Self-Repairing Plastic

Researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi have developed a new type of plastic that can mimic the behavior of human skin. Presented at an annual meeting of the American Chemical Society on Monday, the material turns red when damaged and can self-heal with little more than exposure to light.

"Mother Nature has endowed all kinds of biological systems with the ability to repair themselves," said lead researcher and professor Marek W. Urban, who reported on the development in San Diego this week. "Some we can see, like the skin healing and new bark forming in cuts on a tree trunk," he continued. The new plastic is made from water-based copolymers, which is said to be more environmentally-friendly than other plastics and contains small molecular links referred to as "bridges" that span the length of the material. When the item is damaged, bridges break and form a red splotch around the "injury." From there, the material can repair itself by being placed in the sun or another intense light source, as well as by being introduced to changes in temperature or pH. Unlike other products with regenerative qualities, such as the University of Illinois' self-repairing circuits, Urban's plastic can heal itself indefinitely. Naturally, such a plastic would find countless practical applications spanning all industries, but there is no word on when it'll hit the market. Nissan's "Scratch Shield" paint has already shown uses for self-healing surfaces in the automotive business and it's still expected to ship on an iPhone case this year.

Xbox 720

Microsft will release the next version of Xbox (a.k.a Xbox 720) in 2013 at the earliest, as the company squeezes at least one more year of sales out of its current model, according to two sources. They may show it off June 2013 at the E3 conference and put it on sale that same year, said the people, who declined to be named because the plans are confidential. David Dennis, a company spokesman, said earlier today that Microsoft won’t discuss new Xbox hardware at this year’s E3, quelling speculation that the device would be unveiled at the 2012 show.

Rumor: New iPhone to have 4.6" Retina Display

The latest reports from the rumor mill indicate that Apple’s next iPhone will ship with a 4.6-inch Retina display. If true, the sixth generation handset from Cupertino would be the first to deviate from the 3.5-inch display that first shipped with the original iPhone in 2007.

Maeil Business Newspaper out of South Korea claims that unnamed industry sources say that Apple has started placing orders with suppliers for the larger display. The piece noted that LG Display and Samsung Electronics, two of Apple’s major display suppliers, declined to comment on the rumor.

However, Macrumors has weighed in on the subject, casting doubt on the validity of the claim and the source. A post that first appeared on iLounge last November says an anonymous source correctly predicted that the new iPad would be a little thicker than the iPad 2. In the same post, the source said that the next generation iPhone wouldn’t feature the teardrop design that hit the rumor mill heavily last year.

It is more likely that we will see a 4" display with a metal casting (probably aluminum). It is possible that we will see this new iPhone launched as soon as this summer.

AMD Radeon HD 7990 Details Leaked

Chinese website inpai.com.cn leaked the specifications of the dual GPU Radeon HD 7990 model, which could be here as early as next month.

According to the leaked specifications, the HD 7990 will feature two Tahiti-XT 7970 graphics cores using the 28nm architecture, with 8.6-billion transistors and 4,096 processors combined, a total of 256 texture units, 64 ROPs, and a massive 6GB of GDDR5 memory shared across both of the GPUs using two 384-bit channels.

As with the previous dual-GPU release, each GPU-core will be clocked slightly lower than their respective HD 7970 models, at 850MHz (HD 7970 has 925MHz) with the frame buffer set at an effective 5,000MHz, which again is 500MHz lower per GPU-core than the HD 7970 is clocked at.

There is currently no word on the TDP wattage, or the number of power connections, though it is very likely it will employ two 8-pin sockets. There is also no news on crossfire support either, but it is safe to assume that you’ll be able to at least pair them up in crossfire, as with the previous generation HD 6990.

This new dual-GPU model will pack a monstrous punch and you can bet a monstrous price.