By 2013, WiGig devices could be in TVs, computers, phones, tablets and other electronics, and eventually "a few uses we can't even imagine today," says Sadri.

Self-powered electronics: Power without the plug

Zhong Lin Wang dreams of electronic devices that can power themselves. If the materials science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Nanoscience Research Group has his way, replacing or recharging batteries could soon seem "so 2010."

Wang's team at Georgia Tech has designed tiny generators that can produce enough energy to power very small devices. These high-output nanogenerators, HONGs for short, can produce between 2 and 10 volts from a flexible chip smaller than a fingernail.

The design starts with a microscopic array of zinc oxide (ZnO) fibers, or nanowires, each thinner than a human hair. These fiber arrays are embedded into multiple layers of metal electrodes and plastic polymers to create a flexible nanowire "sandwich."