Researchers in France have unveiled a working prototype of a sodium-ion battery, potentially paving the way for a new type of rechargeable battery that could be cheaper to produce than today’s lithium-ion batteries. The idea of using sodium for batteries isn’t a new one, but development of the technology took a back seat to lithium-ion battery […]
batteries
Huawei unveils new batteries that charge in minutes
There’s a limit to how big a battery you can stuff in a smartphone, so companies have been focusing on two ways to let you spend less time charging your phone: making their devices more efficient and making the charging process faster. Huawei has announced a major breakthrough on the latter front: the company says […]
Gionee’s launches phone with 24MP camera, another with dual batteries
Chinese phone maker Gionee has unveiled two new phones with distinctive features. As expected, the Gionee Marathon M5’s claim to fame is its dual batteries, giving you a total of 6,020 mAh of battery capacity for up to four days of use between charges. The most remarkable thing about Gionee ELife E8, meanwhile, is its […]
Replacing the battery for a Samsung Series 9 ultrabook
Ultrabooks are slim notebooks with Intel processors that, among other things, tend to measure less than eight tenths of an inch thick. While many ultrabooks are thin, light, and reasonably powerful laptops, there’s not a lot of room in such a svelte laptop case for things like user-upgradeable memory or storage or replaceable batteries. So […]
Swatch wants to reinvent the battery (for smartwatches… and cars)
Watch maker Swatch is taking aim at one of the biggest problems with smartwatches: horrible battery life. You need to charge an Apple Watch every day. Most smartwatches using Google’s Android Wear or Samsung’s Tizen software only get 2-3 days of run time. And you need to charge Pebble watches every week or so. But Swatch […]
Stanford is working on a battery that can fully charge in a minute
One of the biggest complaints about tech specs for smart phones involves battery life. So it makes sense that there are teams of researchers trying to make better batteries. UC Berkeley is working on an energy storing battery called the “Supercapacitor” (I love the name), SolidEnergy is researching a longer-lasting battery for Google’s Project Ara […]
PiJuice is a portable power pack for the Raspberry Pi (crowdfunding)
The Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers are small, inexpensive systems that you can use to learn to code, set up as a media center PC, or use as the basis for hardware projects line game consoles, home automation systems, or robots. If you want to use a Raspberry Pi around the house you can just […]
New Energizer batteries partly made from old (recycled) batteries
Energizer has introduced a new line of batteries that are the world’s first to be partially made from recycled batteries. The Energizer EcoAdvanced AA and AAA batteries are among the company’s highest highest performance batteries. But what makes these little guys unusual is that 4 percent of the new batteries comes from old batteries. While […]
SolidEnergy is building a better battery for Google’s Project Ara modular smartphone
Last year, Google started providing developer kits for its Project Ara modular smartphone to third-party developers. Since then, developers have been scrambling to create technology to use with the device, including processor chips, display screens, and possibly even a compatible smart watch. In a recent interview with Forbes, SolidEnergy’s CEO, Dr. Qichao Hu said the […]
Lenovo ThinkPad X240, T440 notebooks get up to 17 hours battery life
Lenovo is introducing a new line of thin and light laptops aimed at business and enterprise customers. The Lenovo ThinkPad X240 features a 12.5 inch display and weighs less than 3 pounds, but it has a rugged, military spec-tested design. The company is also introducing a new ThinkPad T440 notebook with a 14 inch screen. […]