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Nokia Developing Diamond-Like Gadget Casing
space_pingu writes "In the future, all gadgets could be coated with tough, diamond-like material. A patent from Nokia — featured in the latest patent round-up from New Scientist — describes a way of infusing plastic cases with a material, structurally similar to diamond, made from coal. Not only is it more scratch and grime-resistant, but it's also cheap and biodegradable. Apparently it also shines like a metal. The article also touches on a technique for welding with 'ice bullets', and an airport scanner that protects the dignity of travelers."
you already own a gadget made with DLCs.
Do not look into LASER with remaining eye!
Call me when I can get a skull gun.
Or leverage my dry wit, stiff upper lip, and giant mustache to join the Vickies.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
If it's so tough, it will scratch everything else.
and an airport scanner that protects the dignity of travelers
Traveler dignity is not good for security theater.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Welcome to the future. Everything is shiny here.
I can understand that at this point they are probably just filing patents "just in case." However, taking radiographs of every air passenger is not what I would call a responsible use of ionizing radiation.
Before anyone starts quoting dose limits at me, I'm going to say right now that exposure to ionizing radiation should be kept as low as is feasible to do. This means that you _avoid_ unnecessary radiographs and similar procedures, not throw them up for every air passenger--not at the doses imparted by modern radiographs. I also can't understand how they can support such a system when some folks fly dozens of times a year or many more and will have no practical way to track the number of radiographs they've had taken so far this year etc. etc. Can you imagine a very frequent flyer being turned away from security because he'd been put through the scanner too many times this year? Of course you can't--that would never happen because nobody is keeping track.
Unless backscatter x-ray requires far, far less entrance exposure than standard radiography (which I suppose it would since it doesn't need to penetrate the body) to the point where it's into background or only somewhat above, it's very hard to not be a little worried by this. Of course, if they plan on visualizing both sides of the body at once, then naturally they will have to penetrate the body. Then you have the issues of people being told to "go through again" because of machine glitches, because someone was looking at the bag scanner instead, etc.
What really worries me is that nobody seems to even be talking about this. That either means that the doses from these radiographs really are that much lower (and I just don't know it), or that nobody is really concerned by it (which is a scary thought, meaning as it does that our "security" obsession is starting to physically do harm to people).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenifer
"Glock, an Austrian firearms manufacturer, utilizes this process to protect the slides of the pistols they manufacture. The Tenifer finish on a Glock is the third and final hardening process. It is 0.05 millimeters thick and produces a patented 64 Rockwell C (diamond cone) hardness rating via a 500 C nitride bath. The final matte, non-glare finish meets or exceeds stainless steel specifications, is 85% more corrosion resistant than a hard chrome finish, and is 99.9% salt-water corrosion resistant. After the Tenifer process, a black Parkerized finish is applied and the slide is protected even if the finish were to wear off. Several other pistols also use this process including the Walther P99 and Steyr M/S series."
This stuff is different, because it isn't a nitriding process, it's a diamond coating process. You get loads of coatings for engineering purposes, a few I've heard of at work are deep gas nitriding, armoloy, diamond-like-coating, tungsten carbide coatings, etc
which is totally what she said
On the other hand, if you know a way to make cheap diamonds a metre long by 10cm square as one perfect crystal, at a price under $100, I'd like to be your European sales agent.
Pining for the fjords
This is not a good thing.
Why? The vast majority of people want to replace their technology products after a relatively short period of time whether they are broken or not. If your technology device is over-deisgned and over-engineered to last longer than you want it, you are not getting the best value for your dollar.
Ultra-reliable and ultra-durable devices do exist, mostly for military or industrial customers. Most people, though, would never pay the prices that those products demand.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
the other question is of course:
So what?
Ok, so some how it is biodegradable, but the rest of the product still is made of plastic/metal, and those, afaik, are still NOT biodegradable.
Oh, and I am with you on wondering how it is both ultra strong AND biodegradable. After all, are diamonds biodegradable? Some one else said bones, last I checked bones last a VERY long time, sure they are biodegradable, but it will take many years to do so....
oh well, I dont' get it.
guess I should do some more research.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
Don't know... "Diamondfinger" sounds a lot more like the name of a person who makes prostate exams.
Oak is no where near as hard as diamond. You can still smash a diamond, etc, hardness is hardness not strength. For example, wood has absurd tensile strength, something that crystal structures often lack, unless they are more or less perfect.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I disagree. If you can make a gadget more durable without adding too much to the price, that's a win-win situation. Even if you only want to use the item for a year or two before upgrading to something else, you're probably going to either resell it, or hand it down to somebody else who can make use of it, right? That is, unless it's so beat up that nobody wants it anymore, or it quit working completely and became trash.
Instead of your purchase becoming garbage just because the casing is all cracked/damaged, you'll have a much better chance of recouping a little resale value out of it if it's built more durably.
...rotary press holograms...TiO2 using crystal growth...anhydrous methanol solution