Original image via Wired

Here's one out of left field to open those bleary Monday morning eyes of yours: Apple negotiated an exclusive deal to use metallic alloys with unique atomic structures developed by a research team at the California Institute of Technology. The alloy, which was brought to market for commercial use back in 2003 by Liquidmetal Technologies--the intellectual rights holders--has previously been utilized by the U.S. Department of Defense, and can also be found in some medical equipment.

If what's been seen in an 8K filing with the U.S. Securities and Trade Commission is correct, however, the military and medical types will have to start looking for a different alloy, as the filing indicated that Liquidmetal has given all intellectual property assets surrounding the alloy to Apple.

Now here's the question: What the heck's Apple going to do with it?

Well, the simple answer is that they'll be building tougher, lighter products for the likes of you and I. The alloy is said to be 2.5 times stronger than common titanium alloy and have 1.5 times the hardness of the stainless steel currently found in electronic devices.

That'll make for one tough iPhone.

There could be exciting things afoot for Apple mobile products in the very near future. Consider the durability of the company's existing MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops, which have bodies milled from a single piece of aluminum. Now, up Apple's game by replacing that hunk of aluminum with a hunk of their newly aquired alloy.

Yeah, that's sounding pretty good to us, too.

Of course, there could be a dark side to all of this as well. Liquidmetal... superhard alloys... super intelligent computers...

Oh Noes! Cupertino's building Skynet!