Common Paradox Tech Blog

Cherrypal, the guys behind last year’s super green cloud computer have managed to put together a netbook dubbed “Africa” that will sell for only $99.

Specs include: a 400 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 2 GB flash memory, 7-inch screen (800 x 480), USB 1.1 and 2.0 ports, SD card support, and it runs either Linux or Windows CE operating systems (it should also get about 4 hours of use on the Lithium battery). Yeah, don’t expect much for your $99—as the product page notes, it’s “small, slow, and sufficient.” Africa is available now at the Cherrypal open store. [Cherrypal via PRNewswire via Engadget]

The mPower Emergency Illuminator combines a beautiful design (courtesy of the Porsche Design Studio) with new battery technology. One tube holds two CR123 batteries, while the other stores a Lithium Reserve Battery that has a minimum shelf-life of 20 years.

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“The mPower Reserve Battery offers an unprecedented minimum shelf life of 20 years and has an immediate activation to full power. Through an intricate battery design, mPhase developed a way to eliminate power dissipation before initial activation.”

The flashlight uses an intense, high-performance LED, and has an accessory USB connection to charge your mobile devices. It’s slated to arrive in March, but we hope to get a better look at it at CES in January. [CNETand Yahoo News]

Panasonic has on display at CEATEC a “1.5 kWh battery module [made] from 18650-type (18 mm in diameter x 65 m in length) lithium-ion battery cells, which are widely used in laptop computers, to provide energy storage solutions for a wide range of environmentally friendly energy technologies.” String a couple of these suckers together to store the juice collected from the solar panels on your house, for example.

IBM, UC Berkeley and five US National Labs are collaborating in a consortium to make an electric vehicle battery that goes all the way up to 500 miles per charge.

The project wants to make this happen by using a lithium-air battery, which…

couple to atmospheric oxygen-essentially harnessing the oxygen in the air as the cathode of the battery. Since oxygen enters the battery on-demand, it offers an essentially unlimited amount of reactant, metered only by the surface area of its electrodes. IBM believes its nanoscale semiconductor fabrication techniques can increase the surface area of the lithium-air battery’s electrodes by at least 100 times, enabling them to meet the goals of the project.

If you think the consortium will deliver a fantastic car by the time you need to trade in your current vehicle, you should hold off on getting so excited. IBM says it’s going to be another two years to even see if the lithium-air batteries can be used to make the goal happen. [Smarter Technology via Slashdot]

itwbennett writes “Exploding iPhones may be a thing of the past. Researchers at Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute have developed a new polymer, STOBA (that’s self-terminated oligomers with hyper-branched architecture to you and me), that is added to the cathode material inside a lithium-ion battery to keep them from overheating. ‘Fires or explosions in these batteries are caused by short circuits,’ said Wu Hung-chun, a researcher at ITRI, explaining that even minor mishandling such as dropping the handset could result in damage causing a short circuit. ‘The technology is ready for lithium-ion batteries used in electronic devices, mobile phones, laptops,’ said Wu. And ITRI has started testing STOBA on electric car batteries.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Poor battery life and iPhone are a few words that get mixed together all too often it seems. While some will say it’s fine, others will say it’s pitiful. As many of you know, battery life will fluctuate greatly between users and their individual usage patterns but TiPb wants to provide you with some simple [...]