constructed a new form of ‘ion trap’ using conventional microfabrication techniques. It traps all the ions in a single layer, making the geometry of the hardware much more like the silicon we’re used to, and hence easier to potentially engineer useful machines from.