The Popular Science magazine released a list called “Best of what’s new 2006” containing over 100 products and innovations, ranging from home entertainment to transportation and personal health. Below you will find three cool gadgets that appeared on the list.

Sony Reader PRS-500: this e-book reader equipped with e-ink promises to revolutionize the way we interact with text, notations and books. The development team behind the the product made special efforts to make sure that the eye-strain experienced with the e-book would not be greater than the one we face with normal printed material. The Sony Reader PRS-500 received in fact the grand award of the “Gadgets” category on the list.

Backup-Pal: “Ever left your phone in a cab? Dropped it? Took it for a swim? The only thing more annoying than having to replace it is reentering your contacts. Never again!”. This product features 128 megabytes of memory to store up to 1000 contacts, and the best thing is that mobile phones use a pretty standard way to store contacts so that you will be able to restore your contact list even across phones of different manufacturers or carriers.

Hurriquake Nail: this product, developed by an engineer at Bostitch, should increase the robustness of houses against natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes. “The bottom section is circled with angled barbs that resist pulling out in wind gusts up to 170 mph. This “ring shank” stops halfway up to leave the middle of the nail, which endures the most punishment during an earthquake, at its maximum thickness and strength”. The Hurriquake Nail gained the award of “Innovation of the Year” on the list.

Reference: Popular Science official site