Gizmodo has a great photo gallery up of the Nokia Damage Test Labs, where they bake, burn, spray, drop, bend, crack, freeze, acid dip, explode and otherwise maim mobile phone prototypes, all aimed to scientifically gauge the precise conditions under which they can deny you a warranty repair.

A Look At The Nokia Damage Test Labs [Gizmodo]

Inside, I don't usually get star struck, but how can a geek not get excited seeing both Harold from Harold and Kumar and Sylar in the same theater sitting in the same row watching themselves on the screen. And it was Trek! Not the old Trek, and Not even Next Generation, but a new kind of Trek with the origins of the old characters and how they met up. Shields up, spoilers ahead.

They first showed the new trailer, previewed in theaters playing Bond, which you can see here.

Then they went through the scene were we see a trouble Kirk getting into a bar fight with cadets until a man stationed on his father's ship realizes who he is, stops the fight and asks him if he wants to do something better with his life. Kirk takes him up and joins. The next scene involves Kirk working with Bones to smuggle him aboard the Enterprise and he saves them from walking into a trap. The next scene involves a fight scene with John Cho (HAROLD and Sulu) and Chris Pine (Kirk) vs some filthy Romulans, skydiving (yes, skydiving) and a saber fight. And the final scene involves Spock and Kirk meeting Scotty.

The Trek Dorks are currently a bit polarized, a few upset over rewriting canon and a few worried about the stylistic updates. But I really like the New Trek, and I think it could break out of the category of Films Only for Nerds. You've got more action, humor, and heat than you did in the old ones. Even if its a bit less intellectual than previous movies at times, if the preview was any indication, it doesn't seem to ever slow down. And most importantly, it's impossible to not resonate with the young cast playing the classic characters as they express the old mannerisms; Kirk runs like Kirk, Bones complains like bones, and Scotty, well Scotty is 100x more funny than the old Scotty. Come to think of it, everyone with an accent is extremely funny, but maybe because I'm a bit racist. (In a loving way.) Someone should have done an origins movie long ago, but within a year, we'll have a modern telling of the heroes many of us grew up with. If you're like me, you'll probably find the story of how they all got together as cadets and juniors as important as the actual adventure they go on. Maybe we can do an io9/Gizmodo reader meetup movie night.

Here are my favoritest Giz stories today:
• BlackBerry Storm Review (Verdict: Not Quite a Perfect Storm)
• Future iPhones May Have Always-On Display
• Giz Explains: Every Video Format You Need to Know
• 10 Takes on the Blackberry Storm
• Dealzmodo Hack: Accessorize Your iPod/iPhone Like MacGyver
• At Gizmodo Gallery: The Red One Camera
• A Look at the Nokia Damage Test Labs

Here's a look at a handful of different tests and what each one tries to accomplish.

Liquids

Nokia places a phone under a bunch of needle-sized water dispensers and then lets it drip all over the phone, which tests for resistance in situations like rain, or splashing from a pool.

The humidity simulation, which tests the durability of phones in up to 95% humidity, is helpful in determining if a phone will hold up in particularly damp areas like South and Central America, where gadgets don't have the longest lifespan.

Nokia also tests how the phone reacts to various liquids, creams and gels (lotions, hand sanitizers, etc...), since stuff like that tends to accidentally spill while sitting in a purse or backpack with the phone.

Sturdiness


Tests for bending and twisting are pretty straight forward and self explanatory. Still, you can't help but cringe to see a phone placed in such an unnatural position. Nokia says when you have your phone in your back pocket and you sit on it, it's susceptible to bending.

One of the cooler stress tests that exists is the Drop test—not only because it uses a giant friggin' machine, but also because they record the drops using a camera that can record 100,000 frames per second, which is 3,000 times faster than the normal video camera. The videos are then analyzed frame by frame, determining the degree to which a device becomes distorted upon impact. Check it out.

When Nokia drops a phone, they drop it from about the height of a shirt pocket onto concrete, since that's a likely scenario for dropped phones. They also attatch a phone under a steel device that pushes down 100 newtons of force.

Wear and Tear

Nokia has a series of wear and tear stress tests, when gauge the phone's ability to take bumps, scratches from daily use. Dust testing involves throwing a handful of phones in a dust filled box and letting everything co-mingle. How much dust gets inside? And do buttons stop working when foreign substances get under the surface? This is where you find out.

They also let phones roll around in a bunch of pieces of hard, pointy plastic to see where it might scratch, scuff or crack under duress. These pieces are like plastic chocolate chips and bite-sized pyramids, and they're pretty sharp. This phone met an unfortunate demise in the name of quality control.

***

Other weird tests include rubbing a piece of denim up against a phone to test the effect of friction when the phone rubs up against your clothes and subjection the phone to temperatures ranging between -40 and 185 degrees Fahrenheit; this determines whether or not the phone can survive in the most extreme conditions on earth.

When testing is finished, they have a battery of analytic procedures to determine how well or how poorly a phone held up. This includes analyzing a phone under electron microscopes, 3D X-rays and X-ray Spectroscopes to check for any related damage; possible micron-sized soldering cracks, component failure or any breakdowns in the materials.

As you can see, these tests aren't lightweight by any means, and most of my Nokia phones over the years have been pretty durable. What about yours? [Nokia on Giz]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Sony loses patent suit, ordered to pay $18.5 million originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

As you can see from the photos to the left, the laser-healed cut on the bottom healed much better than the suture-sewn cut on top. So how do they keep the laser safe and prevent it from doing more damage than good?

To overcome this problem, Katzir and his colleagues developed a laser-based system with a feedback loop that prevents overheating. First, they had to determine the optimal temperature at which flesh melts but can still heal (about 65 degrees Celsius). Then the group created a pen-sized tool that incorporates optic fibers: one that channels a carbon dioxide-powered infrared laser to the wound with pinpoint precision, and another that leads from the pen to an infrared sensor, which measures the temperature and ensures that the heat remains within the ideal range, between 60 and 70 degrees. All a surgeon has to do is move the pen's tip along the cut, strengthening and sealing the weld with a solder of water-soluble protein.

Sounds awesome and scary. Bring on the laser sutures! [Technology Review]

Filed under: Peripherals

USB 3.0 demonstrations dazzle: uncompressed 1080p transfer proves simple originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For the second time in 10 years our cabin in the Pennsylvania mountains was struck by lightning. And for the second time in 10 years walls had to be opened and the house rewired before it could be usable once again.  Not fun at all. (And that is WITH a lightning box installed!)

This time, unfortunately, it wasn’t just the wiring that suffered. The casualties were numerous.
The stove has cooked its last omelet.  The dishwasher has seen its last dirty dish.The washer and dryer have seen their last load of laundry.  In all, the damage was both extensive and expensive.

The one bit of good news in all of this is that I had the smarts to put a heavy duty power surge strip in the media cabinet and, as a result, the TV, stereo, and a WiFi router survived.

A few weeks ago Tributaries sent me two of their power strips to review. My mountain-top experience has made me truly appreciate these unsexy devices and I am impressed by the company’s ability to take such a boring item and come up with a significant innovation. So many of today’s electronics have such massive adapters that they often block a significant portion of the available plugs on any given power strip. What good is a ten outlet strip if only 6 of them are actually usable?

… [visit site to read more]

If a customer never set this up, Time Warner will do it for you. Affected customers can call 888-TWCable to have a cable representative set up the service.

Time Warner will also put billing on hold for fire victims. Fred Stefany, president of O.C.’s Time Warner operation, said that this is typical procedure during a disaster since the cable  bill is the last thing a customer whose house burned down wants to think about. 

Stefany also asked me for a list of houses that were affected, which we publish HERE. To prevent post-fire frustration, Time Warner is also proactively wiping out the data on the cable boxes in those homes. The average customer has two cable boxes — or about $500 worth of equipment. If Time Warner didn’t erase the data, the customer would be charged for the unreturned box. 

“So we want to do this up front so we don’t harass them in six months when the fires are not as fresh in our mind,” Stefany said. 

“We, of course, would like to get insurance re-imbursement if possible as we have to be fiscally responsible, but where we see the home is a total loss, we try to be understanding,” he added.

For those wondering, the fires have not affected customers in Cox Communications territory.

Earlier: 

• AT&T offers several phone services free to O.C. fire victims
• Verizon offers free call forwarding to victims of O.C. fires

COMPLETE FIRE COVERAGE HERE »

• UPDATE: Live 2008 O.C. fires coverage
• TOPICS: Damage | Location/Resources | Heroes/Your Stories
• SAFETY: Traffic | Closures | Evacuations | Shelters
• MORE: Fire map | O.C. fire-related Twitter messages

Post from: Alt+Save with the Gadgetress

Time Warner Cable’s will stop billing for O.C. fire victims

Inrix is on fire, and provided the world with a little status update and a little bragging in their recent press release. Read it and you'll see that they might just have pretty good right to brag a bit. I liked the "we saved Alabama's traffic alert program" paragraph where the previous traffic provider couldn't deliver accurate data. In steps Inrix, the data is flowing, and boards are lit up 2 weeks later.

Inrix has a lot of their data coming from GPS probe data - cars and trucks in a fleet (think delivery trucks, tractor trailers, etc) that report back traffic patterns. They like this model, and combine the data with road sensor data, crunch it in a model and feed it out to traffic providers like Depts of transportation, TMC traffic services on your GPS, and websites that offer traffic. Read the press release; they are laying the case out against using cell phone sniffing technologies that they have not fully adopted due to accuracy concerns. Interesting stuff if you are a traffic geek (like me).

Full Press Release follows after the jump......

NEW YORK CITY, NY. - November 17, 2008 - INRIX®, the leading provider of traffic information, announced today at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, a significant expansion in the way its real-time traffic data is utilized in the government sector. In addition to the over 3 million consumers using INRIX traffic on mobile and in-car navigation devices, the company now provides traffic information to departments of transportation and other agencies in 11 states, covering over 5000 centerline miles of road and making the company the leading traffic information provider in the government sector. INRIX's unique traffic data is also being used by leading transportation research firms for studies important to understanding America's traffic issues and offering potential solutions.

INRIX today uniquely aggregates and blends real-time traffic information from over 350 sources, including nearly one million GPS-enabled probe vehicles and traditional road sensor information. The company provides real-time traffic on over 55,000 miles of roadways in the U.S. to over 65 customers. INRIX delivers speed information and travel times to its public sector customers for use across statewide 511 systems, dynamic message signs, incident management systems, Internet-based traveler information services, congestion performance measures and other planning and operations applications.

Recent milestones include:

* Launching initial road coverage for the I-95 Vehicle Probe Project - the nation's largest private traffic data contract - on schedule and as specified for the I-95 Corridor Coalition and its member agencies
* Expanding the I-95 project to include all limited access roads in New Jersey and the entire North Carolina interstate system

* Distributing traffic data to Alabama DOT for use on dynamic message signs throughout Birmingham

* Providing travel time data to South Carolina DOT for use on dynamic message signs in and around Columbia, in the first phase of a full state system
* Initiating the operational phase of a Florida DOT pilot project in the Tallahassee region and I-10 throughout the Panhandle
* Being selected by U.S. Department of Transportation as part of a $6.4 million SafeTrip-21 initiative with the I-95 Corridor Coalition, announced separately today, that will implement and evaluate several new applications of INRIX data, including a region-wide public Web site.

Through its involvement in the groundbreaking, multimillion dollar contract with the I-95 Corridor Coalition, INRIX now provides real-time traffic information to agencies on more than 3,700 centerline miles of freeways and arterials in the corridor. INRIX traffic data for the coalition went live in July, 2008 initiating the most comprehensive and public evaluation of privately sourced traffic data to date. INRIX Vice President of Public Sector Rick Schuman will speak on this topic, along with leaders from the Coalition and US DOT, in the "Filling the Data Gap - Probe and Floating Car Data Applications" session #AM34 at the 15th World Congress on November 19th at 1:30-3:00 p.m.

As these achievements illustrate, INRIX's innovative approach to aggregating and distributing traffic information is leading to a revolution in the use of traffic flow data by transportation agencies. Regional departments of transportation suddenly have access to rich and reliable traffic information on all major roads and are able to quickly and cost-effectively deploy compelling applications to the public without the need to install and maintain expensive roadside infrastructure. INRIX real-time traffic information is available to government agencies under contract in 11 states including Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin.

"At the beginning of 2008, we were under contract to provide traffic data in one state," said INRIX president and CEO Bryan Mistele. "We have invested - without government subsidies or earmarks - to offer accurate traffic data on all major roads in America and now provide data under contract in 11 states. We continue to expand our services to support use by government agencies and look forward to further growth both within the I-95 Corridor Coalition and across the country as agencies collaborate with INRIX to provide innovative traffic solutions to help drivers and officials make better decisions."

The US DOT separately announced today a $6.4 million partnership with the I-95 Corridor Coalition to participate in a new SafeTrip-21 initiative. Through this partnership, INRIX will create a Coalition-branded multi-state Web site based upon its real-time traffic data. Under sub-contract to INRIX, PBS&J, a nationally recognized architecture-engineering-construction services and program management consulting firm, will lead the effort to bring these projects operational in spring 2009. SafeTrip-21 was created by US DOT to test various ITS technology applications designed to reduce gridlock and traffic-related fatalities and injuries on America's roadways, and improve public transportation services.

"It was a natural fit to expand the I-95 Corridor Coalition Vehicle Probe Project through the new SafeTrip-21 initiative and create innovative corridor-wide applications leveraging the data we are already getting," said George Schoener, Executive Director, I-95 Corridor Coalition. "The award by US DOT supports the public-private partnership that the Coalition has entered into with INRIX to deliver and use robust traffic data corridor-wide."

The Alabama DOT hired INRIX to solve an immediate problem - ALDOT had dynamic message signs throughout the region that were blank due to another company's inability to supply accurate data, which it was attempting to gather using cell phone based technology. In less than two weeks, INRIX populated the signs with its real-time traffic information, and now INRIX data is used to post travel times on dynamic message signs on more than 125 centerline miles of roads in Birmingham. Long-term goals of the project include expansion to the entire Birmingham Metro Area and to assist emergency responders in better navigating highway incidents, storm damage, hurricane evacuation, rescue operations, and many other types of emergencies.

"We are pleased to provide this value-added service for travelers in the Birmingham area," said ALDOT Director Joe McInnes. "We have made this a priority and have been committed to enhancing our capabilities to provide beneficial information to the public and to maximize the taxpayers' investment in our overhead message boards in Jefferson and Shelby counties. This new service provides a more cohesive system to help us manage traffic and we are working to achieve further enhancements."

INRIX also provides real-time traffic information throughout the Tallahassee region in Florida for a pilot project in which the Florida DOT intends to compare the quality of INRIX GPS-probe vehicle derived data against cellular network data. Similar to what transpired in Alabama, INRIX delivered high quality data while data from another company attempting to use cellular network data continues to be "unavailable."

In addition to its vast expansion in the public sector with real-time traffic information, INRIX was also selected by two leading data analysis companies - the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and Cambridge Systematics - to provide historical data for transportation research projects. TTI is currently using INRIX data on several arterial corridors to assess the potential for using historical probe data for arterial performance measurement. Cambridge Systematics licensed INRIX historical data on several arterial and intercity corridors throughout the country to monitor performance of specific corridors. This information will help measure the effectiveness of various traffic mitigation problems in the corridors under examination.