Atama presents a simple means for customers to ensure their Macs are safe from prying eyes and hands-- the Sesame 2, a key fob that, once paired with the Mac, automatically locks the PC when the user walks away from it.

The Sesame 2 is a wireless sensor small and light (10g) enough to attach to a keychain or keep in a pocket. It pairs with OS X machines via Bluetooth 4.0 and companion Sesame app, and handles a number of security features, such as the aforementioned automatic locking and optional 2-factor authentication demanding the use of both Sesame 2 and a password.

If there's one worry afflicting most, if not all, long distance travelers, it's the charging of all of one's mobile devices. AMPL Lab claims to banish such travel woes with the battery-laden AMPL SmartBackpack.

The concept behind the SmartBackpack is simple enough. As the name suggests it is a backpack carrying what AMPL describes as "the world's most advanced portable charging system"-- namely a modular 15000mAh "SmartBattery" (accommodates up to 3 additional "SmartBoost" modules for up to 147Wh of power) and 6 USB ports for the charging of multiple smartphones, tablets and even a laptop.

AMPL also promises fast battery charging via Qnovo technology, as well as easy battery management via companion mobile device app. Meanwhile the actual backpack features 7 storage compartments and is shock-proof and water-resistant.

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers suggest the keyboard can provide a means of security beyond the simple password, by creating a biometric means of identification based on how the user presses the keys.

To do so, the keyboard records the force users apply to the keys, as well as the time taken between one keystroke and the next. Meanwhile the multi-layer plastic materials making the device allow it to harvest electricity from the users' fingertips (via effect called "contact electrification"), allowing it to either charge a small mobile device or power a wireless transmitter.

As researcher Zhong Lin Wang puts it, “our skin is dielectric and we have electrostatic charges in our fingers. Anything we touch can become charged.”

According to University of Michigan researchers kevlar might be key for thinner and safer batteries, acting as an advanced barrier between the electrodes in a lithium-ion battery.

The solution is inspired by the battery fires that grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners back in 2013. Lithium-ion batteries produce power by shuttling lithium ions from one electrode to the other, with a membrane blocking the shortest path between the two electrodes. However the lithium atoms might start creating fern-like structures (or dendrites) poking through the microscopic pores in the membrane, thus shorting out the battery.

Enter the kevlar membrane. While current battery membranes feature pores a "few hundred nanometers" wide, the kevlar membrane features pores 15-20 nanometers across-- wide enough for individual lithium ions to pass through, but small enough to block the dendrites.