<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"An invisible, music-playing and sound-canceling gel may soon coat your smartphone, laptop screen, television, and even your car windows.\nThis stretchy hydrogel speaker, a prototype invented by a team of Harvard University scientists, was created by combining saltwater and polymers that are then hooked up to electrodes. A thin rubber sheet is sandwiched between two layers of gel, and ions carry a current in the gel that vibrates the rubber to make sound waves. The process is not unlike the way the human body transmits electric signals that tell the heart to beat, which is where the Harvard team got its idea.\nSEE ALSO: 8 Best Speakers for iPhone\nThe gel produces the full range of sound and can be stretched across a variety of screens, including windows. It works in reverse, too, blocking outside noise while you're reading at home.\nDr. Christoph Keplinger, one of the scientists who developed the speakers, believes the gel's capabilities range even further. It has the ability to create local vibrations, say on individual letters of a phone's keyboard.\n\"If I'm typing an email on my smartphone, I often hit the wrong buttons,\" Keplinger said, in an interview with Mashable. \"But if each button had its own vibration, you could feel what you touch.\"\nThe one problem with hydrogel is the water quickly evaporates, rendering the speaker useless, and not commercially viable, until the issue is solved. The Harvard scientists have yet to come up with a solution, but Keplinger said they're working on it. You can read more about the project here [PDF link].\nSo, would you be interested in a gel that can both blast music and block sound? Check out the video above and let us know in the comments.\nImage:\u00A0Flickr, MildlyDiverting\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/09/17/gel-speakers-cancel-sound/>