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.

(via WIRED )

Finally, something good happening for Samsung Galaxy Portal on T-Mobile UK (No points for guessing what my current phone is).

After being stuck with Android 1.5 aka the cupcake for almost a decade and a half ( it felt that long at least), T-mobile has finally decided to give its (now) older phone – the Galaxy Portal the much awaited Eclair upgrade. This would finally bring a lot of awesomeness to the new phone such as Live wallpapers, better ROM stability, much better memory utilisation and compatibility with all those new apps in the Android market which work for Android 2.1 onwards.

This announcement comes from a T-Mobile employee on its product support forums where customers have been moaning about why the carrier has been delaying the roll out of Eclair for so long, when 3-mobile released the Galaxy portal with Eclair out of the box. The announcement can be read here.

What is not clear, is that the employee’s comment mentions – We will be releasing a software update for the Samsung Galaxy Portal within the next month. This will update your Samsung Galaxy Portal to Android 2.1.

Hence, there is no ETA provided. Well, I’ll surely be refreshing that damn forum page for sure for at least a thousand times a day.

The announcement of a new operating System from Google called the Google ChromeOS came as no surprise to me as an OS from Google had been long expected. The rumors had been doing the rounds – remember the gOS which was mistaken for the Google OS. Well, it never really took off. Wonder if any single PC right now is running the gOS. And then, Google launched the mobile OS – Android. And for a long time, people believed that it was the Google OS which people expected. And now, in the recent announcement [ Read: Introducing the Google Chrome OS ], GOOG has made it official, that come next year[ a vague dateline of second half, next year] Google’s new OS – Chrome will be released for users. And yes, it will be opensource, free, lightweight and is initially going to be targeted at netbooks.

So what does this mean to me and you? What does it mean to Microsoft/Windows XP-Vista-7 users, Apple/MacOSX users and Linux users? Is all the buzz and hoopla worth it? Let’s deal with them one by one.

a) Google Chrome OS is Chrome extended :

It has worked for the browser- which is clean, clutter free, simple, fast, instant start-up, reliable and lightweight. Going by the name, ChromeOS is aimed at replicating all of these features. From what we get from Google’s release post, it is indicated that the user interface will be kept extremely simple, and most of the user experience will take place on the web.Now that raises certain eyebrows and questions about the user experience in an offline environment. We have yet to see any demos and exact feel of how the OS is going to look like, so its a bit early to comment further on this.

Also – Chrome OS is not Android + :
Android is for mobiles. ChromeOS is for Netbooks. Chrome OS is designed to cater to people who spend a lot of their time online, and hence the obvious choice of Netbooks. However, Chrome OS will aslo be able to run on desktop systems as well.

b) So what is new with this Chrome thing?

For people who just can’t wait for PCs to boot up, browsers to open and get ready in a total of almost 2 minutes;
For people who are just way too careless to not backup their important files;
For people who do not want constant software updates or struggle with compatibility issues – there comes the Chrome to save the day. Or does it? We’ll get to know it next year. The vision is to accomplish all of the above mentioned things, and also redesign the security architecture of the OS to fight back malwares and viruses more efficiently.

c) Should Microsoft be worried?

11 million netbooks were sold last year. By 2013 this figure would reach 39 million. The PCs and Laptops market will be 400 million – which is almost 10 times the size. So, if Chrome OS is just aimed at the Netbook segment , there is just way too much room for Windows and Linux and Mac OS.
Also, if Chrome OS is aimed at Netbook users, will the UI be appealing enough? We have to accept the fact that with time, we have all kinda got accustomed to the whole taskbar with a start button, thanks to Windows. We have seen that in different shapes and sizes – Finder and Dock on the Mac, and similar stuff on the Linux flavours. One of my major concerns is how the UI going to be? If it is going to be entirely web based – in a form which is going to resemble the browser, will user adaptability be considered? And hence, I don’t see Google Chrome OS posing any form of threat to Windows or Microsoft.

d) I know its just aimed at being Anti-Microsoft, but how?

Its opensource, its free, and its aimed at the next – rising market of computer users. Windows don’t seem to be offering any free OS in recent future. Windows XP running on Netbooks, was originally designed for Pentium IIIs and above. But the Chrome OS is designed to run on even x86 and ARM chips. The way to go for Chrome OS to get this done by next year is that they are going full on with the project, releasing it to the open source developers community. The source code will be released by the end of this year.

Quoting from Techcrunch’s post [ Read: Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome.]

Google says the software architecture will basically be the current Chrome browser running inside “a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” So in other words, it basically is the web as an OS. And applications developers will develop for it just as they would on the web. This is similar to the approach Palm has taken with its new webOS for the Palm Pre, but Google notes that any app developed for Google Chrome OS will work in any standards-compliant browser on any OS.What Google is doing is not recreating a new kind of OS, they’re creating the best way to not need one at all.

e) The big difference between Chrome OS and others:

This will be evident more when we get other technologies worked up alongside to truly reveal all the details. I am talking about HTML5, OpenVideo and most importantly Google Wave. All these clubbed with the Chrome OS could be something to watch out. The web-apps section is what Chrome OS will be aiming at to hit it big. So, Google Docs, Calendar, GMail, GTalk, ZOHO, Chrome, Labs, Google Wave, HTML 5 – is that what Google Chrome OS will look like?
What remains is a media player. But if we are talking of having everything online, then possibly a YouTube feature makes more sense, given that it is owned by Google as well. And not to forget Twitter, Facebook and other Social Networking apps. So, will that please us? We at Techkeyla will keep a close watch.

Also Read:

Google Chrome: Redefining The Operating System

Why Chrome OS Now? Because Microsoft Office In The Cloud Comes Monday.

Chrome OS Partners: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments

Why Google’s Chrome OS Bomb Has Minimal Fallout On Apple

Why we need to chill about ChromeOS

The new iPhone is here, and in full 3GS glory. Here S stands for Speed, and it is claimed to be the fastest iPhone yet. It has major hardware upgrades for a faster performance. Plus a 3MP video camera, Digital Compas, Voice Controls and an impressive price-tag [ for the current version]. Explore the Launch of the new iPhone 3GS in the pictures below. Cheers!

The Phone that changed..

Say Hello to iPhone 3GS

Looks the same as before

Performance Comparison

3MP camera on the iPhone

Macro Shots on the iPhone Auto Focus Camera

Video is ON..on the iPhone

Video Capture Specs for iPhone

Voice Control in the iPhone

Digital Compass with Maps

And the price is..

Jun 19 for UK and US

August launch for India

And it's a wrap for WWDC 2009 Keynote! No "one more thing"s

Hope you liked the post. The comments are open for you to scribble. Cheers!

This is Part II of the WWDC 2009 Keynote in Image series. And the following images are from the iPhone OS 3.0 demo at the Moscone West.

iPhone OS demo begins

Thank you for the Apps

A billion apps download in 9 months

Cut Copy Paste in iPhone

Landscape Typing

Tethering with iPhone

App developers revenue model

iPhone meets Satnav TomTom

Games Galore in iPhone

SDK

ESPN Alert

iPhone OS 3.0

Next up: WWDC 2009 Keynote Images from the iPhone 3GS launch. Stay tuned!

We have liveblogs and then some more liveblogs. I remember somebody did say “Pictures speak louder than words”. So here we are recreating the WWDC Keynote 2009 and telling you the tale of the event at Moscone West, San Fransisco in the form of images. This is a three part post; the first part which is this one, will be carrying images of the Macbook Launch and the Snow Leopard, the second part will be carrying images of the iPhone OS 3.0, and the final part will have images of the new iPhone 3GS launch. So do stay tuned for the next posts which will be up soon.

Phil is in The House

WWDC Entrance People Queue

Inside Moscone West Waiting for Phil

Mac vs PC Ad

Specs of the new Macs

New Mac's got SD Love

Say Hello to Snow Leopard is Here!

Quicktime X unveiled

64bit processing

Open Standards

And the family goes for!

For the loyal ones

Next Up: iPhone OS 3.0 at the WWDC Keynote 2009

Just a couple of Images to set the mood right for the WWDC 2009. The geeks are in the room, and Phil is just about to begin the Keynote [coz, it's just 5 minutes to 6pm, London Time, that's why!]. But here we are still sharing some good pics from WWDC, before we go for the Liveblogs of the Event.

First up: A Graphical Roundup of all the iPhone Rumors in one image [via TGRBlog]

For the High Resolution picture, click here.

The following images are courtesy: CrunchGear’s Liveblog of WWDC on Scribble

Moscone West

iPhone OS 3.0 at WWDC

WWDC Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Geeks Galore inside Moscone West at WWDC

Waiting for Phil's Keynote at WWDC

More images to come after the Keynote, and the Link for the WWDC 2009 Keynote Video from Apple’s website.

Soooo… Ninty has done the do at E3 and here’s some headliners for you hungry consumers of Gadg.

Wii MotionPlus™: The new higher accuracy Wii Remote dongle promises to provide even more immersive physical reality in its games, including a heightened awareness of it’s position with a 3D area.

Wii Sports Resort™: The main first new MotionPlus game, centred around a resort supposedly on the beach of the Wii Fit Island (You know – where you go jogging in Wii Fit). Events include Frisbee that your Nintendog can catch (Good grief!! I haven’t fed poor little Rex in about 2 years!!), Jet ski’s and Kendo to name but a few.

Wii Fit™ Plus: The much anticipated update to Wii fit. Now includes tailored workout routines. You can also work towards a goal such as Stomach Toning, Tightening Arms or Stress Reduction. I only hope it will include harder levels than Wii Fit as this soon became way too easy – Highest level Advanced Step anyone? yawn. The good news is that not only is this being bunded with the board again, but it will also be  available  separately.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii™: This is the Biggie! online multiplayer Mario. I say again - Online Multi Player Mario!! how cool is that! Apparently Shigeru Miyamoto has been dreaming this baby up for the past decade or so! I sooooo hope it’s as good as it looks and sounds. This has the potential to be another jewel in the Wii’s crown, shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Super Mario Kart and Super Smash Brawl.

Super Mario Galaxy™ 2: The game is planned for 2010. Expect more of those stomach churning, mind boggling levels.

Wii Vitality Sensor™: An interesting one, this…. Basically a small sensor that clips onto your finger. Looks like it plugs into the end of the Wii Remote, where the nun chuck normally goes. I believe that essentially it’s a pulse and galvanic skin response sensor. I hope they include this functionality in the Wii Fit Plus Game (I know it’s not supported in EA Sports Active but that’s hardly surprising). Looks like Ninty’s answer to Microsoft’s Natal to me…