Best innovation moments of 2011

The best moments in innovation for the year 2011.

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Space shuttle Atlantis blasts off from launch pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center on July 8, 2011. This lift off was the last in the 30-year-old shuttle program.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller speaks about the new iPhone 4s at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. on Oct. 4, 2011. The announcement was the first major product announcement following former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs's death in October.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Chairman and chief executive of Motorola Mobility Sanjay Jha speaks at a press event during the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show on Jan. 5, 2011 in Las Vegas. Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion cash. The acquisition allowed Google to expand its patent portfolio and, according to Google co-founder and chief executive Larry Page, "enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

IBM researchers on Aug. 18, 2011 unveiled a new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition. The cognitive computing chips, informally referred to as the “brain chip,” could yield many orders of magnitude less power consumption and space than used in today’s computers.

/ AFP/Getty Images

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote address during the Facebook f8 conference on Sept. 22, 2011, in San Francisco. Zuckerberg kicked off the conference introducing the Timeline feature, which Zuckerberg called "a new way for users to express who they are."

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

In June, Google launched Google+, providing a limited number of invitations to early adopters. The network received mixed reviews but has since grown, with Gmail and other Google product subscribers automatically receiving Google+ accounts. The social network includes unique features such as “hangouts” and “circles.”

/ Reuters

Color co-founder Bill Nguyen holds up his Apple iPhone with photos of himself using the Color application as he poses with staff members at the company's offices in Palo Alto, Calif., on March 10, 2011. Lauded as the next generation of social media applications, Color received $41 million in venture capital funding and was considered one of the most highly anticipated launches of the year. But the product received poor reviews, and the company’s co-founder, Peter Pham, left only months after the company launched publicly.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Andrew Mason, third from right, founder and chief executive of Groupon, attends his company's IPO at Nasdaq on Nov. 4, 2011, in New York. Groupon, the company that pioneered online group discounts, has begun trading as a public company. The stock jumped nearly 50 percent in the opening minutes Friday.

Mark Lennihan / AP

Lytro's light field technology camera was one of the year’s most-anticipated technology gadgets. The camera takes "living pictures,” or pictures that allow you to dynamically change the field of focus in a photograph.

Lytro

Andrew Lewis, 22, is a member of Telecomix, a Western hacker group that has been helping pro-democracy activists during this year's Arab Spring. Protesters have used Facebook to post reports of rallies and Skype to avoid tapped cellphone lines. The use of social media to counteract government crackdowns in the Middle East and Northern Africa has ushered in a new era of governing in countries such as Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Carol Guzy / The Washington Post

A physicist explains the Atlas experiment on a board at the European Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland, on May 20, 2011. The painting shows how a Higgs boson may look in Atlas. Excitement built on Dec. 12 at CERN when scientists revealed that the Higgs, the most sought-after discovery in particle physics, had been glimpsed, according to reporting by the BBC.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Much like the Arab Spring, the protests that arose out of Zucotti Park in New York City produced a wave of populist anger. But, as Post blogger Dominic Basulto wrote, the movement against income inequality maintained a forceful presence online as well, spreading to cities across the country and around the world.

Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images

Team Elastec, pictured here, won the X Prize for oil-spill clean-up in October. The X Prize awards innovators cash prizes for inventions to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. Elastec received the $1 million, first-place prize.

X PRIZE Foundation

"Jeopardy!" champions Ken Jennings, left, and Brad Rutter, right, flank a prop representing Watson during a practice round of the "Jeopardy!" quiz show. Watson is being tapped by one of the nation's largest health insurers, WellPoint Inc., to help diagnose medical problems and authorize treatments.

Seth Wenig / AP

Featured Photo Galleries

Paula and Clay Gustin become emotional as dozens of balloons float above during a memorial Wednesday, May 23, 2012, for their five-year-old son, Rhett, who died in an accident on May 20. (AP Photo/The Coeur D?Alene Press, Shawn Gust) MANDATORY CREDIT

Fleet Week, solar impulse plane, artificial heart, Air Force academy graduation and more in the day in photos

Fleet Week, solar impulse plane, artificial heart, Air Force academy graduation and more.

Red Panda Bears sleep in the Panda Bear enclosure at the Beijing Zoo on May 22, 2012. The zoo grounds were originally a Ming Dynasty imperial palace and finally opened to the public in 1908. The zoo's history states that during the WWII, most of the zoo's animals died of starvation with only 13 monkeys and one old emu surviving the war. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTONMARK RALSTON/AFP/GettyImages

Barn owls, pit bulls, red pandas, cheetah cubs and more in animal views

Barn owls, pit bulls, red pandas, cheetah cubs and more.

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 24: Actress Macy Gray attend the 'The Paperboy' photocall during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 24, 2012 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Macy Gray, Zac Efron, Philip Phillips, Fantasia Barrino, Neil Diamond and other celebrities.

‘Dancing with the Stars’

Season 14 of “Dancing With the Stars.”

May 21, 2012: Members of the Naval Academy freshman class (plebes) lock arms and form a human ladder while climbing the Herndon Monument at the United States Naval Academy on May 21, 2012 in Annapolis, Md. Each year members of the Naval Academy's freshman class (plebes) climb the lard covered 21-foot tall Herndon Monument to replace a plebe dixie cup hat with a midshipman's hat at the top of the obelisk.

Teamwork, discipline help plebes get to the top

At the U.S. Naval Academy, the freshman class attempts to climb the Herndon Monument.

The National Zoo has two new additions: the female cheetah cub, left, and her brother on the right.

The National Zoo’s new cheetah cubs

A dramatic rescue saved these two cheetah babies and their distressed mother giving birth.

JOPLIN, MO - MAY 19: Grace Goebel plays outside of the new Habitat for Humanity home of her parents that was built on the spot of a home that had been destroyed after a tornado hit the neighborhood almost one year ago on May 19, 2012 in Joplin, Missouri. Tuesday will mark the one-year anniversary of the EF-5 tornado that devastated the town. The tornado left behind a path of destruction along with 161 deaths and hundreds of injuries, but one year later there are signs that the town is beginning to recover. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Joplin, Missouri, one year after tornadoes devastate town

Reminders of destruction are everywhere in Joplin, Mo., a year after a killer tornado.

COLLEGE PARK, MD - APRIL 4: Pet acupuncturist Greta McVey puts needles in mixed breed 'Cashew' at her home office in College Park, MD on April 4, 2012. Cashew was rescued by his owner this past December and suffers from anxiety and fear of abandonment. McVey first licensed as an acupuncturist on humans then went on to be certified on animals. She hosts a variety of clientele, anything from birds, to guinea pigs but mainly treats dogs and cats. (Photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

Washington’s ‘pet-u-puncture whisperer’

College Park’s Greta McVey is part of the growing industry focused on veterinary acupuncture.

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