water

One of the most common and damaging threats that portable electronics face is exposure to water and other liquids. Dropping an iPhone or iPod into a pool, or spilling a glass of water or coffee on a laptop is a sure way to render the device useless in a heartbeat.

Water damage is unfortunately not covered under many basic warranties, and in many of its devices Apple places liquid sensors to determine if a device has been exposed to water or other fluids if it's being serviced. As a result, many times if you've dunked or doused your … Read more

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI today dismissed the conclusions of a report that a cyber intrusion caused a pump at an Illinois water utility to burn out. But the statement doesn't explain why an Illinois state terrorism intelligence center would say it was a hacker when it wasn't.

In the meantime, the DHS is investigating a claim by a hacker who goes by "pr0f" who claimed to have compromised a Texas water utility last week.

"After detailed analysis, DHS and the FBI have found no evidence of a cyber intrusion into the SCADA … Read more

A twentysomething hacker said today that he hacked into a South Houston water utility to show that it can easily be done, after U.S. officials downplayed the risks from a report yesterday of an intrusion at an Illinois water plant.

The hacker, using the alias "pr0f," said he has hacked other SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems too.

He tweeted on November 5 links to public posts with what he identified as PLC configurations for a Polish waste-water treatment plant; SCADA data from an HMI (human-machine interface) box possibly for a generator used for research purposes … Read more

Intruders compromised a water utility network last week and destroyed a pump, according to a state government report cited by a critical infrastructure security expert today.

It appears that hackers breached the network of a company that makes SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and stole customer usernames and passwords, said Joe Weiss, managing partner of Applied Control Solutions. "There was damage--the SCADA system was powered on and off, burning out a water pump," he wrote in a brief blog post.

The report did not identify the water utility attacked or the SCADA software vendor compromised, Weiss said … Read more

The University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has contracted with Cray to provide the supercomputer for the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. That computer will tap AMD's new 16-core processor.

Blue Waters will be composed of more than 235 Cray XE6 cabinets based on the AMD's Opteron 6200 Series processor (formerly code-named "Interlagos") and more than 30 cabinets of a future version of the recently announced Cray XK6 supercomputer with Nvidia Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs), Cray said. All of this will be combined into a single, powerful hybrid supercomputer.

The … Read more

A superhydrophobic spray-on coating set to launch next year could dramatically change our perception of the phrase "water resistant."

NeverWet is a patent-pending silicon-based covering that deflects nearly all liquids and heavy oils by creating a very high contact angle upon application. The angle is much higher than traditional substrates, such as car wax (90 degrees), Teflon (95 degrees), or Rain-X (110 degrees). Liquid literally glides off NeverWet's 160 degree to 175 degree angle in a way that almost seems like computer animation, as seen in the video below.

At first glance, the mind-bending NeverWet comes across as a liquid repellent, but it is much more than that. Surfaces that are sprayed with NeverWet repel ice, corrosion, and even bacteria. The company behind the product, Ross Nanotechnologies, says on its Web site that the material does not fade in strength from blasts of high pressure. In fact, it even states that NeverWet-infused materials "have remained under seawater for over a year and reemerged completely dry." … Read more

Where's My Water? is a charming physics puzzler, in which you funnel clean water to the bathtub of a fastidious little alligator named Swampy.

Where's My Water? ranks among the better arcade puzzlers, sharing some similarities (fast-paced levels, an intuitive interface, and a winningly cartoony protagonist) but with a central schtick that's mostly all its own: you dig paths through dirt, creating channels for liquid to flow from one place to another. Ideally, you'll get enough clean water into a pipe to fill Swampy's tub, but along the way you have to contend with various … Read more

In Sprinkle for Android, its your job to protect the alien inhabitants of Titan, a distant moon being bombarded by flaming asteroids. Armed with a gigantic water cannon, you venture from level to level extinguishing the falling asteroids along with all of the other neighborhood fires they happen to ignite.

Each level challenges you with a number of rampant fires, each on the verge of engulfing a Titanite's home. All you have to do is aim your cannon at each set of flames (sometimes for a few seconds) to make sure that they are completely extinguished. Sound easy? Well, … Read more

The buy one, give one model is branching out. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das shares how shoemaker Freewaters is improving drinking water standards in Africa.

This video first appeared on SmartPlanet under the headline "Flip-flops help fight water scarcity."