Friday, April 27, 2012

LIQUID METAL LAPTOPS post by Derek Jones

A lot of laptops are housed in one of two materials: aluminum or plastic.  The first housing being heavier yet easily scratched while the other more easily shattered.  However, there is a new technology called liquidmetal.  It is harder on the Vickers hardness scale than stainless steel, yet has a higher strength to weight ratio than aluminum.  So what is holding manufacturers back from producing more laptops with this technology?  It is much harder to get wifi and Bluetooth transmissions to pass through the liquidmetal than other materials.  

Here is my question, would you compromise on wifi strength or signal to improve the durability of your laptop?  If you want more information on the performance look no further than http://www.liquidmetal.com/technology/properties-comparison/


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3 comments:

  1. Challyn BentsonApril 30, 2012 at 8:07 AM

    Using a laptop made of this liquidmetal would probably save people a lot of money on repairs, but I think the convenience of having signal strength is more important. If they could develop some kind of laptop case that did not block wifi, I think this material could be very useful.

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  2. Derek JonesApril 30, 2012 at 10:07 PM

    I agree. I have not seen test statistics on the difference in mean signal strength. This would be a very useful set of data. There have been rumors that the new macbook may employ this technology, however I think that the wifi issue would denounce this speculation.

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  3. Tan HuynhApril 30, 2012 at 10:48 PM

    The new Apple iphone 5 is rumored be using this liquid metal technology. They acquired the rights in late 2010. This product looks really cool and I think they will definitely sell more phones if they fix the fragile glass problem. Liquid metal technology is their solution. Read link 1 for the full story.

    Also, I may have found a solution to the weak wifi problem. There is this technology that's developed by a company in Blacksburg called metal rubber. Basically they are able to make almost anything "metallic" and conductive by using a process called self-assembly. They repeatedly dip a material into positively charged and negatively charged solution. Full details on this in link 2.

    1: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57415807-37/next-iphone-said-to-ditch-glass-for-liquidmetal-arrive-in-june/

    2: http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0409-metal_rubber.htm

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