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    CES 2012: A waterproof skin for electronic devices?

    Consumer Reports News: January 11, 2012 01:08 PM

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    How many of us have ever accidentally dropped a smart phone in the toilet? (Confession: I'm raising my hand.) At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, there were a few demonstrations of how your mobile devices may one day place nice with liquids.

    Zagg, a maker of mobile device accessories, showed off its latest innovation called HzO WaterBlock Technology. It's not a polymer film that consumers can buy and apply, but "a molecular coating process" that uses nano-sized particles "to protect consumer electronics, like cellphones, from water or moisture damage."

    How well does it work? At CES, the company featured an Apple mobile device playing digital music while fully immersed in a tank of water. (You can see a similar online video demonstration of HzO waterproof technology below.)

    Zagg hopes to snag manufacturers to implement the HzO technology into future devices' production processes. Waterproof phones and tablets could appear on store shelves as early as this summer.

    HzO WaterBlock Technology [Hzo]

    —Paul Eng with Carol Mangis

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