Top 10 most awaited technology

In the aftermath of CES 2010, our appetites are whetted for some serious gadgetry. While a lot of great electronics were debuted there and will be out this year, there’s a wide world of prototypes and other products that simply won’t be. Seeing the bounty of the present only makes us even more excited when we think about the future. Read on for our roundup of the top 10 items we wish were coming out in 2010.

1. Light Blue Optics Light Touch

The Light Touch is an amazing prototype that essentially frees your computer from your monitor completely, transforming any flat surface into an interactive touchscreen. It accomplishes this feat by means of Holographic Laser Projector (HLP) technology, which projects your display onto pretty much anything. The touchscreen has a very reliable reputation and with 10.1” and WVGA resolution it has enough real estate for you to work on your virtual keyboard and still see what’s above it. Honorable mention also goes to the B-membrane (http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/06/23/laptopdesktop-hybrid/), a concept design by Won-Seok Lee, which isn’t even a prototype (and maybe never will be) but definitely earns style points within the same genre. See more here

2. Samsung’s 14” transparent OLED notebook

At CES Samsung displayed a 14” notebook featuring an OLED display that was 40% transparent. It just looks cool, and I want one – don’t you? This is the largest transparent display and with the industry average currently at 25% transparency, this is the biggest and best model there is right now. Beyond the cool factor (if you need to go beyond it) how useful it is for laptops is debatable, but we’re sure you’ll think of something as soon as you have one. Certainly, the applications across the board for this tech is exciting. Honorable mention goes to another concept we saw a while back for a VAIO which was purely holographic (http://www.yankodesign.com/2007/09/18/futuristic-vaio-zoom/), and simply transparent glass when off – we love concepts that both make us think and get us excited at the possibilities. See more here

3. Alioscopy Glasses-Free 3D TV

This one also piqued our interest from CES, and if this were coming out in 2010 our excitement for 3D TV would be exponentially higher than it currently stands. Alioscopy has was seems like a pretty usable prototype for 3D TV that doesn’t require the use of sometimes bulky, always ugly 3D glasses. Imagine if viewing 3D at home (or even in theaters) didn’t feel like a goofy trip back to the 1980s (http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/8/19/1250693481388/3d-glasses-001.jpg), and instead were exactly as simple as turning on your TV and switching to the 3D version of your favorite channel? For the sake of anyone who likes watching 3D TV, this tech can’t come out soon enough. See more here

4. Inventables Foldable DVD player

This DVD player concept from Inventables with an origami style foldable screen seems to have made its rounds way back in 2006 with no update. But we wish this had existed. In fact, if you upgrade this puppy to a Blu-ray player, this becomes an extremely relevant machine. Imagine having a full HD 10” display that is actually pocketable? Say goodbye to watching video on the go on your smartphones. The exciting thing is that even though this concept appears to be dropped, advancements in flexible display technology means something like this could genuinely appear any day… more on that below. See more here

5. 2011 Chevy Volt

Ok, so we’re cheating a little bit with this one, since despite the 2011 tag the Volt will begin production in November 2010. But suffice it to say we can’t wait for this to hit the mainstream. The Volt will be the first fully plug-in mainstream car, capable of traveling 40 miles entirely on emission-free electricity. If you want to go beyond that, it uses gasoline to create electric charge, bringing the total distance on a full tank up to hundreds of miles. Cost is expected to be in the general consumer range for cars, plus there is a $7500 tax credit available for electric vehicle purchases, meaning this could be something that really has a mass impact on the car industry and changes the way we think about driving. Plus it looks pretty sweet – Chevy didn’t forget the style points. See more here

6. LG’s 19” E-Ink Newspaper

E-Readers came out hot and heavy at CES this year, but for the moment they all use inflexible glass to display their e-ink goodness to your eyes. LG recently showed off a .3mm thin, 130 grams light, 19” prototype of flexible e-paper designed to emulate the A3 size of a standard newspaper. The possibilities with flexible e-paper are endless, and we love this application of it. If there was a market-ready product like this out today, newspapers, magazines, and consumers would be lining up, and we’d be right there with them. See more here

7. The Brain-Twitter Interface

The field of brain scanning has come a long way, and we may have crossed a new line with the invention of this mind reading Twitter prototype. To use it, the Twitterer straps a relatively painless looking apparatus onto their head and, staring at a grid of letters, thinks of the one they want. Based on a series of flashes and your measured reactions, the device figures out the letter you want and inputs it into your Twitter account. Current speeds top out at 8 characters a minute but imagine if the detection algorithm could be sped up! Instant applications for the paralyzed abound but just as exciting is the potential that lies in this tech which could eventually make it universally used. It might not be that far off, and the sooner tech like this moves past the prototype stage the sooner it will come. See more here

8. MSI dual screen e-reader/netbook

MSI debuted this device at CES, and it’s pretty marvelous. Featuring twin linked 10” LCD touchscreen displays and running Windows/Intel inside, it has a number of uses. With a virtual keyboard it can be a netbook, without it perhaps a two paged e-Reader, or else 1 page of text and pretty much anything else you want on the other side. You can even use the whole thing as a single display if you want to (albeit with a hinge in the middle). MSI claims they might have this out by Q4 of this year, but given how much we’ve heard (http://www.laptopical.com/samsung-reaffirms-oled-commitment--promises-laptop-by-q3-2010-35575.html) of other (http://www.laptopical.com/sony-showcases-new-oled-concept-32839.html) concepts that have never quite come to light, we won’t let this seemingly working prototype get our hopes up too high for a 2010 release. See more here

9. Sony 24.5” 3D OLED TV

Ever since Sony came out with a working 11” OLED TV 2 years ago, people have been clamoring for a successor. A larger OLED TV model would be a perfect match with the boom of 3D movies this year to get the most out of the home experience. OLED presents a thinness and picture clarity unmatched by any sort of LCD/LED mashup, and Sony’s 24.5” 3D capable OLED TV prototype was a sight to behold at CES 2010. Unfortunately OLED just isn’t ready yet – even their 11” model costs $2,500, so who could afford one that’s twice as large and 3D capable? Pricing issues aside, we still can’t wait for the day when OLED TVs finally hit the mainstream. See more here

10. E-Rope

Our last choice for a prototype we’d love to see is less a fantastical one and more of a functional one. The E-Rope concept was designed by Chul Min Kang and Sung Hun Lim a few years ago, and it presents an elegant, attractive, and efficient way to handle your power strip needs. It is modular, so you add plugs as you go, making it never larger than it needs to be and since it can rotate, you can even snake around corners. Turning the socket section 90 degrees will cut off the current too, eliminating the power drain caused by leaving items plugged in that we’re all guilty of. This just makes sense – it’s what power strips should be, and we can’t help but hope it’ll happen someday. See more here