The "Life Index Watch" is a concept developed for a Timex competition that keeps track of your remaining days based on personal biometrics. And just to make sure you don't miss one nerve-wracking second, it's meant to be "worn like a patch on the skin," according to ProductDose.

Here comes the new technology. The cap is designed to analyze the brain's electroencephalogram (EEG) waves, determining whether you're too fatigued to drive safely. It is just one use for a device developed by researchers at various Taiwan universities and the University of California at San Diego, who hope to expand the technology for applications in myrid other facets of everyday life.

Called LaserTouch, the prototype is the latest invention of computer vision specialist Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus. Wilson has worked on Microsoft's Surface computing, among other projects. But more recently he's developed a sensing technology system that would allow people to retrofit any display--e.g., a desktop or projector--so that they could use their hands, instead of a mouse, to interact with the computer.