including the cores of golf balls, skis, baseball and softball bats, and tennis racquets. The ability to be cast and molded, combined with high wear resistance, has also led to Liquidmetal being used as a replacement for plastics in some applications. It has been used on the casing of late-model SanDisk "Cruzer Titanium" USB flash drives as well as their Sansa line of flash-based MP3 player, and casings of some mobile phones, like the luxury Vertu products, and other toughened consumer electronics. Liquidmetal was used in the Biolase dental laser Ilase and the Socketmobile ring bar code scanner. Liquidmetal has also notably been used for making the SIM ejector tool of some iPhone 3Gs made by Apple Inc., shipped in the US. This was done by Apple as an exercise to test the viability of usage of the metal. They retain a scratch-free surface longer than competing materials, while still being made in complex shapes. The same qualities lend it to use as protective coatings for industrial machinery, including petroleum drill pipes and power plant boiler tubes. It also replaces titanium in applications ranging from medical instruments and cars to the military and aerospace industry. In military applications, rods of amorphous metals replace depleted uranium in kinetic energy penetrators. Plates of Liquidmetal were used in the solar wind ion collector array in the Genesis space probe. Commercial alloys A range of zirconium-based alloys have been marketed under this trade name. Some example compositions are listed below, in molar percent: An early alloy, Vitreloy 1: Zirconium: 41.2, beryllium: 22.5, titanium: 13.8, copper: 12.5, nickel: 10 A variant, Vitreloy 4 (Vit4): Zirconium: 46.75, beryllium: 27.5, titanium: 8.25, copper: 7.5, nickel: 10 Vitreloy 105 (Vit105): Zirconium: 52.5, titanium: 5, copper: 17.9, nickel: 14.6, aluminium: 10 A more recent development (Vitreloy 106a), which forms glass under less rapid cooling: Zirconium: 58.5, copper: 15.6, nickel: 12.8, aluminium: 10.3, niobium: 2.8 Licensed uses Apple Inc., acquired a perpetual, exclusive license to use its technology in consumer electronics. The Swatch Group, was granted an exclusive license to utilize Liquidmetal in its timepieces.'' References External links Official website Overview of amorphous metals NASA Spinoff 2004: Amorphous Alloy Surpasses Steel and Titanium Another NASA article on LiquidMetal Live Video demonstration showing elastic properties of Liquidmetal Alloys Amorphous metals Apple Inc. industrial design California Institute of Technology Products introduced in 2003 The Swatch Group