Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 4 Oct 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/02180911273/dailydirt-diamonds-diamonds-everywhere.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101004/02180911273/dailydirt-diamonds-diamonds-everywhere.shtml Aluminum used to be the most expensive metal in the world... but it's no longer as highly regarded as it once was. Here are just a few links on one of our favorite allotropes of carbon.

• Forget OxiClean. The "power of diamonds" can help clean away tough stains in every laundry load. Nanodiamond particles in laundry detergents can dislodge dirt from fabrics without using hot water -- saving energy and adding some sparkle. [url]
• There's a recently de-classified deposit of impact diamonds in Russia -- and it's so big that it's estimated that this resource could serve the world's diamond needs for 3,000 years. These impact diamonds are twice as hard as traditional gemstones because they're formed when a carbon-rich meteor collides with the earth and the resulting explosion creates this unique material. [url]
• Diamonds aren't as rare as most people think they are -- if you're willing (or able) to travel a few thousand light years, you can find a whole planet made of diamond. A carbon-rich planet that is probably crystalline (and hence diamond-like) orbits the pulsar J1719-1438, and it's the most dense planet seen so far. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101004/02180911273 Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100329/1822088773/dailydirt-open-source-robots.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100329/1822088773/dailydirt-open-source-robots.shtml

An open source robot surgeon called Raven is making some impressive progress in the field of medicine. However, its advancements could be threatened by the makers of the da Vinci Surgical System -- and various patents on robot surgery procedures. [url]

PhillieBot is a one-armed robo-pitcher designed by engineers at Penn that threw a ceremonial opening pitch for an MLB game. The creators credit the open source robot operating system (ROS), but also admit that their robot won't be competing with human pitchers any time soon. [url]

In 2010, Willow Garage modified its open source PR2 robot to do a laundry task -- successfully folding towels neatly. The towels don't have to be a specific size or color, but it does take some patience to wait for a pile of towels to be completed. [url]

To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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