Gorilla Glass has a new competitor called Dragontrail

As smartphones move to ever larger displays they become an important part of the strength component of the overall handset. At the same time users don’t want them to scratch easily or crack if dropped. The best solution at the moment seems to be Gorilla Glass which is used by a range of manufacturers, and has recently even been scaled up to work with tablets and LCD TVs.

But Gorilla Glass isn’t going to be the only option for much longer. Japanses company Asahi has unveiled its own super-strong glass solution called Dragontrail. Although there have been no direct comparisons between the two strong glass products, you can tell from the tests in the video that Dragontrail has some serious strength on offer."

More @ Geek.com:

Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and make an incredible discovery

Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and make an incredible discovery

Superconductors behave like most metals; they conduct electricity. They do so, however, with a twist. All metal has some resistance to the flow of electricity. But when the temperature drops, superconductors get less and less resistant (and therefore more conductive). When they reach very low temperatures, their resistance drops to zero.

Yoshihiko Takano and other researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan were in the process of creating a certain kind of superconductor by putting a compound in hot water and soaking it for hours. They also soaked the compound in a mixture of water and ethanol. It appears the process was going well, because the scientists decided to have a little party. The party included sake, whisky, various wines, shochu, and beer. At a certain point, the researchers decided to try soaking the compound in the many, many liquors they had on hand and seeing how they compared to the more conventional soaking liquids.

When they tested the resulting materials for superconductivity, they found that the ones soaked in commercial booze came out ahead. About 15 percent of the material became a superconductor for the water mixed with ethanol, and less for the pure water. By comparison, Shochu jacked up conductivity by 23 percent and red wine managed to supercharge over 62 percent of the material. The scientists were pleased, if bemused with their results.

(...)

More @ io9

Horizon MiniPak personal fuel cell charger hits shelves for $100

Horizon MiniPak personal fuel cell charger hits shelves for $100

Designed for charging portable electronics on the go, the MiniPak has two refillable cartridges, each with the juice equivalent of around 1,000 AA batteries. The MiniPak -- which uses Hydrogen to produce electricity -- isn't the first portable fuel cell, but it's certainly the cheapest.

More @ Engadget [Video]

Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate | TorrentFreak

As part of an article investigating the growing phenomenon of eBook piracy, a Scandinavian news outlet interviewed a 19 year-old self-confessed pirate who bragged about his activities. To counter his viewpoint a well known author contributed to the piece, stating that she abhors book piracy since it costs her huge amounts of money. However, her moral stance took a bit of a beating when her son let an embarrassing fact slip out.

This weekend Dagens Næringsliv ran an article about book piracy in which they interview 19-year-old Christian Berntsen, a self-confessed book pirate with eyes on the big time. With desires to become “one of the big boys”, Berntsen admitted to running servers in Lithuania which he believes are safe due to their location.

“Books are priced too high,” said Berntsen when justifying his work. “One of the reasons why the pirate world is so big, is that publishers take crazy prices for something that isn’t even in physical form.”

To counter his viewpoint, DN also interviewed Anne B. Ragde, an award-winning author. Unsurprisingly, Ragbe isn’t a huge fan of eBook sharing. In order to thwart piracy, she refused to allow her latest novel to be released as an audiobook since the format is popular with file-sharers and also denied the publication of Russian and Chinese versions.

“Piracy scares the hell out of me. I do not know what to say. I lose sleep at night over it,” said Ragbe. “I have figured out that I’ve lost half a million kronor ($72,500) on piracy of my books, maybe more.”

(...)

In response to a question about her habits when it comes to buying or otherwise acquiring copied or counterfeit items, Ragde’s anti-piracy halo slipped more than a little.

“Pirated handbags? Yes, I do buy them,” she said. “I feel that the genuine Prada bags have such an inflated price.”

Ragbe then reportedly went on to list many other items she’s bought legitimately but was kindly assisted with a further confession by her son, Jo. If her halo had slipped with the bag admission, it was now set to strangle her.

“You have a pirated MP3 collection,” Jo added, helpfully. “We copied the first 1500 songs from one place and 300 from another.”

“Yes,” admitted Ragbe. “There were a lot of things on the iPod.”

More @ TorrentFreak

NASA Finds New Life

NASA Finds New Life

NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn't share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth, using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything.
All life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1—uses the poisonous arsenic for all its building blocks.

more @ Gizmodo

Very cool: 3D Video Capture with Kinect

Amazing Road "Printer"

Liquid antennas turn seawater into signal

Liquid antennas turn seawater into signal



The US Navy has created a device which turns a jet of sea water into an impromptu liquid antenna, creating a powerful, high frequency broadcast tower for ships, emergency situations and easy transportation.

Created by SPAWAR System Center Pacific, the sea water antenna uses the magnetic induction properties of salt to make ordinary ocean water transmit and receive radio signals. As the pillar of water is squirted through the current probe, a magnetic field is created and signal comes through to a hooked-up communication device.

Plus, depending on the height of the stream of water, you can get UHF, VHF and HF broadcasts, all from the same jet of H2O. You can even set up multiple jets of water, at different heights, to broadcast on different bands simultaneously. Handy.

More @ Wired

Canadian scientists transform human skin into blood

Canadian scientists transform human skin into blood

Canadian scientists have transformed pinches of human skin into petri dishes of human blood — a major medical breakthrough that could yield new sources of blood for transfusions after cancer treatments or surgery.

The discovery, by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., could one day potentially allow anyone needing blood after multiple rounds of surgery or chemotherapy, or for blood disorders such as anemia, to have a backup supply of blood created from a tiny patch of their own skin — eliminating the risk of their body’s immune system rejecting blood from a donor.

more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Canadian+scientists+transform+human+skin+into+blood/3791337/story.html#ixzz14eohpDCS

Ultimate Apple iPhone 4 Costume!

TAMPA, FLA., John Savio (Center), Abigail Gardner (Featured as Apple Employee) This year they're back at it again. John Savio and Reko Rivera went their separate ways. John created the upgraded rendition of the iPhone 4 featured here at 10x to scale, complete with a 40" LED LCD Panel, a Jailbroken iPhone 4, VGA out from the iPohone, LED Back Camera Light, weighs roughly 75 lbs and uses a mini 12v Battery with 2+ hours of battery life. The costume took a total of 3 days / 40 hours to complete.