laptop battery news

With both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday in the rearview mirror, it’s safe to say that the christmas season is officially in full swing. So go ahead and make those lists, check them twice, and find that special gift for that special someone.

For those of you with small children running around the house, The Battery Times wants to take a moment to give a friendly reminder to be cautious with christmas items containing button batteries. The small batteries can be found in everything from music-playing christmas cards to a variety of toys that will make their way to the bottom of christmas trees throughout the world. Because of their size, the batteries can be easily ingested by children who tend to put any and everything in their mouth. By raising awareness of this issue, the chances of such a mishap taking place can be greatly reduced.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Happy holidays!

For years now, many have looked upon solar power as a sort of supplemental energy source to the power that comes from the U.S. electrical grid. However with the recent production of a battery said to be ‘revolutionary’, Ceramatec is looking to harness and store the sun’s rays in ways never before thought possible.

With it’s new solar battery, the Salt Lake City, UT. based advanced materials and electrochemistry developer has been garnering an increased amount of attention over the last several months, including this intriguing and informative article from a local Utah news site.

So what is it that makes Ceramatec’s battery so special? The refrigerator-sized battery is said to hold 20 to 40 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which would all be generated by the sun. The average American household uses about 33 kilowatts of electricity a day, so an eco-conscious family could easily run off of the battery’s stored energy as needed.

“These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables,” said Daniel Nocera of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 — a 110-year-old approach — and turn us forward.”

As noted, Ceramatec’s battery is being designed for use in homes throughout the world. It’s expected to be ready for market testing in 2011.

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up.  How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible?  Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Go easy on the PC demands – The more you demand from your PC.  Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD.  If you’ve got a single battery charge – pick your priorities wisely.

2. Get yourself a more efficient laptop -  Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries.  Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

3. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ – Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

4. Defrag regularly -  The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery.  Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

5. Dim your screen – Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen.  Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance.  Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

6. Cut down on programs running in the background.  Itunes, Desktop Search, etc.  All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life.  Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

7. Cut down external devices – USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery.  Remove or shut them down when not in use.  It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

8. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory.  Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

9. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD – As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse.  Even having one in the drive can be power consuming.  They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used.  Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

10.  Keep the battery contacts clean: Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol.  This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

11. Take care of your battery – Exercise the Battery.  Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time.  Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

12. Hibernate not standby – Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does.  Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

13. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler.  Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by shopokey.com.

14. Set up and optimize your power options – Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

15. Don’t multitask – Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery.  Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only.  If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

Having already demonstrated a steadfast commitment to the research and development of alternative, renewable energy sources; the Obama Administration and U.S. Department of Energy continue to manifest their belief that new forms of clean energy storage are a crucial part of the country’s future.

The latest example of this commitment comes in the form of a $22 million federal grant to North Carolina’s Duke Energy. The funds, which Duke Energy says it plans to match, will be used to design, build and install large-scale batteries to store wind energy at one of its wind farms in Texas.

“Energy storage truly has the potential to serve as a ‘game-changer’ when it comes to renewable power,” said Wouter van Kempen, president of Duke Energy Generation Services. “Through this project, Duke Energy intends to show that renewables can play an even bigger role in our country’s energy future.”

The biggest question mark surrounding the use of wind as a renewable source of energy is what to do once the wind stops blowing. Duke Energy hopes to help provide an answer as the batteries at it’s Notrees Windpower Project in Ector and Winkler counties, Texas, will store excess wind energy and discharge it whenever demand for electricity is highest – not just when wind turbine blades are turning. The project represents one of the nation’s first demonstrations of energy storage at a utility-scale wind farm. The 95 wind turbines in operation at Duke Energy’s Notrees site can generate 151 megawatts (MW) of clean, renewable electricity.

The grant money comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which has already handed out billions of dollars to companies and organizations seeking to research, develop, and harness new forms of energy that are both clean and renewable.

After what Amazon claims was a “six month firmware improvement and testing program”, the ultra-popular e-book reader Kindle has received an 85% increase in battery life.

The announcement of this significant breakthrough has many thrilled, as owners of the Kindle can now enjoy up to seven days even with wireless turned on, a hefty improvement from the previous battery life of four days. With wireless turned off, the battery life of the remains the same at somewhere in the two week range.

On top of nearly doubling it’s battery life, Amazon also announced the Kindle will now have native PDF support. The upgrade, previously only found in the Kindle DX, means that Kindle users don’t have to convert documents in the PDF format. Kindle users can transfer the PDF documents via email or USB.

“Kindle, already the #1 bestselling, most wished for, and most gifted product on all of Amazon.com, is now even better—with 85 percent more battery life and a built-in PDF reader,” said Ian Freed, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “These two significant enhancements are available now.”

There was no specification as to how exactly the massive increase in battery life came about for the Kindle, just the previously noted six month lab phase. Regardless of how it came about, an 85% boost in battery life for any type of e-device is quite remarkable

One of the world’s most prestigious automobile brands has just announced it will be offering a starter lithium-ion battery on several of it’s 2010 models. In the press release that cited the reasoning for the decision, Porsche reveled in the fact that they will be first car maker in the world to offer a starter battery in lithium-ion technology.

One of the main reasons for this move by Porsche is the weight, or lack thereof, that the lithium-ion battery features. Weighing less than 13 lbs, the new battery is more than 22 lbs lighter than a conventional 60 Ah lead battery. Aside from being lighter than it’s lead counterpart, there were several performance-related statistics mentioned by Porsche as deciding factors.

“Delivery of power by the lithium-ion battery throughout its useful charge range is likewise significantly better, providing its full power, for example, when starting the engine almost independently of the current charge level. Yet a further benefit is that a lithium-ion battery allows a significantly greater number of charging and discharging cycles, plus the two further advantages that the self-discharging effect is lower and the service life of the battery longer,” said Porsche. “The lithium-ion battery being introduced by Porsche as the pioneer in this area is made up of wound film of carbon and iron phosphate with a ceramic film moisturised by the electrolyte serving as a separating layer in between. Compared with other types of lithium-ion batteries using a combination of manganese oxide, cobalt oxide or nickel, this lithium-iron-phosphate battery, as it is called, offers advantages when used as a starter battery. It is robust and consistently guarantees the usual voltage of 12 V in the car’s on-board network.”

The lithium-ion battery will be made available for the 911 GT3, 911 GT 3 RS, and Boxster Spyder models beginning in January, 2010

With an ever-increasing amount of business taking place via smartphones these days, running out of battery life isn’t as harmless as it used to be. Much in the same way sleeping in or failing to set your alarm can cause problems when it comes to your professional life; having the battery on your PDA run dry when you need it most can lead to very undesirable consequences. With this in mind, Artel Plus created a Windows Mobile PDA battery software designed to audibly notify you of your battery’s status.

It’s widely known that the batteries on smartphones and and Pocket PCs are notoriously weak. Battery Zzz helps to remedy this by alerting the user whenever their battery reaches certain levels. While most PDA battery apps alert the user on the screen, Battery Zzz sends out customized audible alerts as deemed necessary by the user. This way, the chances of having a dead battery at a crucial moment are greatly reduced.

You can find out more about Battery Zzz here-

Battery Zzz features:

-option to set the battery discharge level when the alarm is to go off;

-option to set the interval between low battery notifications (also, this interval can automatically shorten if the battery power drops below a specified level);

-an option to play an alarm warning upon completion of the battery charge only once and/or automatically switch to silent mode at night;

-an option to set any sound or melody of your choice as the full charge or low battery alerts;

-efficiency – BatteryZzz is a “lightweight” application, it does not affect your smartphone performance and practically has no effect on the battery’s discharge rate.

Winter has arrived, and the time has come to think about how to keep yourself warm when confronting frigid temperatures. One of the best ways to go about this is with items that come prefaced with the phrase ‘battery-powered’; as advances in battery technology have led to the creation of a multitude of products designed to keep you toasty once the mercury begins to drop.

The Oregon-based sportswear manufacturer Columbia is one of the latest outer/sportswear companies to take advantage of modern battery technology, as they have recently released a pair of battery-powered boots designed to keep your feet warm all the way down to -25 degrees farenheit. To do this, Columbia equipped the Bugathermo Boots with a rechargeable battery pack containing lithium polymer batteries. The boots feature three temperature settings and an easy-to-use LED ankle button that lets you customize the heating system as you wish. Depending on how high you keep the heat in your boots cranked up, the battery-powered heating elements will last between 4-8 hours before needing to be recharged.

As battery technology continues to progress and advance, companies who recognize this will continue to create innovative products just as Columbia has with the Bugathermo Boots. As always, it will be interesting to see what kind of ‘battery-powered’ solution will come out next.

“This is simply the most cost effective energy storage battery module on the planet!” Chairman Reznicek,  former Chief Executive of Boston Edison Company.

A company based out of San Antonio,TX reportedly has their hands on “all rights and patents to a breakthrough battery technology” and is preparing to release a battery deemed superior to all other batteries on the market.

ERRA Incorporated announced it’s acquisition and intentions in a recent press release, and is now getting set to vigorously market the new battery they call the YESS(Your Energy Storage Solution).

“Our acquisition of this battery technology for all fields of use enables us to deploy the battery in hundreds of existing applications that will prove to be truly game changing. In addition to those existing markets, this battery will create new markets that did not previously exist. It will have significant impact for the entire clean / renewable energy industry.” Jim Hogarth, ERRA Inc’s CEO said. “This technology now gives us the ability to address not only the burgeoning electric and hybrid electric vehicle markets, but also enables non-grid connected applications in remote areas, telecommunications infrastructure, network and system reliability, wind and solar energy storage (making them fully dispatchable for the first time ever) , utility load leveling, UPS, and numerous consumer products and various military applications.”

Erra proclaims the YESS Battery to be fully rechargeable in less than 15 minutes, possess the longest shelf life since and the longest life of any known comparably priced battery, as well as contain the highest levels of safety features. These purported specs are apparently what bring those involved with Erra and that have knowledge of the YESS Battery to speak with the enthusiasm that exudes from the statement below-

As far as the timeline for the YESS Battery, GreenBeat is reporting (in a very interesting post regarding the YESS) that ERRA has already found a manufacturer and expects to be ready for production in six to nine months. They will be producing the NiH2 cells and expect the cells to be used everywhere from AAA applications to grid storage.

While the initial prototype may not be all that aesthetically pleasing, it’s likely appearance wasn’t one of the main focuses when NEC teamed with Soundpower to create a remote control that doesn’t require batteries. Images and information on NEC’s new gadget are just being released and digested, and the day where battery-free remote controls are the norm is on it’s way to becoming reality.

Several different concepts of battery-free remote controls have come out in recent months, including a wind-up remote that’s already made it’s way to market. What makes the device being developed by NEC unique is that it stores and re-uses the energy generated from vibrations made each time the user clicks the buttons. Whenever the channel is changed or the volume adjusted, the battery-free remote harnesses that energy to be used for future television adjustments.

While the concept of a battery-free remote control is intriguing, it appears that there’s still some work to be done before you find one sitting on the arm of your favorite la-z-boy. With the NEC-Soundpower version still in the development stages, the estimated release date is set for sometime in 2011. As noted by Crunchgear, both companies plan to start marketing it to makers of home electric appliances next year.