Like floppy disks and CDs before it, everybody has a mound of flash drives lying around the home. Wouldn't it be great if you could connect all of those low-capacity drives to create one mega large-capacity one? The Uniting U Disk concept is that future.

It's been a big week for NASA, but just because Curiosity is (incredibly) now safe on the surface of Mars doesn't mean that the agency gets to take a break. Instead, it's looking ahead. Far, far ahead, by funding 28 advanced technology concepts ranging from submarines for Europa to robots for the Moon.

In order to send a spacecraft to another star in an amount of time that would strike the average person as reasonable — like a generation — we're going to need new ways of propelling the aforementioned spacecraft that would strike the average person as nuts, like using solar-powered lasers to coax antimatter fuel out of the quantum vacuum of space.

Only by letting go of all established conventions can new innovative designs shine through. This power strip concept throws the boxy rectangular shape out the window in favor of a shape-shifting soft plastic that allows electrical plugs to be attached from any position.