The 2011 purchase of Motorola was mostly a means by Google to get approximately 17,000 patents in order to defend themselves from the numerous lawsuits that were occurring at the time. However, things have significantly quieted down on the legal front and Google is now auctioning some battery-related patents from the purchase.
Hitachi Maxell has developed a new lithium-ion battery which could increase a portable product’s capacity without increasing its battery’s thickness. In fact, it has twice the capacity of its current technology, thanks to a newly developed silicon-based material used as the battery’s negative electrode.
The new technology, named ULSiON, uses a composite material made by coating the surface of its Silicon-based layer with carbon. Although typical silicon-based negative electrode layers tend to expand and contract, causing swollen batteries, the new technology reduces that risk significantly by using fine silicon particles.
Using the ULSiON technology, Hitachi will be able to make batteries that are really small, but don’t sacrifice capacity.
“(By using the new material,) we will realize compact lithium-ion batteries that have a width of 13mm or less and an energy density twice as high as that of the existing product of the same size,” the company said.
In practice, this could mean smartphone makers can continue to make slim devices with small, but powerful batteries. Perhaps more importantly, the ability to make small batteries with high capacity is ideal for the rising demand for wearable technology. Smartwatches with 2-day battery life could potentially be much smaller and thinner. Or even better, smartwatches could retain their current thickness and have 4-5 day battery life.
Hitachi expects that the ULSiON-based Li-on batteries will be used in compact devices, like wearables. It also expects demand for this technology to be in high since space is a premium, but long battery life is ideal, and current batteries don’t quite cut it.
Hitachi Maxell will show off its new battery tech at the 2nd Wearable Expo in Tokyo between January 13-15.
Smartphones are in a golden age of fast charging with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology being adopted by various manufacturers (and with the latest Nexus phones having fast charging via USB Type-C). Now, Chinese OEM Huawei (which has been gaining speed recently with the Huawei Watch and the Nexus 6P) has announced new quick charging lithium-ion batteries of their own at a conference in Japan.
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If you bought an NVIDIA SIELD tablet at any point between now and a year ago, you might want to take note: NVIDIA is voluntarily recalling all of these devices due to a problem with the battery which can cause it to overheat and potentially catch fire…
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According to a report from Korea Times, LG Chem, the largest chemical company in South Korea, has begun shipping a new hexagonal battery to top-tier smartwatch makers. The new battery, which sports a design that allows it to cover more surface area — specifically within circular smartwatches — reportedly improves battery capacity as much as 25% compared to traditional rectangular batteries…
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Samsung’s research team has found a way to effectively almost double the capacity of its lithium ion batteries, according to a report from Business Korea. Specifically, the research arm of the company has supposedly developed a technology to make a new “silicon cathode material” for coating the graphene of the battery’s silicon surface, which allows it to support new levels of energy density — up to twice that of currently-available batteries.
You can read the details of the technology at Nature.com:
The graphene layers anchored onto the silicon surface accommodate the volume expansion of silicon via a sliding process between adjacent graphene layers. When paired with a commercial lithium cobalt oxide cathode, the silicon carbide-free graphene coating allows the full cell to reach volumetric energy densities of 972 and 700 Wh l−1 at first and 200th cycle, respectively, 1.8 and 1.5 times higher than those of current commercial lithium-ion batteries.
Google has been working with Adobe to improve battery life drain caused by Flash and today flipped the switch on a new Chrome feature that does exactly that. The new feature aims to detect Flash on a webpage that is actually important to the main content and “intelligently pause content” that isn’t as important. The result is to hopefully make the web experience with Flash more power efficient to improve battery life on your laptop. Here’s how it works:
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Update: A tipster has sent an email confirming the existence of the “Welcome Kit”…
If you’re one of the lucky few who have received their invite to Project Fi, you’re probably also the kind of person that already owns a Nexus 6. If you don’t already have a Nexus 6 and you sign up for Fi though, Google makes you buy one—as it’s the only phone currently compatible with the service. According to a couple reports on Reddit, Google is giving these buyers some goodies…
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In just a couple of days, Google will—almost surely—be taking the wraps off the latest version of its mobile operating system, Android “M”. It’s rumored to be codenamed “Macadamia Nut Cookie” thanks to the latest versions of the Android Open Source Project sporting scattered mentions of “MNC,” and new information from Android Police suggests that this year Google is going to put a big focus on battery and RAM performance…
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According to a report today out of the Wall Street Journal, there’s a small team now working on battery tech within Google[x]—and it’s being spearheaded by former Apple battery expert Dr. Ramesh Bhardwaj. The group was originally started in 2012 with an intention of researching how other companies’ tech could be integrated into Google’s products, but “people familiar with the matter” say that the four person group has expanded to research technology that Google might “develop itself.”
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This is probably one of more dramatic smartphone explosion stories I’ve read lately. (But this is definitely not the first—almost every flagship phone has seemingly had a horror story like this one.) This time, it looks like an LG G3 was at one second sitting innocently on a mattress, but then erupted into flames so violently that its owners had to throw the mattress out the window.
It seems as if smartphone specifications are looking more and more like the desktops of not long ago, and today’s news furthers this phenomenon. Samsung has announced that it has begun production of a LPDDR4 (low power double data rate 4) 8 Gigabit DRAM memory module based in its 20nm process, and says it will be ready by sometime in early 2015. This translates to a chip that’s 4 GB of usable memory, basically double of what most flagship smartphones have today.
Following its ritual teardown of the Google’s new HTC-made Nexus 9 tablet earlier this month, today our friends over at iFixit have torn apart Google’s new Nexus 6 smartphone made by Motorola. While the Nexus 6 scores a decent repairability score— 7 out of 10, which is on par w/ the new iPhone 6 Plus— it does have some shortcomings that you’ll want to be aware of before cracking into your phone for repairs.
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The Samsung Galaxy S4 has retained its title as winner of the highly-regarded Which? UK consumer association battery-life tests, despite competition from newer handsets. The S4 achieved call times 37 percent greater than its nearest rival, the HTC One. The results in web use were far closer, but the Samsung S4 took the lead there too.
The Galaxy S4 also won back in June, but retained its title in the face of new competition from the latest iPhones and an updated Nokia Lumia. Android handsets took the top three slots in call times, and the top four in web use …
There’s no question that with every new smartphone release, we look at the camera, the display and ultimately, the battery. As the Nexus 5 begins making its way to the masses, some new software and performance enhancements will offer a slight boost in battery life.
As GigaOM points out, the inclusion of Qualcomm’s new “envelope tracking technology” will make the Nexus 5 a more battery friendly, power-efficient smartphone. Qualcomm’s envelope tracker, dubbed the QFE1100 was first introduced to the world with the Galaxy Note 3, highlighting the Nexus 5 as the second smartphone to include the tech.
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Following a number of complaints from Samsung Galaxy S4 users experiencing battery issues that saw noticeably less battery life and in some cases “swollen batteries.” The majority of the complaints seem to be coming out of Germany, but Samsung confirmed to TrustedReviews that it is aware of the issue and will offer free battery replacements for customers:
In a statement provided to TrustedReviews, Samsung has stated: “We are aware of this issue, which has affected a limited number of customers.”
An official spokesperson for the company added: “We ask all affected customers to please visit their nearest Samsung Electronics service centre, where they can receive a replacement battery for free of charge. We remain committed to providing the best possible user experience for our customers.”
There have been tons of rumors and leaks about Google’s upcoming Nexus 5 smartphone in recent weeks, and today we get claims of official details on pricing and new battery size options for the device. According to a report from Phonearena citing a tipster, the next-gen Nexus will come in 16GB and 32GB models for $299 and $399.
That compares to the $299 and $349 that the two models of the Nexus 4 debuted for, but Phonearena also claims that this time around Google will include a larger battery in the 32GB model:
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Which?, a highly-regarded UK consumer research organization, found the Samsung S4 to be both the fastest smartphone on the market, and the one offering the best battery-life – a pretty impressive combination.
Using the industry-standard Geekbench 2 software, the S4 comfortably came out on top with a score of 3,188 against the 2,798 of the second-placed HTC One. Graphics for both speed and battery-life after the break …
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The guys and gals over at iFixit are once again performing their usual teardown ritual and this time they have gotten their hands on the just released Samsung Galaxy S4. It probably won’t be the most exciting teardown you’ve ever read, as the internal design of the device, like the outer design, hasn’t changed much since the Galaxy S3. The good news is that the S4 gets a higher 8 out of 10 score for repairability.
• Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T 1.9 GHz Quad-Core CPU
• Qualcomm MDM9215M 4G GSM/UMTS/LTE modem
• Qualcomm PM8917 power management
• Samsung K3QF2F200E 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM
• Qualcomm WCD9310 audio codec
• Skyworks 77619 Power Amplifier Module for Quad-Band GSM / EDGE
• Qualcomm WTR1605L Seven-Band 4G LTE chip (same part found in the Nexus 4)
• Broadcom 20794S1A standalone NFC chip
• Maxim MAX77803 microcontroller
• Silicon Image 8240BO MHL 2.0 transmitter
• Qualcomm PM8821 Power Management
Check out a full list of highlights from the teardown below and head over to iFixit to see the full teardown step by step:
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One of the benefits of having a removable back plate and battery is that you can do crazy things like add more than 3X the 2100mAh battery size for those extended outings. It just so happens Amazon currently has this 7,000mAh add on for $34 in a variety of colors (Black, White, Blue).
This is the same amount of battery you’ll find in a Typical tablet and as you can see in the video above, pushes the S3 to 4+ days of battery life. On the downside, you now have a brick in your pocket.
If you are considering picking up the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon anytime soon, Samsung is giving you a decent incentive to do so directly through its website. For a limited time, the company is offering a free Galaxy Nexus i515 Battery Bundle Kit with the purchase of a Galaxy Nexus on the usual two-year Verizon contract. The kit, usually worth $50 through Samsung, provides a back casing compatible with the included 21 mAh extended battery. Unfortunately, many report the battery only provides approximately 10 percent extra battery life, but it is definitely worth getting it free before the promotion ends on May 10.
Ad-supported apps in Android smartphones are an immense energy suck.
According to a Purdue University study (PDF), which—interestingly enough—Microsoft helped research, third-party advertising in free Android apps deplete 65 percent to 75 percent of an app’s energy. The study said more than 50 percent of energy used for serving ads occurs during the “3G Tail.” In other words, energy continues to dole out after the process requiring power completes.
The researchers analyzed the energy squandering of 21 Android and Windows Mobile apps over a 3G connection, but the study only highlighted five Android apps (Angry Birds, the Android default browser, Chess Free, MapQuest, and The New York Times).
More information is available below.
We know the Droid Bionic has a big battery, unfortunately, the images that had previously surfaced didn’t give us a good view of the device’s profile, which we now know appears to be rather thick (to put it nicely). These new images from GottaBeMobile give us a whole new perspective.
Yesterday FCC filings for the Motorola Droid Bionic started popping up and confirmed it would be a 4G LTE capable device sporting a 4.3 inch qHD display, 1GHz dual core TI Omap processor, a front-facing VGA camera, and an 8 megapixel rear camera with 1080p HD video recording. Judging by the image below, it should have good battery life too.
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