Toshiba has developed a super-fast Lithium-Ion battery capable of being charged to 80 per cent of its full capacity in under 60 seconds. According to the company, a full charge takes just “a few more minutes”.
Toshiba prototype ‘one-minute charge’ Li-ion battery can be recharged about 60 times faster than conventional lithium ion batteries, with the company claiming that the technology could be commercialised for portable electronics products in about three years.
Toshiba has developed two prototype batteries, with the smaller prototype (measuring 3.8mm by 62mm by 35mm) retaining 99 percent of its capacity after being charged 1,000 times, and the company are claiming that their fast-charging batteries will have about the same life as conventional rivals.
The company has been shouting about the new battery’s eco-credentials, pointing out that the fast recharging time will consume less energy than today’s Li-ion cells, leading to reduced carbon-dioxide emissions.
And, as they say on shampoo adverts, here’s the science: Toshiba clever technology uses “nano-particles” to “prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode”.
So, err, now you know.
Toshiba’s ‘miracle’ battery will come to market next year, the company said, initially in automotive and industrial applications.
Toshiba announce Billy Whizz memory chip
Meanwhile, those crazy speed freaks at Toshiba have been busy making the earth go faster with an announcement that they have been sampling computer memory chips with the “world’s fastest data rate.”
The 512Mb XDR (extreme data rate) DRAM chips run at a turbo-charged speed of 4.8GHz, which is about 12 times faster than that of the memory typically found in today’s desktop PCs.
DRAM is the main type of memory used in PCs and servers. The faster the memory, the more smoothly computers tend to work with the increased speed offering better graphics and gaming performance.
Working at the 4.8GHz speed, the chips deliver a bandwidth of 12.8GBps, making them suitable for use in high-end digital TVs and PC graphics applications.
If more voltage is used, the chips can work at a peak operating speed of 6.4GHz, according to Toshiba.
XDR memory technology was developed by U.S.-based Rambus, with the chips incorporating Rambus’s ODR (octal data rate) signalling, which can transfer eight bits of data per clock cycle, according to Toshiba.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Japan’s Elpida Memory have also licensed XDR technologies from Rambus, and both chip companies plan to go into mass production of 512Mb XDR chips in the second half of 2005.
Toshiba made it past the post first, with Kim Soo-Kyoum, program director for semiconductor research at market research company IDC commenting, “Yes, it looks like Toshiba’s is the first … and yes, it’s the fastest … but Samsung and Elpida have similar schedules.”
Adoption of XDR as a main memory in high-end computing will start during 2007, according to a December 2004 report by IDC.
After the humiliating no-show of their much hyped (and currently in-limbo) iTunes phone at CeBIT earlier this month, Motorola have hit back with two new music phones. 
Sporting a ‘slider’ form factor, the E725 is a music player-cum-smartphone featuring a 1.9″ display (176 x 220 pixels resolution) with dedicated music keys, 5-band graphic equaliser and dual stereo speakers with virtual surround sound. 
Samsung’s R&D team’s crack-like addiction to creating new products continues apace with the announcement of a new Wireless LAN Music Phone. 
Sadly, there’s no QWERTY keyboard on the handset. 
Incorporating not one, but two digital cameras (VGA on the front 1.3 megapixels to the rear), the handset was showcased a month ago at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes. 
Mindful of the fact that trying to write long emails on a handset’s tiny buttons is as much fun as counting ants, Nokia have also announced their new SU-8W Wireless Keyboard. 
Until now, Apple has been pretty safe in its position of master of all digital music players. That’s lead to speculation of their crown slipping. We’re fresh back from the European consumer show CeBIT and saw many, many good looking, highly functioned, portable music players there. 
MP3 playing device includes software for sending and receiving Internet-based phone calls. 
Ezmax demonstrated the device at their stand at CeBIT, plugging the player into a notebook PC and successfully making a call via the VoIP dialling software. 
In addition, the device is capable of voice recording and sports a two-colour (blue and yellow) 128 pixel by 64 pixel OLED screen. 
Shipments of MP3 players soared by an enormous 116% in 2004, as hundreds of wallet-tempting products arrived in response to the phenomenal success of Apple iPod player, according to a survey by Market Intelligence firm, iSuppli. 
The iSuppli report also predicts that HDD-based MP3 player shipments will grow by a CAGR of 41.8% from 2004 to 2009, as compared to 22.9% for flash-based players. 
TiVo has signed a multiyear deal to make a version of its personal video recorder software available to customers of Comcast Cable, currently the King Kong of largest cable operators in the US. 
The Comcast deal means that TiVo will have to adapt its software to work on Comcast’s existing DVR platform. This will enable TiVo to blast out the advertising it sells as interactive video clips in their onscreen menu to Comcast subscribers. 
Motorola is to bundle GPS navigation software and hardware with the European versions of its A780 and MPx220 smart phones. 
GPS navigation has proved a bit of a hit in Europe, with sales bolstering up an otherwise declining PDA market. 
Both handsets use Bluetooth to communicate with a separate GPS receiver. 
ATI Technologies have introduced two new media processors, IMAGEON 2282 and IMAGEON 2182, offering a shovel load of ‘groundbreaking’ multimedia capabilities for mobile phones. 
“The new IMAGEON processors from ATI combine advanced audio and video processing capabilities to turn mobile phones into mobile entertainment centers.”