Sapphire ‘hard disk’ seen as way to warn future generations about toxic sites

Because of the near eternal threat that certain toxic and radioactive waste poses, international researchers are looking into elaborate "keep out" signs for for dump sites to be read by distant generations of humans. One such option has been proposed by Patrick Charton of the French nuclear waste agency ANDRA. It's a disk made of sapphire that, when viewed under a microscope, would reveal warnings in text and pictures interacting them to leave the site alone, in case futurecivilizations don't speak the same languages we do.

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Samsung wins court case against Apple because it's "not as cool"

Samsung Electronics defeated Apple in the latest spat in the rivals' patent wars when a British judge ruled Samsung's Galaxy tablets did not infringe the U.S. company's designs for the iPad because they were "not as cool".

In Monday's High Court judgment Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung's Galaxy tablets belonged to the same family as the Apple design when viewed from the front, but the Samsung products were "very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back".

"They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool," he said. "The overall impression produced is different."

The victory for Samsung comes days after a U.S. appeals court lifted a freeze on sales of its Galaxy Nexus smartphones, although it upheld a lower court's decision to temporarily halt sales of its Galaxy 10.1 tablet

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Sony, Apple and others receive Red Dot awards for product design

The Red Dot awards were handed out and we have several winners in the mobile space. Sony in particular was quite proud of its achievement - it walked away with four awards plus an honorable mention.

The Sony Xperia ion and the Xperia active both got product design awards in the Communication category. The SmartDock for the Xperia ion got an award of its own and Sony's Smart Wireless Headset pro snatched one too. The Sony Xperia ray received an honorable mention.

Sony wasn’t the only winner though, Red Dot handed out quite a few awards to other phones. The HTC Droid Incredible 2 got one, as did the Alcatel OT-916, Lenovo S800, Vodafone 555 Blue and 858 Smart.

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Samsung Galaxy Beam goes on sale in the UK for £395

The Samsung Galaxy Beam is finally up for grabs in the UK. Up until a couple of months ago it wasavailable for pre-order but carried a hefty price tag of £430.

Now, UK retailer Expansys has it for the more reasonable £395. While it's not the best discount possible, it's still reasonable for an Android smartphone with a built-in projector.

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Sony LT30 device leaks via Bluetooth certification

An unknown Sony device, codenamed the LT30, has shown up on the official Bluetooth certification page.

While there are unfortunately no known images of the device as of yet, the specs listed are quite impressive, perhaps even flagship-esque.

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New iPhone to supposedly feature quad-core CPU based on Exynos 4

HTC, Samsung, and LG and Huawei are among the big-name manufacturers to release quad-core smartphones this year, and it seems like Apple will be putting its name on that list.

Rumors abound that the upcoming new iPhone will feature a quad-core A6 processor produced by Samsung, which will essentially be a modified quad-core Exynos 4 series chip.

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