Remember back in school when you built some contraption to drop an egg without spilling yoke everywhere? Well Pop Mech essentially did the same thing, but they used a laptop.After wrapping a Dell Inspiron 1545 in an exoskeleton of foam-core boards, pipe insulation and tennis balls (hence the protruding, rounded edges), the laptop could be dropped from a distance of 8 feet and live to tell the tale. (There's a non-embeddable clip of the testing over at their site.) Just how many times the computer could survive such a drop is unknown. Then again, if you're repeatedly dropping your precious machine from the peak of your reach, you may be a big enough douchebag to deserve any karma that foam alone cannot assuage.
Also of note, a FoodSaver vacuum sealer in "pulse" mode is absolutely perfect for waterproofing a cellphone in a snug-fitting plastic skin—you'll just need to rip your phone from the bag when you want to recharge it. [Pop Mech]