DailyDirt: You Gotta Show Some Flex

Sometimes, the key to kicking off a whole new world of technology is a brand new material. The discovery and/or creation of new materials with useful properties is pursued in engineering, chemistry and physics - sometimes with world-changing results, and other times producing only curiosities. Lately, it seems like a lot of the most interesting material advances have to do with flexibility in one way or another, like these four creations that might end up enabling the devices of the future:

• An elastic material that goes from matte to shiny when stretched could have future applications in flexible displays. But there are a lot of tests to be done to see if that's really a possibility - for now, it looks like this substance might be more useful as a passive strain sensor for other materials. [url]
• MIT researchers have taken very early steps towards creating "fabric" that can capture images like a camera lens. The system captures images with a distributed fabric mesh, though all it's captured so far is a rudimentary smiley face. [url]
• "Flexiramics" is an ultra-thin, foldable and flexible material that shares a lot of key properties with ceramics and might help create flexible circuit boards. It's non-conductive and can withstand over 24 hours in a 1,200C oven. [url]
• This newly-created metallic glass is both hard and elastic, thanks to an almost-completely-disorganized atomic structure. It has the highest impact resistance of any material in its class, and goes by the not-so-memorable name of SAM2X5-630. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.