How long before we have self-healing smartphone screens?

cracked phone screen 8hf6

“When I was young, my idol was Wolverine from the X-Men…He could save the world, but only because he could heal himself,” researcher Chao Wang recently said in a press release from the American Chemical Society (ACS). Wang began working on a self-healing material that could stitch itself back together after damage, and came up with a game-changing polymer.

The key to the the material’s crucial new powers? Chemical bonds. Check out this video.

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Africa has more cellphone users than all of North America

There are more cellphone users in Africa than in North America.

When you are a developing continent you can skip entire stages of technological progress, like going directly from no phones to cellphones without suffering through land lines in between. Africa, for example, now has more mobile subscribers than the United States or Europe, and that means big things for African economies.

 

 

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PocketTouch – text from your pockets with ‘stealth screen’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHSDpE0kTag&hd=1[/youtube]

There are still some social settings where people must forgo the urge to pull out a cellphone and send a quick text message or two. But those who can’t bear such timeouts may soon have a way to keep communicating.

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SpareOne – a emergency cellphone with a 15 year standby time

spareone

SpareOne

Nursing your smartphone’s short battery life can be a real nightmare when waiting to be rescued after your car breaks down.  But, with Xpal Power (the company behind Energizer and PowerSkin) that may not be much of a problem.  They have developed the SpareOne, a super-cheap phone that runs from a single AA Battery and will reputedly maintain its charge for up to fifteen years.

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75% of people worldwide use their cellphones for text messaging

texting globally

Have you seen the Apple commercial showing Santa asking the iPhone’s Siri for guidance?  Well, it’s not far off the mark. Seventy-five percent of cellphone users around the globe use their phones for text messaging, in wealthy countries as well as poor ones, according to a new study.

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NTSB urges states ban all cellphone use by drivers

cellphone ban

A sign in Havre, Mont., notifies drivers of the city’s handheld cellphone ban, which took effect in October.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday called for a ban on all cellphone use by drivers saying its decision was based on a decade of investigations into distraction-related accidents, as well as growing concerns that powerful mobile devices are giving drivers even more reasons to look away from the road.  This is the most far-reaching such recommendation to date.

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Mobile phone carriers keep personal data for up to seven years

cellphone users

The document says AT&T keeps for five to seven years a record of who text messages whom.

The ACLU has obtained a document that shows for the first time how the four largest cellphone companies in the U.S. treat data about their subscribers’ calls, text messages, Web surfing and approximate locations.

 

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Television Broadcasters and Wireless Companies Fight Over Airwaves

TV-Tower-Spectrum

Broadcasters may be forced to give up spectrum.

Annoyances like dropped calls, maps that take forever to load and echoing voices on a mobile phone.  And, the dreaded “Cannot Open Page” iPhone users have come to know so well.  These annoyances are only going to get worse because the airwaves that carry cellphone signals and wireless internet connections are growing more and more crowded.

 

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.