Apple Signs Exclusive Deal for Liquidmetal Alloy

[mlopinto2k1]

Liquidmetal is the name of the company they are receiving the new "alloy" from. Der!

 

[bejabbers]

What a load of bull. Buying the rights to a manufacturing compound? That's like having Dell or Toshiba buy the rights of of glass, or silicon. Materials should never be owned by one company.

Perhaps MS could reserve the right not to allow manufacturing plants using MS products NOT to produce MAC products, or perhaps disallow this liquidmetal aloy company for using MS or PC products for their business.

Total BS.

 

[Guest]

increase the hardness of any material and you increase it's brittleness, which also makes them a pig to work with. Once cast, titanium is a nightmare to work with, it has to be machined very slowly with large amounts of lubricant to prevent burning. On top of that you have supply issues, how easy is it to get hold of this material in large quantities

everything just suggest a limited more expensive apple product on the horizon

 

[warezme]

Don't worry, the iT-1000 will be harmless, it will just overheat and melt itself.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]moreapple[/nom]increase the hardness of any material and you increase it's brittleness, which also makes them a pig to work with.[/citation]
Not always, metalurgically speaking there is is no direct link, but a strong tendancy. There are metals used every day in the oil industry that could be dropped from orbit and hit the ground without so much as a burn mark. But yeah, cost is always the factor, you could make a laptop case from a substance that is many times harder and stronger than this LiquidMetal stuff but would cost a few thousand dollars each.

Really not worth the cost. What exactly are you expecting to do with such a machine? Use it as a baseball bat?

 

[Pei-chen]

Good for Apple. It is true that this will limit other companies' use of this alloy but the fact it, if Apple hasn't done it, none of them will.

Just look at how Apple revolutionize the market with iTunes’ $1.00 per song, the iPod, and iPhone's multi-touch. If it was not for Apple's willingness to risk it and back it up with marketing money, we will still be using Blackberries and $16.00 CDs.

 

[pocketdrummer]

Where's a pit of lava when you need one?

 

[scook9]

It is supposed to be solid at room temperatures.....but how many of apples products stay at room temperature for very long.....

"well I was just making a phone call and my phone case melted 🙁"

lol

 

[gogogadgetliver]

[citation][nom]mlopinto2k1[/nom]This should NOT be allowed. Apple has the tendency to hold back innovation despite some of their innovative products. They will use it at THEIR discretion which is complete and utter bullsh!t.[/citation]

Dude settle down. Apple just bought the rights to pine. There is still Oak, walnut etc available. This alloy has a fancy name but there are many others like it. You're only upset because you're a sucker for their marketting.

This is nothing special...just like the "helicopter windshield glass" on the IPhone 4...it's nothing special beyond many other high performance glasses (why didn't they use "space shuttle" glass? ).

 

[koga73]

how do they plan to use a liquid for cases?

 

[spagunk]

Ok, you all are suffering from wiki fail if you don't know why it is called liquid metal.

The stuff is liquid in the same vein as glass. If you know your science, you would know that glass is technically not a solid in the traditional sense in that it slowly moves over the ages. Same thing with this stuff. Since it is not a traditional solid, the company refers to it as Liquid Metal for both publicity and its similarity to glass. Look up solids on wiki and you will see what I mean by "not a solid".

The technique for manufacture essentially freezes the metal so quick that it has no time to form a crystal lattice which every metal ever made normally forms. The advantage of this method is to create a metal with no stress lines and no facets thus allowing a stronger metal. It's also way more expensive than normal metal manufacture as it requires adequate freezing facilities.

One disadvantage of it is that if you want to do fancy etching, the etching tool the company provides only lasts for a few thousand etchings before it needs to be replaced. And at tens of thousands of dollars for etching tools, this quickly becomes hard to justify costs. But if the intention is to do a back plate with simple edges, they can do this no problem.

 

[spagunk]

Forgot to mention: It is probably more accurate to call them amorphous metals.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]spagunk[/nom]One disadvantage of it is that if you want to do fancy etching, the etching tool the company provides only lasts for a few thousand etchings before it needs to be replaced. And at tens of thousands of dollars for etching tools, this quickly becomes hard to justify costs. But if the intention is to do a back plate with simple edges, they can do this no problem.[/citation]
I thought all personalisation on Mac products was done with laser etching?

 

[belezeebub]

Coming soon to an Apple Store near you the Apple iT-1000 cybernetic organism
Beat up a Room full of Bikers “there’s an app for that”

Pick up your child from a Mall arcade “there’s an app for that”

Break into Top Secret computer research companies “there’s an app for that”

Take out the entire LA Police force with a Mini Gun “there’s an app for that too”

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

If my phone turns into a creepy motorcycle cop... I'm gonna freak out!!!

 

[HalJordan]

[citation][nom]spagunk[/nom]Ok, you all are suffering from wiki fail if you don't know why it is called liquid metal.The stuff is liquid in the same vein as glass. If you know your science, you would know that glass is technically not a solid in the traditional sense in that it slowly moves over the ages. [/citation]

While there is a lot of scientific debate about the exact nature of glass, the consensus is that older panes of glass appear deformed not due to "flow" but rather archaic methods of producing glass in the middle ages. Some links...

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/5_30_98/fob3.htm

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/Glass/glass.html

 

[jecastej]

Maybe this superresistant T-1000 iPhone wont melt.
About the time travel, if you used the 3 go back possibilities, use the Dr Farnsworth machine from Futurama to go all the way forward until it all starts again. And you too could try to get rid of Adolf Hitler if you slowdown on 1945.

 

[pcwlai]

Good for Apple. It is true that this will limit other companies' use of this alloy but the fact it, if Apple hasn't done it, none of them will.

Just look at how Apple revolutionize the market with iTunes’ $1.00 per song, the iPod, and iPhone's multi-touch. If it was not for Apple's willingness to risk it and back it up with marketing money, we will still be using Blackberries and $16.00 CDs.

This is because people cannot blame themselves not being the first to invent or come up with new ideas. So, they blame those that can. This is the real world.

 

[eklipz330]

liquid metal is also a great thermal conductor, it transfers it like 100x better than copper

 

[borisof007]

*COUGH* skynet

 

[mlopinto2k1]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]Dude settle down. Apple just bought the rights to pine. There is still Oak, walnut etc available. This alloy has a fancy name but there are many others like it. You're only upset because you're a sucker for their marketting. This is nothing special...just like the "helicopter windshield glass" on the IPhone 4...it's nothing special beyond many other high performance glasses (why didn't they use "space shuttle" glass? ).[/citation]The helicopter windshield glass is still "helicopter windshield glass" and they don't own the material process. They are purchasing the rights to a metal, that seems to me to be, a very important metal. But, you are right, it's marketing bullcrap. The fact that no one else can use this is ridiculous. How about this, if they find a cure for HIV I'll buy it, and I will be the only one to use it.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]liquid metal is also a great thermal conductor, it transfers it like 100x better than copper[/citation]Because liquid metal is the name of the type of metal, right? LOL, make copper liquid and it'll conduct heat better than solid copper with thermal paste as well.

 

[sliem]

[citation][nom]Antimatter79[/nom]Why do they call it liquid metal? Any metal is liquid if the temperature is high enough, and like the previous comment stated, it's not liquid at room temperature. (Unless your "room" is on the sun, or Mercury, perhaps").[/citation]

Why? because liquid metal is in the state of liquid-like but has the strength of metal. Just like T-1000. Get it?

 

[Matthias99]

"What a load of bull. Buying the rights to a manufacturing compound? That's like having Dell or Toshiba buy the rights of of glass, or silicon. Materials should never be owned by one company."

Patents frequently cover materials, compounds, or molecules (especially medical drugs). Dupont had a patent on Teflon (MTBE), although that's expired now. You can only patent something like this if it's a unique, novel alloy or compound that you came up with.

I've used skis that have this stuff in 'em. (HEAD uses it a lot in both skis and tennis rackets.) AFAIK it's designed to be lightweight, strong, and flex repeatedly without losing strength - not sure about scratch resistance.

 

[Computerrock1]

I always expected the t-1000 to be a bit bigger...