A scientist demonstrates a piece of flexible display made with stainless-steel foil.

This 1.7-inch, 268x240-resolution display shown at an April presentation was developed with materials from Honeywell.

(Credit: Arizona State University )

The U.S. Army has committed to renewing its partnership and providing another $50 million to Arizona State University's flexible-display research facility, the university announced on Thursday.

That brings the Army's total investment since the Flexible Display Center (FDC) started in 2004 to $100 million.

The announcement comes in conjunction with a two-day event in Tempe, Ariz., near ASU, in which the U.S. Army and Flexible Display Center plan to showcase their progress to the public.

So why is the military so keen on flexible displays?

It's all about information and communications...and possibly profit.

A mock-up of a roll-out electronic map provides just one creative example of how flexible displays might be useful to the U.S. Army.

(Credit: U.S. Army)

Flexible displays are paper-thin electronic screens that can be bent, mounted onto objects, and sewn into clothing. Soldiers could easily wear them on their sleeves or wrists, and use them to receive critical data in real time in the form of instructions, photos, or maps.

In addition, flexible displays can be made more durable than regular LCD screens, allowing them to get banged around in combat and still work. They also consume only a fraction of the power of LCDs.

That doesn't just make them good for the military; it also makes for cool tech products.

That commercial value is something the military, ASU, and its partners clearly have in mind.

Originally posted at Planetary Gear

The PC maker has had a recycling program for years that lets consumers determine the value of their old tech equipment, then receive a credit for that value ...

Originally posted at Green Tech

A solar-paneled Prius done by Solar Electric Vehicles.

Toyota is developing a solar-powered Prius, the Nikkei newspaper has reported yet again.

It was interesting when we heard about this in July.

But it seems to us that someone over at Toyota has now been fake-leaking/hinting news about ...

Originally posted at Green Tech

A new feature from Ford Motor will allow drivers to let their car do the steering when faced with a parallel parking space, the company announced Tuesday.

This latest car gadget, which Ford calls Active Park Assist, works slightly differently then the park assist feature on Toyota's self-parking Lexus....

Originally posted at Planetary Gear

Doing any last-minute holiday shopping for that religious yet tech-savvy someone in your life?

On Monday, the Vatican formally endorsed an iPhone application that allows users to load the Breviary prayer book, prayers for saying a Catholic Mass, and other prayers.

The application, called iBreviary, was created by ...

1. Cheap storage. I've run out of room for all the photos, music, audio books, and videos I've amassed. I don't need to stream wirelessly or transfer data quickly. I just need a place to throw all those episodes of Spain...On the Road Again that I paid for so might as well keep. For my simple needs, the Western Digital My Book Edition (2TB) external 2-terabyte hard drive looks good. With Raid 0 and 1 support, I can set it up to mirror--use each terabyte to store my stuff in duplicate. Once I fill a terabyte, I can switch to using it as a straight 2-terabyte hard drive. It doesn't have Firewire, but a USB 2.0 connection is fine if it means getting 2 terabytes of storage for about $250.

2. Compact camera. I'm in the opposite boat as Dujmovic. I've been whooping it up with my Canon Rebel XT (literally running out of wall space for my large frame photos). Now I need to replace my elderly Canon PowerShot S100 Digital Elph (only 2.1 megapixels and a tiny 1.5-inch screen). I want a sleek ultracompact with at least 7 megapixels, a 3-inch screen, and video. I'd like the Nikon Coolpix S60, or the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T70 or DSC-W130. If it's on sale, the 10-megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 that comes with 4GB of built-in storage and a cool brushed stainless look would be even better.

3. Donations to Room to Read. While I crave more room in my life for time to read books, others crave the books themselves. A former Microsoft executive left his Redmond life to do something about that. Room to Read is an education-focused charity that helps communities build libraries, schools, local language publishing firms for children's books, computer labs, and scholarship funds. You can choose which country and project you want your money to support.

According to Room to Read, 86 percent of your money goes straight to projects in need. The organization also been a Motley Fool charity pick for its "long-term, sustainable goals, and transparent, sound finances."

MTI Micro is not the first, and hopefully won't be the last, company to go to the fuel cell for portable convenient power. (People refer to these new tries as "...

Originally posted at Planetary Gear

So it should be no surprise that the German carmaker wants to lure in potential customers with another cool high-tech tool.

The BMW Product Navigator, which

Originally posted at Planetary Gear

The Roomba 416 comes with 2 beacons for controlling where it vacuums, but does not offer the onboard scheduling feature of the higher-end Roomba models.

Many CNET readers have been complaining that they're not seeing the major deals they thought the economy would encourage in electronics.

I ...

Originally posted at Planetary Gear

Microsoft released the latest version of its robot-building platform for professionals, and hobbyists of the Lego Mindstorms AlphaRex level.

Microsoft released the latest revision of its robotics development software platform at the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo in Santa Clara, Calif. on Monday

Robotics Developer Studio 2008 is intended to satisfy the gamut of roboticists from hobbyists looking to program things like the iRobot Create to professionals developing commercial robots for sale.

As such there are three versions of the software: Express, Standard and Academic.

The Standard version for professionals will be available for $499.95, with the Express hobbyist version offered as a free download. (Pricing for an Academic license was not disclosed.)

This latest version of the software platform offers increased runtime performance, including faster load times and increased throughput.

The platform's Visual Programming Language (VPL) tool, Microsoft's drag-and-drop authoring tool, has been updated for greater ease of use when working with distributed applications, according to Microsoft.

Simulations can now be recorded and played back using the Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) tool to see what things might go wrong before testing applications out on hardware.

Originally posted at Planetary Gear