Graphene’s next trick? Creating foil-thin body armor that’s harder than diamonds

Graphene, an incredibly strong material made up of a single layer of carbon atoms joined in a honeycomb pattern, is pretty darn versatile. Whether it is filtering seawater to make it drinkable, making rubber bands super strong, creating some kickass running shoes, or even diagnosing cancer, graphene can seemingly do it all. Its latest astonishing trick? Quite possibly one day being used to manufacture ultrathin body armor, as light as foil, but strong as diamonds, that is capable of stopping a bullet dead in its tracks.

The possibility of a graphene shield was hypothesized by professor Angelo Bongiorno at Georgia Tech, who developed computer models showing that it would work in theory. It was then successfully demonstrated for real by researchers at the City University of New York. In an experiment, the team showed that even a diamond tip is unable to perforate a two layer epitaxial graphene film.

“This work shows that it is possible to have a film which is only two atoms thick, meaning thousands times thinner than a hair, and still be as hard and stiff as a block of diamond,” Elisa Riedo, professor of physics at the City University of New York, told Digital Trends. “Not only that, our experiments and the theory of Bongiorno’s group demonstrate that you can start with two atomic layers of graphite, called graphene layers, which are flexible as a piece of paper, but locally they can become ‘diamene’ upon impact or indentation with a hard tip at room temperature.”

As well as ultralight, bulletproof films, Riedo suggests that potential real-world applications for the material could potentially include wear-resistant flexible protective coatings and, in the future, possible electronics applications. Intriguingly, the graphene shield’s ultra-hardening effect only results when two sheets of graphene are used, with extra layers appearing to have a detrimental impact.

An academic paper describing the work, titled “Ultrahard carbon film from epitaxial two-layer graphene,” was recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Hey, between this and shields made out of spiderwebs, 2017 has turned out to be a pretty great year for protective materials science innovations!

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• The easiest way to take graphene into the third dimension? Use a laser on it

Honor 9 Lite offers four cameras and 18:9 display for under $200

A sleeker, less powerful alternative to the regular Honor 9.

Back in November, Honor took the wraps off of the Honor V10. The V10 (also known as the View 10 in certain markets) is the successor the Honor V9 that came out back in February, and it’s also newer than the regular Honor 9 that was released in the summer. Following the V10, Honor’s latest handset, the Honor 9 Lite, looks to be a less powerful version of the Honor 9, but with a design that’s more reminiscent of the V10.

Unlike the Honor 9 that has large bezels and a traditional 16:9 display, the Honor 9 Lite features very slim bezels and an 18:9 display with a fingerprint sensor that’s been moved to the back. That display measures in at 5.65-inches, and it uses an IPS panel with a resolution of 2160 x 1080.

You’ll find a 13MP and 2MP camera combo on the back, and what’s even cooler is that this same setup has also made its way to the front of the phone to allow for Honor’s own portrait selfie mode like we’ve seen on devices such as the Pixel 2.

Powering the Honor 9 Lite is the Kirin 659 processor, either 3 or 4GB RAM, 32-64GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB), and a 3,000 mAh battery. Add this together with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, a metal/glass design, and microUSB for charging, and you end up with a pretty decent phone.

There are currently three main configurations for the Honor 9 Lite, including:

• 3GB RAM/32GB storage – $182 USD
• 4GB RAM/32GB storage – $227 USD
• 4GB RAM/64GB storage – $273 USD

China will get the Honor 9 Lite first on December 26, and it’ll then expand to India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and others.

Honor 7X review: The new budget champion

6 Awesome Tech Gifts Amazon Can Still Deliver Before Christmas

Time is running out! Good thing Amazon delivers quickly.

We’ve all been there. You waited a little too long and now you don’t have a gift for someone, right? Don’t panic, don’t stress, there is still a way out of this. Amazon carries some of the best gifts out there and offers some pretty quick shipping methods. If you’re still shopping for people on your list, and need some fresh ideas, here are six great tech gifts you can still have delivered in time for Christmas.

Amazon Prime offers free two-day shipping on all eligible orders, and cheap upgrades on some to get it the next day. If you aren’t already an Amazon Prime member, you should really sign up for a 30-day trial to get the benefits and help save the holiday!

Aukey 30000mAh Quick Charge 3.0 power bank

You can never have too much battery power to make it through the day. Phone batteries have become much better over the years, but there are likely still times that people could use some more power, and this is a perfect solution to that. Avoid having your friends and family stuck sitting next to a wall, and let them charge from anywhere.

This portable power pack from Aukey has a 30,000mAh capacity and offers a Quick Charge 3.0 output, so you can charge quickly while on the go. Thanks to its huge capacity you should be able to charge your phones and tablets up to 10 times per charge of the pack. It has two USB outputs and charges through Micro-USB or Lightning.

Available for $56 from Amazon with two-day shipping, so order now!

See at Amazon

Moto G5 Plus

If you’ve got a friend or family member that’s constantly complaining about their old smartphone and you want to get them an upgrade, there is still time. Better still, you can buy them a slick new phone that’s unlocked and set to impress. Want to be the one gift that stands out above the rest? The Moto G5 Plus is the best phone you can buy for under $200.

For that money, you get a really good phone that delivers all-day battery life and a mostly stock Android experience and a decent camera. The build quality is great for the price and despite the Plus in the name, the Moto G5 Plus is much easier to use one-handed with a 5.2-inch IPS LCD screen. Since it’s a Motorola, it features convenient features like a double-twist-to-open-camera gesture, so you can capture any moment with a quick flick of the wrist.

Amazon is selling a Prime Exclusive Moto G Plus that includes lock screen offers and ads for just $199 for the 64GB variant with 4GB of RAM.

The Moto G5 Plus is available for one-day shipping as part of this Prime Exclusive deal.

See at Amazon

Amazon Echo (2nd Generation)

Amazon was the first company to come out with an AI-powered smart speaker, and in many ways, they still own the space with its line of Echo speakers.

The second generation of the base speaker introduced some distinct design improvements — the new Echo speaker is shorter and designed to be displayed, without compromising on features or sound quality. It’s the perfect introduction to Alexa, or will seamlessly connect to any other Amazon Echo speakers your friend or family member might already own. Priced at $99, this is an excellent gift option for any tech lover on your list. Check out our full review of the Amazon Echo and Echo Plus.

The Amazon Echo is available with one-day shipping for U.S. customers with an Amazon Prime subscription.

See at Amazon

Fitbit Charge 2

After Christmas comes New Year’s, which typically leads to resolutions to get more active. One popular way to work towards your health goals is with a Fitbit on your wrist, and there’s no better option than the Fitbit Charge 2.

The Charge 2 is a sleek and functional fitness tracker that not only tracks every step you take during your day, but also offers PurePulse continuous heart rate monitoring which helps to better estimate calorie burned. The Fitbit Charge 2 is the best tracker because it’s not too bulky and doesn’t try to do too much — you actually appreciate wearing it throughout the day because with call, text, and calendar notifications displayed on the OLED screen.

Available for $129 on Amazon, this is a great gift option for someone who already owns a Fitbit that’s been beaten to hell because they wear it all the time. Otherwise, you’ll want to make sure a Fitbit is on someone’s list because gifted fitness trackers are all too often destined for junk drawers after a few months of use.

The Fitbit Charge 2 is available with one-day shipping for U.S. customers with an Amazon Prime subscription.

See at Amazon

Anker Soundcore 2

The Anker Soundcore 2 is a fantastic portable Bluetooth speaker that’s easy to use, sounds great, and offers an incredible battery life that you’d expect from a company that built its brand on battery packs.

The Soundcore 2 is a surprisingly powerful speaker given its compact size. Anker claims a 24-hour battery life for this speaker, which I confirmed in my reveiw. It’s waterproof and loud, making it a great speaker for camping trips or in the bathroom for shower singers.

Speakers make for great gifts, and there are a ton bunch of great options out there including the UE Boom 2 ($132) and Sonos Play:1 ($149), but you just can’t beat the value of the Soundcore 2. At just $40, you can one for your best friend, one for your parents, and get one for yourself. Totally recommended as an impulse buy.

The Anker SoundCore 2 is available with one-day shipping for U.S. customers with an Amazon Prime subscription.

See at Amazon

Aukey Quick Charge 3.0 Car Charger

Looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer that anyone with a car will appreciate? This Aukey dual-port car charger is a great deal and a perfect gift idea.

With one port supporting Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and the other port offering a dedicated 2.4A output, your friend or family member will be able to keep all their tech charged on the go safely. It’s universally compatible with all USB-powered devices, so it doesn’t matter if you’re buying someone with an iPhone (they will need to supply their own cable). Get this for practically anyone on your list for just $15.

The Aukey Quick Charge 3.0 Car Charger is available with one-day shipping for U.S. customers with an Amazon Prime subscription.

See at Amazon

Your favorites?

Do you have a favorite tech gift that isn’t listed here but can still arrive before Christmas? If so, be sure to drop a brief description along with the link so that others can check it out!

Update December 2017: These are the best last-minute gift ideas available on Amazon. Get’em while the getting is good!

Pair the Essential Phone with its 4K 360-degree camera for just $499 today

Some say that saving money is Essential.

We’ve seen Android phones push the limits over and over in 2017, and one of the bolder moves was the near edge-to-edge display that Essential introduced. While the phone received some mixed reviews, people have fallen in love with the look and feel of it, and now owning one just got a bit more affordable.

Right now you can pick up an unlocked Essential Phone from Amazon with the 4K 360-degree camera for $499, which is over $100 less than it normally sells for. This discount is available for both the black and white versions of the phone. We did see this bundle hit $399 on Black Friday, but unless you have a time machine there is no way to go back and get that deal today.

If you don’t want the whole bundle, you can pick up just the phone for $449 instead. The phone features a 5.7-inch LCD display, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Some locations may have it available for same-day pickup, but if not you can opt for next-day shipping so you won’t have to wait long to play around with it.

See at Amazon

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 might make its way to Chromebooks

The Snapdragon 845 could be a revelation for Chrome OS.

Qualcomm officially took the wraps off its Snapdragon 845 processor on December 6, and in case you haven’t heard yet, there’s a lot to be excited about.. The 845 has big improvements in performance, camera quality, and data speeds on phones, and overall, it’s a big step up from the already great 835.

Samsung Chromebook Pro

Alongside the 845, Qualcomm also announced “Always Connected PCs.” Always Connected PCs are Windows laptops that are powered by the Snapdragon 835, but according to new commits found in the Chromium Gerrit, we could see the newer 845 make its way to Chrome OS.

The 845 and Chrome OS could result in unrivaled performance and battery.

According to the folks at XDA Developers, there are a few different commits that hint at this. One of them is a board that’s referred to as “cheza”, and another commit that follows this reveals that “cheza” is the board overlay used on a Snapdragon 845 reference device.

This would be the first time a Qualcomm processor makes its way into a Chromebook, and that’s exciting for a few reasons. The two Always Connected PCs (the HP Envy x2 and Asus NovaGo) have already shown that the 835 is plenty powerful for driving Windows 10, and the use of the 835 allows for gigabit LTE data connections and battery life that’s said to last four times longer than modern smartphones. Now, imagine what kind of performance and battery life we could see with a more powerful processor (the 845) running on a lighter desktop operating system (Chrome OS).

It’s unclear when exactly we could start seeing Chromebooks powered by the Snapdragon 845, but even so, it’s exciting enough to know that something like this might be in the works.

Top 5 reasons to be excited for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845

Deal: Sony Xperia XZs on sale for $399 ($200 off)

A good phone for the right person.

Back in April, Sony launched the Xperia XZs. The XZs first hit virtual store shelves with a steep price tag of $700, and when you combined that with the XZ Premium that made it obsolete just a couple months later, the XZs became a pretty tough sell. However, with a new discount on the phone currently available through Amazon, it might actually be worth checking out now.

The XZs’s retail price previously went down from $699 to $599, but right now on Amazon, you can purchase the phone for just $399. For that price, you’ll be getting a phone with a 5.2-inch 1080p display with curved 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4, 3.5mm headphone jack with a High-Res DSEE-HX LDAC, 64GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB), 4GB RAM, dual-SIM support, and a 19MP rear camera that lets you record super slow-motion 960 FPS videos.

Sony originally shipped the XZs with Android Nougat, but the phone was updated to 8.0 Oreo in late November. In addition to all of the goodies Oreo brings by default, the update also introduced Xperia Actions and Reminders.

The battery on the XZs isn’t the largest (2,900 mAh) and the processor isn’t the newest (Snapdragon 820), but even so, it’s still a compelling buy for the right person at $399.

See at Amazon

Instagram’s Android app gets ‘add a comment’ button in main feed

Now you can tell your aunt how cute her cat is even faster.

Instagram’s added a heap of new features to its app throughout the year (both big and small), and the latest addition to it aims to make commenting on photos/videos easier than ever.

As part of a server-side update that’s rolling out to the Instagram app now, Android users will start to see a new “add a comment” button below posts that enables you to type and send a comment without having to leave your main feed.

Prior to this update, you’d have to tap on the comment icon to go to the comments section and then type your thoughts. It’s a process that worked fine, but being able to say a few words about a post without having to actually leave your main feed is a nice touch.

Instagram with (left) and without (right) the new comment button.

Instagram confirmed to Engadget that this feature first started rolling out to iOS last month. The new comment button has already shown up on Andrew Martonik’s phone and my own, but the rollout seems to be a bit buggy at the moment. The button shows up and works just fine on some posts, but it’s just nowhere to be seen on others.

Have you seen this on your Instagram app?

Instagram is testing a standalone messaging app because why not

Pandora Android TV app gains Premium support, refreshed UI, and more

A new look and feel for your tunes.

Pandora might not be the first music streaming service to come to your mind, but even as the likes of Spotify and Apple Music continue to grow, there’s no denying its place in the streaming market. Pandora announced earlier this month that it’d (sort of) be expanding on-demand listening to Plus and free members, and now the company’s released a fairly large update to its Android TV app.

Perhaps one of the biggest additions to this update is support for Pandora Premium. Pandora Premium first launched back in March as a way for users to stream songs on-demand in addition to custom radio stations, and the expansion of it to Android TV is very welcome.

Also new is support for Google Assistant, a new search bar, an Autoplay feature that’ll make sure the music never stops, and a user interface that’s been refreshed to look more modern.

The v4.0 update for Pandora’s Android TV app is available in the Play Store now, and you can grab it by clicking/tapping the button above.

Amazon Prime Video finally makes its way to Android TV

Future Apple Watch models could get EKG heart monitoring

We’ve already seen an EKG band for the Apple Watch, but now Apple is reportedly working on bringing the feature directly into its smartwatch, Bloomberg reports. With EKG monitoring, the Apple Watch would be able to track electrical signals from your heart, allowing it to detect things like irregular heartbeats. Think of it as a major upgrade over the device’s current heart tracking, which is more focused on fitness. In November, Apple announced a joint project with Stanford to track irregular heartbeats with current Apple Watch models, but that’s still limited by its sensors.

According to Bloomberg, one way Apple could implement an EKG is by having users hold the sides of the Watch, which would then send a weak electrical current to their heart. Of course, as with any potential new feature though, it could work differently once it’s finalized. There’s also a chance that Apple gives up on implementing the feature entirely. But given just how useful it could be — better tracking could help people prevent strokes and heart failure ahead of time — that seems unlikely.

Source: Bloomberg

Instagram live videos can be sent as direct messages

It’s easy to start a live Instagram video, but how do your friends know you’re broadcasting if they don’t catch the usual alert? As of now, you can ping them yourself. Instagram has added the option to send live videos as direct messages, so you can ensure pals tune in when you’re livestreaming your vacation. You can also send a video as a viewer if there’s a must-see stream. This only works while videos are live, we’d note, so recipients will have to check replays like everyone else.

The feature is available today for both Android and iOS users. It’s not going to make a dramatic impact, but it could be a big help for personal streaming where you only expect a handful of people to watch. And that’s the point, really — Instagram wants the feature to be widely used by everyone, not just celebrities who can expect hundreds or thousands of viewers as a matter of course.

Source: Instagram