Video: iPad survives fall from outer space

With the iPad, an entire generation of tech-savy consumers now have yet another expensive portable do-it-all gadget that they can accidentally drop, break and hence, cry over. But wherever there's concerns over the welfare of a beloved Apple product, there's a huge market for easing some of that anxiety.

G-Form recently released a promotional video to demonstrate that its shock-absorbing iPad carrying cases are so rugged, it can protect the device from a fall from as high up as outer space. You know, in case you happened to be an astronaut who has a serious case of butterfingers.

In the video, the testers wrapped their latest generation G-Form case around a fully operational iPad and sent it up 100,000 feet in the air using a weather balloon. A GoPro video camera strapped to the side of the case was on the entire time to record all the action as the balloon popped and the tablet computer plummeted back down the earth. After recovering the iPad at a site roughly 70 feet away from where it was launched, the testers showed that it still powered up and worked just fine. Heck, I don't think it even had a scratch.

I'm sure more than a few of you might be skeptical of these promotional demonstrations. And rightfully so. An independent test of G-Form's shock-absorption technology by MSNBC tech reporter Wilson Rothman revealed that an encased iPad didn't even survive a drop from a three story building.

Here's the test video:

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Granted, though the test was performed on a first generation model, it still hasn't been independently verified that the latest version is any more effective. Either way, I'm sure the case would be more than sufficient for those times one might accidentally knock it over the kitchen counter. Still, it's probably best not to take it along on spacewalks just yet.

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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com