Rumors continue to strongly suggest that the next-generation iPhone will feature a 4-inch screen. According to industry sources reporting to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is has already begun ordering this new larger screens which will replace the current 3.5-inch standard that has been used since the original iPhone surfaced in 2007.

According to these same sources, Apple will start working on the new iPhone at the production level sometime next month, but the phone itself isn’t expected until sometime this fall. While we don’t know for sure whether the rumor is true or not, it could be happening- after all, the trend of making phones with 4 and 5-inch screens is becoming more and more common on the Android front, and a 4-inch screen could still fit into a similar iPhone form factor, so it wouldn’t have to be a radical change in overall size and weight. What do you think, any truth behind the rumors of a 4-inch next-gen, bigger iPhone?

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From Star Wars blaster rifles, to lightsabers, and photon torpedos, the idea of using a laser as a weapon has certainly been popular in the realms of science fiction. In reality though? The idea has always been one that scientists have been receptive of, but too many limitations have, up until now, kept it from truly being used beyond medicine and industry.

Now military contractor Northrop Grumman has test-fired its nex-generation Firestrick solid-state laser, called Gamma. This test was to get a better idea of the potential of “Gamma” as a weapon and was conducted at the company’s Redondo Beach laboratory. The test showed that a laser could burn through the skin and critical components of a target drone that they used to represent an anti-ship cruise missile, the kind that often threatens US navy ships.

Basically, Gamma operated during the test at 13.3 kW for a number of shots that were conducted over a one-and-a-half hour period with stable performance. With only a 13.3 kW output, you might be thinking, “Okay, that can’t do a whole lot though”, but the test was merely to measure the ruggedness, stability and power of the Gamma laser concept. The beauty of the system is that it is designed to be “chainable,” meaning, that you can link together several of these little guys to create a big guy capable of 100 kilowatt shots and weighing just 1.5 tons.

While I wouldn’t expect a bunch of powerful Gamma-equiped tanks and battleships to flood the US military anytime soon, it is clear that the time for change is coming and that ideas that have long been stuck in the realm of science fiction, like lasers, are becoming closer than ever to reality. Perhaps my dream of owning a real light saber may someday still come true. In the mean-time, I could always use one of the unique light sabers we saw just a short while ago.

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Yes, the prototype looks very crude with all the exposed circuitry and wires, but this is quite the remarkable little contraption by three engineering students from Cornell University. It’s a power glove that can effectively be used as a sign language translator.

Before you get too excited about the prospects, right now the glove is only able to “translate” the different letters of the alphabet, so it’s not able to translate the signs for specific words just yet. There is also only one glove, so any sign that would involve both hands wouldn’t be possible either. That said, as a working prototype, it’s still quite impressive.

The glove contains a series of contact sensors, flex sensors, and accelerometers to determine the hand and finger position of the user. The glove can then communicate wirelessly through the transceiver back to a computer that can display or audibly read out the signed letters. The students have even created a basic game where you sign the letters as they fall from the top of the screen.

Some work could be done with advancing into more complex signs, speeding up performance, and cleaning up the appearance, but as you can see in the video below, the ASL translator glove definitely works.

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You know those scanners implemented by the TSA that can see through your clothing? They utilize terahertz (THz) radiation and it turns out that this could literally “unzip” the DNA molecule. And now they’re thinking of implementing the technology in mobile devices.

Fitting somewhere between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, the terahertz wave is able to penetrate through porous material like clothing and wood, allowing the TSA security personnel to see if you’re hiding something in your underwear. It could also be used by medical professionals to find small tumors without invasive surgery or, in a more novel sense, for consumers to get “X-ray vision” like Superman.

But all is not well. Dr. Boian Alexandrov is a researcher at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory and he has found that terahertz waves destroy human DNA, unzipping the helix strand. This could cause sickness, cancer or even death. To make matters worse, Dr. Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and a professor of electrical engineering, University of Texas at Dallas have developed a CMOS chip for mobile phones that broadcast THz waves, giving cell phones radiation imaging capabilities. It sounds cool, but could be dangerous.

“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” Dr. O said. “The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and a transmitter on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”  Due to privacy concerns, Dr. O and his team are focused on uses in the distance range of less than four inches.

Clearly, more research is warranted.

It seems that rumors regarding the 7.85-inch iPad continue to persist, with a new one claiming that it will use “G/F2” Thin-film touch technology when it releases in the 4th quarter of this year. The rumor comes from industry sources, according to DigiTimes.

Using a G/F2 design can reduce costs and will allow the new iPad Mini to have a much lower price point than past models, since it will basically have one less layer of film than the glass/film/film structure that is used in the current model iPads. The same “industry sources” claim that Nitto will supply the key thin-film materials and Nissha Printing and TPK will produce the actual touch screens.

Keep in mind that this is still speculation at this point. While Jobs shrugged off the idea of a smaller tablet at one point, in a post-Jobs world it might be wise for Apple to have a variety of competing models- New iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3 eventually, and a Mini to better help it in the upcoming battle that is expected with the introduction of Windows 8. What do you think, is an Apple iPad Mini coming this year?

Samsung Galaxy S III is on its way to all four major US carriers. Waiting impatiently to get your hands on it? That’s understandable. Luckily there are a few test shots from their respective 8MP camera models.

For those that  haven’t been following its specs, the Samsung Galaxy S III has the following specifications: 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED 720p display, Android 4.0 ICS, 8MP rear camera, 1.9MP front camera, S Beam, AllShare Play, AllShare Cast, S Voice, burst shot mode, Smart Stay, Social Tag, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, GPS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, 16/32/64GB storage, microSD expansion (up to 64GB) and a 2100mAh battery.

Here is a look at the AT&T variant, the SGH-I747

Here’s the Verizon version, the SCH-I535

Here’s the T-Mobile version, the SGH-T999.

Here is the Sprint version, the SPH-L710

As you can tell, the 8MP camera in the Samsung Galaxy S III takes a very attractive picture, no matter what the phone version.

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Siri has just gotten a little sassy, with a new update that provides a little wit along the way. When asked for the “Best smartphone ever” Siri will respond with witty responses rather than giving details on the Nokia Lumia 900. Before the update, asking for the “best smartphone” would say, “the one you are holding”, but saying best smartphone ever would direct to the Lumia 900.

As of today, though it will say things like, “You’re kidding, right?” While that is a sufficient enough response for the most part, I honestly think it could have come up with something even more witty- but maybe that’s just me.

Siri offers a number of funny responses on various topics, such as where to hide a body. Asking things like the meaning of life, will return the a quote from “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” saying it is the number 42.

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First, the futuristic-looking frame (3.53 pounds) is made from carbon fiber and it houses a touchscreen-equipped computer with WiFi, plus the necessary lithium-ion battery pack to power it. The wheels (1.32 pounds each) are made from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). Together, this keeps the weight down to just 46.3 pounds including the swappable battery and, thus, helps to make the e-bike more efficient. The motor peaks at 2.3kW for 250 Nm of torque.

Second, there are five “travel” modes on this e-bike. They range from getting you to rely on your pedal power alone to allowing you to cruise on electric power alone, the latter of which has a top speed of about 31mph. There are also two “wheelie” modes where the power is controlled to help you keep that front wheel in the air, offering better stability and balance.  No word on price or release date.

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BTE-Dan (Build The Enterprise Dan?) has published specifications for the iconic spacecraft, as well as estimations for the costs involved. He also has a mission plan and funding strategies, demonstrating that he has really thought this out. If everything goes according to plan, he said the real USS Enterprise (called the Gen1 Enterprise) could be built in as little as 20 years.

While his proposed Gen1 Enterprise will bear a resemblance to its sci-fi counterpart, its function will be a little different. This Enterprise will be a “spaceship, a space station, and a spaceport,” working in some ways similar to the current International Space Station, though BTE-Dan decries the lack of gravity on the ISS. He’s overcome it with a rotating magnetically-suspended gravity wheel in the saucer section, generating 1g. He also bemoans the “comical and primitive” toilet facilities and the cramped quarters. His Gen1 Enterprise would be home to about 1000 people.

As expensive as it sounds, Dan claims the the project would constitute only (I say only) 0.27 percent of the United States’ GDP, and would allow the construction of ever-more advanced Enterprises every 33 years. Dan claims this compares favorably to the Apollo era, when NASA’s budget averaged 0.5 percent of the country’s GDP. Further, at a spend of $40 billion per year, Dan reckons this equates to 1.1 percent of the 2012 budget.

This spaceship is not designed to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Instead, the 1.5 GW nuclear-powered ion engine is for intra-solar system missions, reaching the Moon in 3 days and Mars in 90 days. It would not have any “faster than the speed of light” warp drives. One small step for man? One giant waste of time for mankind?

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There is a limit to how big the display of a smartphone can be and it’s always better if we can watch photos and videos on devices with bigger screens. But in the future, a new LED projector being developed by the researchers at Fraunhofer could be able to help.

A smartphone in the future, like an iPhone 5, could be equipped with this projector to project images onto a surface and you will be able to interact with the projection with your finger the same way you would do on the phone’s screen. The projector is based on an insect’s compound eye and it actually consists of small microprojectors.

Researcher Marcel Sieler says, “Our projector consists of hundreds of tiny microprojectors in an array, each of which generates a complete image. This technology, known as ‚array projection, is modeled on nature – on the compound eye found in some insects – and with it for the first time we can create very thin and bright LED projection systems with tremendous imaging properties”.

Each microprojector will project the same image onto a surface and all the individual images will overlap to result in a very sharp and bright overall image. And based on how far it is from the surface, each microprojector can also independently adjust the focus of its image. The necessary data for this could be provided by the phone’s position sensor and camera. The researchers made the projected screen touch sensitive via the use of infrared beams.

But the system needs more work to be done on it and it won’t be available in smartphones sometime soon. But they will be showing it off at the Optatec trade fair in Frankfurt later this month.