| New water-resistant coating protects your phone, the planet (video) Apr 19th 2012, 06:03  Water, the life-long foe of all things electrical. Protecting our digital finery from its evil infiltration is a task many have undertaken, and the latest battalion to join the foray is Daikin Industries. The chemical company is developing a water-resistant coating that could save many devices from a watery grave. We've seen similar ideas before, but Daikin's promises to have good eco-credentials thanks to its low toxicity. Formed by dissolving a fluoropolymer in fluorinated solvent, the coating takes just a minute to dry and is extremely thin -- between 0.1 and 1 microns. The coating isn't designed for full waterproofing, but rather to raise the base level resistance to liquid attacks. Most interestingly of all, it can also be applied to porous and meshed surfaces, such as mouthpiece grills. It's hoped to be commercially available from December this year, so you'll have to try to avoid any little accidents until then. Continue reading New water-resistant coating protects your phone, the planet (video) New water-resistant coating protects your phone, the planet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  DigInfo |  Daikin Industries | Email this | Comments | | Londoners mourn as teletext goes dark, a victim of the DTV transition Apr 19th 2012, 04:42  Despite the many advantages of digital broadcast television, the transition is separating Europeans from a reliable source of information known as teletext. Citizens of London are the latest to experience the loss, as analog signals in the region were switched off just yesterday. Ceefax, a service of the BBC, has provided millions of Britons with news, sports, weather, television listings, subtitles and games for the past 38 years, and is now accessible only in Kent, Sussex, north-east England and Northern Ireland. Soon, it may cease to exist altogether. Seen as a precursor to the internet, teletext is a free service that's heavily rooted in analog PAL signals, where small packets of data are sent in the vertical blanking interval, which is otherwise unnoticed by viewers. Because the information is broadcast, users were never subject to network congestion, and only needed to wait a brief moment for their desired page to be transmitted -- more advanced televisions even cached this information locally. As part of the airwaves, the service is naturally free, and in that sense, it lacks a suitable replacement. As with all progress, however, there are casualties, and teletext was an unfortunate bystander. Those who cherished the service can take a moment to relive the memories in the links below. Londoners mourn as teletext goes dark, a victim of the DTV transition originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Boing Boing | BBC, The Telegraph | Email this | Comments | |
