The Li-ion battery as we know it, is going to have a major overhaul, if reports are to be believed. In a research work done by Northwestern University, this most common place battery used in pretty much every laptop and smartphone could be made to charge much faster and last much longer.
There is a major change in the design of the Li-Ion battery, which currently uses carbon-based graphene sheets, which have a limited capacity to hold Li ions. During charging of the battery, these free ions need to oscillate to and fro between anodes, and due to the limitation in capacity of graphene to hold more than one Li ion, the charge process takes place at a much slower rate.
The solution – Silicon. Silicon has more capacity to hold four Li ions, which is four times the amount that graphene can hold. Here is an excerpt of the methodology of creating a “shortcut” to charge Li-ion batteries faster. (from Wired’s article).
Silicon is the answer after all — it can hold a whopping four lithium atoms for every silicon atom — but carefully sandwiching clusters of it between the graphene sheets avoids the disastrous fragmentation problem. And by poking tiny holes (10 to 20 nanometeres wide) in the graphene, the lithium ions have a “shortcut” to the anode.
For the research report, visit Professor Kung’s page on NorthWestern University’s website here.
You read that right. This one was spotted by Reddit user – Classic1977. No details are known about the specifications of the machine being advertised, but by the looks of it, it is an Acer netbook which promises to provide – HD Internet (whatever the fuck that means). Don’t trust me? Have a look at it yourself.
What next will they start offering? The internet in 3D ? And while we are discussing all things HD, have a look at the following advert of a contact lens product which promises to somehow magically let your eyes perceive the world in HD. *Facepalm* Have a look at the advert below.
Now it is not a secret anymore that Firefox rules the Browser pie.
And Axiis have produced an awesome flash interactive pie chart of the browser share of Firefox, Chrome, IE 6/7 and all the other browsers from Jan 2002 onwards. You just need to move over your mouse to see the respective browser share from Jan 2002 to Aug 2009. Go to the link below and have a go.
Yes you read that right. Okay, if you can’t believe what I wrote, see it for yourself.
Well, it is not a full fledged desktop, but if you are looking for the basic functionalities of a desktop, you get pretty much everything out of the Web version in Schmedley [ visit the link here].
So, there is Weather, Search, RSS, Facebook, Friendfeed, Maps, Stocks, Amazon, Sticky Notes, Bookmarks, Twitter, YouTube and even E-Mail. Everything is configurable in the form of the snazzy widgets as you can see. All you need to do is Register with them. As the header shows, it is in Gamma phase, and I hope the first roll-out will be out soon.
The Movies tab show coming attractions and movie showtimes. The look of your homepage can be customised and the Mac dock at the bottom is very smooth.
