Month: January 2020

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  The updated HP Elite Dragonfly (left) next to the updated HP Spectre x360 15 (right). [credit: Valentina Palladino ]

HP's Elite Dragonfly laptop may have only come out a month or two ago, but the company is already updating it. The newest member of the Elite family received mostly an internal update ahead of CES 2020, including 10th-gen Intel processors and a new Tile integration that should make it easier for users to find their misplaced laptops.

We reviewed the Elite Dragonfly last month and were impressed at how well it combined a thin-and-light design with solid performance and good battery life. We were disappointed that the laptop didn't launch with 10th-gen Intel processors, but the wait for that is now over. Any users buying an Elite Dragonfly in 2020 will have the option to get the newest processors, as well as HP's 4th-gen SureView privacy screen technology and newly added support for 5G. The latter expands upon the Elite Dragonfly's optional LTE support and, while nice to include in a spec sheet, it does more to future-proof the device than it does to add immediate value for users.

HP also partnered with Tile to bring device-tracking features to the Elite Dragonfly. Tile makes small Bluetooth trackers that you can attach to your keys, stick in your backpack, and place with other important possessions to monitor their location using the Tile mobile app. The new Elite Dragonfly laptops will have Tile technology embedded into the chassis, allowing users to find their laptop if they lose it.

Enlarge / A lattice structure, originally printed flat, has morphed into the outline of a human face after changing the surrounding temperature. The facial shape is based on the likeness of Carl Friedrich Gauss. (credit: Lori K. Sanders)

The next big thing in 3D printing just might be so-called "4D materials" which employ the same manufacturing techniques, but are designed to deform over time in response to changes in the environment, like humidity and temperature. They're also sometimes known as active origami or shape-morphing systems. MIT scientists successfully created flat structures that can transform into much more complicated structures than had previously been achieved, including a human face. They published their results last fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Prior researchers had successfully come up with ways to get such materials to shape-shift into simple structures. MIT mechanical engineer Wim van Rees, a co-author of the PNAS paper, devised a theoretical method to turn a thin flat sheet into more complex shapes, like spheres, domes, or a human face. "My goal was to start with a complex 3-D shape that we want to achieve, like a human face, and then ask, 'How do we program a material so it gets there?'" he said. "That's a problem of inverse design."

But his original simulations were for an idealized sheet of material with no boundaries on how much it could expand or contract, and most real-world materials do have limits. It's a problem of "double curvature," first described by 19th century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.