Satellite imagery has just gained a whole new dimension, literally. NASA’s new CloudSat is sending back its first images, which aren’t just normal pictures but three dimensional profiles of cloud formations. These radar images should supply us with new data that will increase our understanding of weather, and consequently the environment in general – which, at the moment, can only be a good thing.

After years of research and experimentation, scientists can finally grow diamonds that are the same (or better) quality as the ones that come from mines. Bad news for De Beers perhaps, but not for the electronics world – diamonds grown like this could be used as a semiconductor alternative to silicon. The repercussions on the next few decades of Moore’s Law are potentially huge, as Brian Wang points out.

Mike Kuniavsky (he of the magic wand) has put together a bibliography of the use of magic as a metaphor for interacting with electronic devices.

Alloy is an application that tests software at the design stage, where the kinds of problems that ruin an application can appear. It’s not a trivial problem; an application of moderate complexity can have a near-infinite number of possible states.

New portable-media-phone-computer-GPS too big to fit in those tight tight jeans? Wouldn’t it be great if you could, well, fold up those inconvenient devices? Sony certainly think so, and have just patented a technique that would allow gadgets to be made rigid or flexible as the situation dictates, with minimal power drain.