Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve highly regarded Liquipel for its clever “watersafe” nanocoating, which has been known to give phones the same protection from liquids and other materials as an IPX7-certified device. That doesn’t prevent physical damage from occurring, however, so the company’s announcing Skins, its answer to drops, hammers and plenty of other things that cause blunt force trauma. Even better, Liquipel claims that it requires a three-step dry installation process that doesn’t involve squeegees, water bottles or bubbles; once you’re done, you’ll enjoy a “literal shock absorber” for your trouble. Skins for the iPhone 4S and 5 should be available today for under $20 on the company’s site, while the Samsung Galaxy S4 will soon follow (it’s currently listed as “out of stock”) and other models will be ready in the coming months. Check out the video and press release after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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You can’t win ’em all. Such is the case with the Curiosity rover, anyway, as diagnostics have revealed that its wind sensors have sustained damage. NASA engineers aren’t fully sure what caused this minor setback to the otherwise successful landing, but hypothesize that stones might’ve been kicked up during the rocket-powered landing, which then struck the sensor’s wiring. Fortunately, there’s already someone on the job, as Javier Gomez-Elvira is investigating the damage with the intent of restoring the lost functionality. Another NASA scientist, Ashwin Vasavada, believes the issue is rather minor: “It degrades our ability to detect wind speed and direction when the wind is blowing from a particular direction, but we think we can work around that.”

The broken instrument was initially discovered as part of NASA’s routine power-cycling of all instrumentation, so as to determine an overall bill of health for the rover. Now that Curiosity has earned its battle scars, it can hold its head high during its journey to Glenelg and Mount Sharp.

Filed under: Science

Curiosity rover flaunts its battle scar, wind sensor is bruised (but not broken) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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