A Florida-based company by the name of Sharklet (yes, I laughed at the name, too) came up with this plastic film which "is covered with microscopic diamond-shaped bumps" that prevent all sorts of nasties from building up. It's headed off for FDA testing to be approved for hospital use, but so far it's proven to work pretty well in tests and we'll be seeing it on bathroom door knobs and similar surfaces. Just don't use that as an excuse to skip washing your hands, please. [Pop Sci]

"The grab was instantaneous, and the shark cooperated with a quick left turn to allow the proper hook set," said Patterson.

The fight lasted about 25 minutes. Patterson thought it was a mako shark until he got it close enough to the boat and skipper Conway Bowman identified it as a great white.

Interestingly, "Patterson" happens to be Jeff Patterson, director of sales for Abel products. He was conducting tests with their equipment about five miles off the La Jolla coast—or so the story goes. Be that as it may, it is believed to be the first great white taken off the coast of California using a fly rod and wheel. However, it is illegal to capture great whites because of their protected status, so it was set free shortly after this picture was snapped. So, watch your ass California beachgoers—Jaws is out there and presumed pissed. [LA Times]

Just a concept for the time being, "Sharky" is already lighting up the imaginations of Hollywood. It's reported that Spielberg will be returning to his Jaws roots, but this time bringing along the creative visionary of Titanic James Cameron and—agreements willing—LL Cool J reprising his role as a lovable ship chef from Deep Blue Sea. Needless to say, it's a good time to invest in both tea companies, coastal real estate and LL Cool J's Sears clothing line. [Design Boom via bbGadgets]

This is the demo Kushler gave to CNET, where he claims he can get a blazing 50 words per minute with the system. And we believe him—it's quite a sight.

And then we remembered WritingPad—a demo of an Android text editor that uses the exact same interface:

Turns out, as the folks at jkOnTheRun also point out, that the idea of this kind of input system has been around since 2004 (when touchscreens were still kind of from the future), when it was developed by IBM and called SHARK. Now, SHARK is called ShapeWriter, who are the developers of the WritingPad Android app and a similar app for the iPhone. How about that?

Swype is currently near prime time for Windows Mobile, with an SDK to bring it to other platforms in the works. ShapeWriter's Android version of WritingPad is forthcoming, and their iPhone version, which was released briefly before being pulled from the App Store for reasons unknown, should be back soon. No matter who brings it, I'm liking this. [CNET via Gadget Lab, jkOnTheRun, ShapeWriter]

The device upsets the weight of a board a bit, so it takes a few runs to get used to. During that time, if you lose your balance, fall off, untether, and float into the mouth of a great white, you'll be pretty pissed you spent $700 on this fear-mongering piece of technology. Next week on Gizmodo: Portable lightning rod!

Video, post jump.

–Brian Lam

Shark Shield [Get Outdoors Blog]