Let’s face it, Apple’s computers are gorgeous. Not many manufacturer’s can match them on design, but this new MSI All-in-One looks like it came from the chopping block of Jony Ive’s design desk. More
Minor scratches to things like flooring, gadgets, and cars may soon be a thing of the past, if… wait, no, that lede is a little too PopSci. Let’s try again.
Researchers have come up with a new material that acts like a normal polymer coating under most circumstances, but when exposed to UV light, spontaneously heals nicks and scratches. Here comes the science!
Basically, the material (made of “metallo-supramolecular polymers”) isn’t actually polymeric, but acts like it; instead of long strands of molecules, there are lots of shorter ones, and in most cases they act the same. But the researchers made these sub-polymers sensitive to UV light, essentially “melting” when exposed to it.
When the material melts, it naturally fills in any areas that have been roughed up or scratched, as you can see in the video above. Looks pretty real to me.
Unfortunately, not every coating is right for every situation. This particular one may be too easily disrupted (by heat or friction) to use on, say, your iPhone, and may be too unstable in sunlight to use on cars. But it’s too cool not to use somewhere, so that’s the next problem these guys will have to solve.
The research was a collaboration between Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the University of Fribourg in Germany, and the Army Research Laboratory.
[via Eurekalert]
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Self-Healing UV-Sensitive Material May Soon Coat Your Devices
The U.S. Postal Service gave an unfair advantage to competitors like Netflix and Blockbuster Video, a regulatory board said Wednesday, awarding game rental service GameFly a victory in a two-year dispute over the postage, breakage and sorting of its disc mailings. More
If you’re contemplating your next car add-on, consider replacing your boring, old spark plugs with lasers. Yeah, lasers. Lasers that cut down on noxious emissions and provide better fuel efficiency! If Japan’s National Institutes of Natural Sciences has its way, a replacement of that sort may not be so far off (or strange). More
While it’s easy enough to envision soldiers scaling battlegrounds with portable hotspots in tow, it’s a useless solution for warriors deployed to remote areas that have patchy service to begin with. Enter the KnightHawk 3G, a rugged network-in-a-box that cooks up connectivity in otherwise uncovered areas. The self-contained WCDMA network runs over the 2100MHz spectrum, promising download speeds as fast as 14.4mbps and max upload rates of 5.76mbps. It has capacity for up to 60 simultaneous voice calls and can handle 14 HSPA connections at a time. And it’ll help keep our troops in top shape — you can’t tell from the photos, but that thing weighs 45 pounds.
Gallery: KnightHawk 3G
KnightHawk 3G network-in-a-box breaks soldiers’ backs, helps them get online anywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Just last week we reported on Fujitsu’s plans to get in on the gigabit broadband game, and now Virgin Media is taking things a step further by announcing its intention to test internet speeds up to 1.5Gbps in east London. The trial, which plans to deliver upload speeds of 150Mbps, uses a similar fiber optic setup as the one employed by Fujitsu, and targets multimedia companies near the junction of the city's Old Street and City Road, also referred to as the Silicon Roundabout. These tests have been made possible by a £13 billion investment from Virgin Media. If this thing pans out, it looks like Google might have some catching up to do. Full PR after the break.
Continue reading Virgin Media to test 1.5Gbps broadband on London’s Silicon Roundabout
Virgin Media to test 1.5Gbps broadband on London’s Silicon Roundabout originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
If you’ve ever wonder what the back of the web’s most famous websites look like, Jeff Lam and Josephine Yatar have got you covered. I’ve got only this to say: !emosewA
Link – via Metafilter
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Back of a Web Page
This year at CES we got our first glimpse of the Toyota Entune infotainment system, and then a week later at the North American International Auto Show we got our first close-up look at the bigger, hatchbackier Prius V. Now, here at the New York International Auto Show, the two pieces have come together into one five-door package. The car and the infotainment suite are slated to hit dealerships this summer and we sat down in one to try out the other. See if you can figure out which is which before clicking on through to check out our impressions.
Gallery: Toyota Entune and Prius V hands-on
Continue reading Toyota Entune and Prius V hands-on
Toyota Entune and Prius V hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
There is a cave on the side of the side Gellert Hill near Budapest, Hungary, in which it is said that a monk, possibly St. Istvan, lived his life. It later became a place of worship run by the Pauline monks. In 1951, the communist government arrested the monks and sealed the cave with a wall of concrete. The wall was torn down in 1989, and once more the cave is used as a church. Read more about it at Atlas Obscura. Link
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The Cave Church in Budapest
From now on, any video you upload to YouTube will be transcoded into Google’s WebM codec, joining the “videos that make up 99% of views on the site or nearly 30% of all videos.” Google explains it to the non-tech savvy folk like so: More