Honda's carbon nanotubes will change the world

Carbon nanotubes have otherworldly qualities, and now Honda says its figured out a way to make the manufacture of such miraculous materials practical. Get this: Honda says its carbon nanotubes are:

• 100,000 times thinner than human hair
• Stronger than steel
• Conduct electricity better than copper
• Conduct heat better than a diamond
• Light as cotton

Imagine constructing our world from such materials, resulting in lighter and stronger cars, tinier computers, super capacitors, more efficient flexible batteries, more powerful solar panels, practical fuel cells, super-strong composite materials, and maybe even a Spider-Man suit. The breakthrough? Honda says it can manufacture such nanotubes with a 91% success rate, compared to the 25 to 50% success rate currently possible.
[DVICE via Jalopnik]

Panasonic rolls out new Toughbooks with Windows 7 and 16 hours of battery life

Panasonic’s Let’s Note (aka Toughbook) series is the favorite choice among many Japanese hackers. And today the company announced [JP] two new notebooks from the series with Windows 7 on board. Panasonic says their 16 hours of battery life is unmatched in the industry.
The so-called N8 and S8 are the models Panasonic will market in Japan as “winter season computers”. The S8 has an internal super-multi drive, but otherwise the main specs are identical for both Toughbooks: Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 processor (2.53GHz), 250GB HDD, 12.1-inch WXGA LCD, 2GB RAM (max: 4GB RAM), Wi-Fi, WiMax, one SD slot, one HDMI interface and three USB 2.0 ports.

The S8 and N8 will go on sale in Japan on October 22 (prices: $2,400 for the S8 and $2,300 for the N8). No word yet on international sales plans from Panasonic.


[CrunchGear]