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I'm kinda torn about such announcements. Here's a new material that is stronger, lighter, and thinner than anything else on Earth. 300 times stronger than stee

I'm kinda torn about such announcements. Here's a new material that is stronger, lighter, and thinner than anything else on Earth. 300 times stronger than steel! One atom thickness! How cool is that!? So you have this amazing breakthough and the (first?) application to use it is... "build cell phones that are extremely light, durable, and less susceptible to overheating"? Seriously? Should we feel excited for shaving off a few grams of weight from 0.12 kg toy gadgets and making them last longer? Most people rush to replace their iThingie N when then iThingie N+1 hits the stores after a year or two anyway. Are these real problems, even as first world problems go? Reading such news feels like hearing about a child prodigy with PhD in quantum physics at 16 working on ad targeting problems for Zynga...

cududa 14y ago
I disagree. For one, they aren't the only company included in this consortium. Having motivations of productization is actually a fantastic incentive for them to develop the technology to where it can be manufactured at a reasonable cost. Their work with the rest of the consortium will do wonderful things to bringing graphene into everything from consumer electronics to space exploration.
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barista 14y ago
I'm sure it will expand over time in multiple industries. Think Kinect. It started as a gaming device but is also starting to be used in physiotherapy and other medical applications.
akiselev 14y ago
It is by no means the first application and certainly not the one Nokia will focus on. They will continue basic material science research into flexible electronics, LEDs/LCDs, and power storage. Graphene's uses are many more, however, including water filtration, transistors, meta materials, sensors, etc.
nakedrobot2 14y ago
it doesn't really matter what the first application is. what matters is, they are trying to apply graphene to an application with HUGE SCALE. this will (hopefully) make all other applications also more viable (i.e. cheap!). When you have one factory churning out millions of parts, they will want to keep their machines going 24/7. I look forward to future kickstarter projects utilizing graphene casing, made by a nokia factory in between larger runs....

cududa 14y ago

I disagree. For one, they aren't the only company included in this consortium. Having motivations of productization is actually a fantastic incentive for them to develop the technology to where it can be manufactured at a reasonable cost. Their work with the rest of the consortium will do wonderful things to bringing graphene into everything from consumer electronics to space exploration.

deleted 14y ago
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barista 14y ago

I'm sure it will expand over time in multiple industries. Think Kinect. It started as a gaming device but is also starting to be used in physiotherapy and other medical applications.

akiselev 14y ago

It is by no means the first application and certainly not the one Nokia will focus on. They will continue basic material science research into flexible electronics, LEDs/LCDs, and power storage. Graphene's uses are many more, however, including water filtration, transistors, meta materials, sensors, etc.

nakedrobot2 14y ago

it doesn't really matter what the first application is. what matters is, they are trying to apply graphene to an application with HUGE SCALE. this will (hopefully) make all other applications also more viable (i.e. cheap!). When you have one factory churning out millions of parts, they will want to keep their machines going 24/7. I look forward to future kickstarter projects utilizing graphene casing, made by a nokia factory in between larger runs....