Comments on: A fun thing to do at CES: wrap orange goo around your finger and whack it with a mallet

By: Daniel Goldsworthy

Daniel Goldsworthy — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:29:00 +0000

This case won’t protect the phone from the sudden deceleration that it is still subject to. I imagine that this could cause internal damage too

By: Ken Williams

Ken Williams — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 03:44:00 +0000

I totally *smashed* the competition a few years ago in a neighborhood egg-drop contest by suspending the egg in a baggie in the middle of some oobleck (corn starch & water). It escaped perfectly unscathed.

Unfortunately about half of peoples’ eggs survived intact too, they weren’t dropped from very high, and parachutes etc. were allowed. So about half of us smashed the competition in a dozen-way tie for first place. But I was pretty sure mine was the awesomest. As did everyone else, probably.

By: Jim Davison

Jim Davison — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:43:00 +0000

So, is the legitimate? Or is the business plan is something like, “Find non-newtonian putty, make it orange. Take generic phone protectors, add trace amounts of putty, make them orange. Make infomercial style claims about their similar properties, and sell a bunch before people look too closely”

By: Joel Burton

Joel Burton — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:50:00 +0000

http://www.d3o.com/ is the link to the company that makes the ‘goo’ you are seeing in this video

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:17:00 +0000

Yes.

By: DreadJester

DreadJester — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 01:38:00 +0000

I’d like to see him wrap his finger in the thiner material that he says is actually in the phone case and hit it with the same hammer……..

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 01:09:00 +0000

Perhaps it’s a way of demonstrating the underlying properties of the material without a long, complicated (and trade-secret revealing) explanation of the actual product?

By: LightningRose

LightningRose — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 00:07:00 +0000

As envisioned by John Brunner in his 1968 novel, “Stand on Zanzibar”.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1745

By: TheOven

TheOven — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:52:00 +0000

I had a look at their other products and they make motorcycle gear, knee-pads for construction workers etc. There’s a huge market for something like this. Very interesting. Soon, this will be bullet proof. I wonder how much it weighs.

By: TheOven

TheOven — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:50:00 +0000

It’s corn starch and water.

By: Florian Bösch

Florian Bösch — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 23:16:00 +0000

Chemistry: 99.9% petrochemical.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:46:00 +0000

Agreed. Besides that phone case is how thick exactly? Even turning into a more “solid” solid there isn’t very much material to absorb an impact. I certainly think it be a fine and dandy phone protector, but I doubt it be much better than other things on the market.

By: David Guilbeault

David Guilbeault — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:58:00 +0000

Snake Oil?

By: Listener43

Listener43 — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:19:00 +0000

I can tell by the pixels!

By: Gary Quick

Gary Quick — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:02:00 +0000

I have a pound of orange silly putty that looks pretty much the same.
Silly putty will shatter if you hit it hard enough with a hammer.
One way to look at it is that in a very short time-span it behaves like a solid. A very quick hammer strike. Over longer time-span it behaves more like a liquid. Where it oozes and you can easily stretch it slowly.

By: Hawkins Dale

Hawkins Dale — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:56:00 +0000

Hogwash! If you look closely, that’s not his real finger that he’s wailin’ on.

By: Katja

Katja — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:48:00 +0000

Repulsion Gel!

By: Bozobub

Bozobub — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:21:00 +0000

It would seem to make sense as an underlayer for some kind of segmented, hardened shell.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:20:00 +0000

I’ve been hawking up goo all morning. Not sure if I’d want to hit it with a hammer.

By: Bozobub

Bozobub — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:19:00 +0000

To the nth degree, perhaps.

By: Glen Able

Glen Able — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:18:00 +0000

You’re right that a sharp blow would be transmitted through a hard cover. But a soft cover is obviously no good unless it’s very thick – the blow isn’t transmitted, but the mallet doesn’t get stopped.

I think the trick is that the material hardens locally around the impact site and diffuses the energy into the surrounding soft parts.

By: rrh

rrh — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:54:00 +0000

I like the little touch that they give them both the same colour to imply they’re essentially the same, yet one’s a solid and one’s a liquid (Or non-Newtonian fluid) so they’ll have completely different properties.

By: Mark N.

Mark N. — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:49:00 +0000

Neat. A non-nutonian phone case!

By: DreadJester

DreadJester — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:47:00 +0000

Looks like a starch and water mixture reaction. Perhaps it’s got a third ingrediant in it?

By: bigattichouse

bigattichouse — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:46:00 +0000

body armor?

By: rob_cornelius

rob_cornelius — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:41:00 +0000

isnt this just silly putty?

By: millie fink

millie fink — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:39:00 +0000

Seems like a good idea. I wonder what it’s made of. Is it another petroleum by-product?

By: xzzy

xzzy — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:35:00 +0000

Think they have that backwards, I would assume you want the material to go soft in an impact to absorb the shock. It’s the sharp blow that shatters screens, not soft ones.
That said, getting a handful of the stuff as a desk toy would be pretty awesome.