MobilePhones-O-Focus

Researchers improve Li-on battery life, increase capacity 30 percent

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds, Laptops

Although’s Moore’s Law continues to race along, battery tech hasn’t nearly kept up pace — so we’re excited by developments like the one just announced by Argonne National Labs, which has managed to increase Li-on capacity by 30 percent while making the batteries safer and longer-lasting. The secret ingredients in Argonne’s new juice box are a new composite battery material that’s partially electrically inactive and manganese oxide-based electrodes in place of the traditional cobalt oxide. Argonne says it’s already licensed the tech to Japanese manufacturer Toda Kogyo, which has the capability to produce 30 million laptop batteries a year, but the lab is still working on improving charging rates — while it’s adequate for laptops and cellphones, the battery will need to discharge at least three times faster to work in a car. No word on when we might see these start shipping, but you can bet “manganese battery” is being added to our dream machine spec list right… now.

[Via ExtremeTech]

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Nokia Internet Tablets to get Ubuntu and Qt ports

Filed under: Handhelds

We’ve already seen Google’s Android mobile OS get shoehorned onto Nokia N810 tablet, but it looks like the Internet Tablet OS is about to get even more flexible with ports of Ubuntu and the Qt toolkit. Nokia is acquiring Qt developer Trolltech, so it’s no surprise the Qt is making the jump, but it looks like it’ll be mostly a third-party-targeted framework, with the ITOS interface and bundled apps still using GTK+. Nokia told Ars Technica that it’s exploring cross-platform possibilities between ITOS and Series60, and that it wants to see if GTK+ and Qt can coexist on the tablets like they do on the Linux desktop. That’s pretty ambitious for a low-powered tablet, but we’re all for more flexibility — which seems to be in the cards with the Nokia-sponsored port of Ubuntu to ARM. Several pre-Hardy Heron versions have been ported and run off SD cards, if you’re feeling adventurous — we’re not sure what the advantages are, but it’s nice to know that Nokia’s keeping things wide open.

[Via Digg]

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Samsung G600: The Multi-Tasker

Enjoy managing your contacts with FunContacts
Found under: Pocket PC, Software,

After the VITO Technologys recent release of iWindowsMobile Communication Suite they give the chance to have an iPhone experience in Windows Mobile. FunContacts is just part of the suite but its one of the most useful one since it comes to be used each day while browsing your contacts list. It is a finger friendly application that is small in size but has a good platform. There are four touch buttons at the bottom of the screen which has your Full List Favorites Recent Calls and Optio

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Say Hellui to NEC’s Lui family of media streamers

Filed under: Desktops, Handhelds, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Laptops

See those people? As much as NEC would like to think so, that’s not you. If it were you’d be ass-deep in nag about your inattentive dismissal of “quality time” while suffering dire warnings about barefoot-borne diseases. Or maybe that’s just us. Regardless, NEC hopes that the launch of its 4-component Lui (Life with Ubiquitous Integration) system — ?379,890/$3,705 Blu-ray packing PC server (Lui SX), ?89,880/$877 10.6-inch laptop (Lui RN), ?49,980/$487 4.1-inch handheld (Lui RP), and ?300,000/$2,926 Desktop (Valuestar R Lui) — will somehow create harmony in your household. Besides the marketing hype, we’re really just talking about Windows Home Premium SP1 here and a bunch of DTCP-IP DRM and DLNA compliant devices. In fact, the so called “laptop” and handheld units lack any traditional OS at all — they can only be used to receive streaming content off your home server. Even then, some streaming is restricted inside and outside the home thanks to the DRM lockdown. Do we really need one or even two more devices in the home just for media?

Update: Regardless of what you may have read elsewhere, there is no WiMAX here. That’s not even a standard available in Japan.

[Via Impress]

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Samsung G600: The Multi-Tasker

Microsoft adds twist to handhelds with force-sensing technology

Filed under: Handhelds

Surely you’re not content with just multi-touch and built-in accelerometers, right? Microsoft Research is expecting not, as it’s already working towards integrating force-sensing technology that will enable gestures to twist on-screen imagery without crafting UMPCs out of flexible material. Essentially, the gurus behind the idea feel that implementing said tech would “turn an otherwise passive component that just holds the device together into an active input surface.” In the future, it’s likely that auditory cues would enable users to know when they’ve applied enough pressure to cause a change, and of course, they expect it to work hand-in-hand with existing human-computer interfaces. Yeah, who needs keypads these days, anyway? [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via BBC, thanks Joe]

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Yet another HTC Neon hits the FCC — this time with US 3G

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Okay, so we know of at least two HTC devices codenamed “Neon” that the friendly bureaucrats up in the FCC have been forced to go through with a fine-tooth comb. Now we have a third — the descriptively-named NEON300 — and this might be the money version. As we’ve pointed out before, the Neon series appears to represent a line of Touches with different guts for different carriers and locales, and the NEON300 possesses something that’s music to the ears of the yanks in the audience: HSDPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands. Along with the recently-announced US Touch Dual, this should be quite a gem in, say, AT&T’s lineup — and with Sprint and Verizon both rocking the same device, can they really afford to turn the other cheek?

Update: Pictures of the unit being poked and prodded can be found deep within the test documentation, and sadly, it turns out this is nothing more than the US Touch Dual after all. But come on HTC, seriously, you know you want to make a straight-up Touch with North American HSDPA, too. Thanks, uofmrapper1!

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Samsung G600: The Multi-Tasker

Sony Ericsson W910i - The Music Phone

Hynix ships fastest one-gigabit LPDDR2 chip for mobile devices

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Though not quite as impressive as the idea of toppling Intel and AMD within the next ten years, Hynix Semiconductor still has a decent reason to brag today. The South Korean chip producer has announced that it has just started mailing out the “fastest data transferring advanced dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip for mobile devices.” Said chip is the one-gigabit LPDDR2 (low-power double-data-rate 2), which was crafted using 66-nanometer technology and features an 800-megabits per second operating speed at 1.2-volts. No word on exactly what devices will see the super-speedy chip packed within, but a company spokesperson did note that it plans on ramping up production during Q4 to meet “growing demand for flat-panel television sets and high-end handheld devices.”

[Via Physorg]

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