Start looking for some meteorites, people: a piece of Mars just discovered by meteor hunters in Morocco has been confirmed as real by NASA. Now it’s selling for up to $22,500 an ounce, ten times the price of gold. More »
from Gizmodo
From Google Reader: Perfectly Colored Famous Photos Are So Much More Powerful Than the B&W Originals [Photography]
From Google Reader: Co-Founder Jerry Yang Finally Quits Yahoo for Good
If you ask me, it’s little bit too late…
Yang has resigned from Yahoo’s Board of Directors and also stepped down as a member of the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group
The Best Video Player for Windows [Video]
We’re once again changing our Windows App Directory to include PotPlayer as the best video player for Windows. KMPlayer, our former favorite, went through a major update, including a number of features that make it into more of a media center than a video player—not to mention PotPlayer (which is by the same developer as the old KMPlayer, which we loved) is much lighter weight on your CPU, includes a 64-bit version, and doesn’t try to install a bunch of crapware along with the player. PotPlayer’s been around for awhile, and it’s still young, but the new version of KMPlayer pushed us over the edge to replace it with PotPlayer as our default video player. It should give you great video playback right out of the box, though you’ll have tons of options to tweak your video playback to your liking. You can find the full review over at the App Directory. [The Best Video Player for Windows] More »
from LifehackerÂ
Smartphone Dunkings May Not be Disaster
A company named HzO is claiming waterproof smartphones could be on the way this summer, and will be the norm in a couple of years.
The company says its solution, WaterBlock, works differently than current techniques. Instead of merely waterproofing the exterior of the phone, it uses a “nanotechnology†coating on the interior, covering individual components.
The company says it’s keeping the precise make-up of the material secret, but says it is non-toxic and suitable for consumer devices. It’s applied by putting the device into a sealed chamber and drawing out all gases, then adding “an organic gas†into the chamber that then solidifies on the internal surfaces of the device, forming a protective film. This film, which is said to make no detectable difference to the weight, repels water. It allows heat to pass through, meaning the device shouldn’t get any hotter than normal.
HzO says the protection is not designed for intentional underwater use such as diving, but says it should work in even some extreme accidents such as mistakenly jumping in a pool with the device in your pocket, or leaving it in the pocket of clothes that go through a laundry cycle.
According to the company, the technology was designed after a student fell into the Mississippi and was eventually crushed between a barge and a lock gate, having been unable to use either a cell phone or a handheld radio that he was carrying because they’d been rendered useless by the water.
The company made a high-profile bid to break into the smartphone market with a demonstration booth at the Consumer Electronics Show, dunking treated handsets including an iPhone into a fish tank.
Star Trek Online Free-to-Play Now Open To Everyone [Video]
Set your phasers on stupid Trek reference, as Cryptic’s Star Trek Online opens its free-to-play docking bay and invites the world inside following a brief subscriber-only period. To see what players get for free, hit up the official Star Trek Online web page. More »
from KotakuÂ
Sign Into Your Google Account on Public Computers Without Typing Anything [Google]
If you ever want to log into your Google account when you’re at a public computer, where you’re unsure whether or not there’s a keylogger installed, there’s now a simple solution. And it’s from Google! More »
from Lifehacker