Prith Banerjee's job is to gaze into the $150 million crystal ball that is HP Labs and see what the future holds. Since he was lured away from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 2007, HP Labs has announced products such as flexible, paperlike display screens and CloudPrint, which allows printing from a cell phone. There was also a major breakthrough: proof that a fourth element of electronic circuitry, the memristor (or memory transistor), exists. Memristor technology could eliminate computer boot time and make it possible to turn computers on and off like a light switch. -- by Zachary Wilson