Common Paradox Tech Blog

This is what the Xbox 360 would look like if it was made out of aircraft-grade aluminum, had two wheels, and electric motor, and was just a little quieter: The Yamaha EC-f scooter. Veehee purrty indeed.

The Yamaha EC-f was presented at the Tokyo Motor Show. It uses a lithium-ion battery, which can be plugged into a regular socket for recharging. They are not making these soon enough. [Dvice]

Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated emphatically during Google’s most recent earnings call that “Android adoption is about to explode.” We agree – despite developer hiccups, Android is about to have its moment in the sun. An avalanche of new devices are hitting worldwide markets, and some of them are serious contenders.

Our bet is that the upcoming Motorola Droid will be the breakout winner from this batch of phones. But here’s the complete list of officially announced Android phones, as well as stuff that’s just rumored at this point. Bookmark this post, and keep a lookout for updates.

Here are the Android contenders:

At Japan’s CEATEC show, Toshiba and KDDI are demonstrating a modified Toshiba T002 phone that’s powered by a direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and Li-Ion battery. More advanced than previous prototypes, it runs for 320 hours on a squirt of methanol.

DMFCs produce electricity from a reaction of methanol, water, and air—the only by-products are a small amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide. Japanese wireless carrier, KDDI, has combined the fuel cell with a Lithium Ion battery to better handle the phone’s spikes in power demand.

This combination gives the prototype phone about 320 hours of power. That’s around 3 days longer than an equivalent handset. And instead of taking an hour or so to recharge, a few squirts of methanol only takes seconds. Right now the prototype is thicker than we demand of today’s phones, but the two companies hope the technology will eventually make it into portable gadgets like phones and media players.

Of course, Toshiba promised to start selling a DMFC battery charger by September, and there’s still no sign of it. Good to see they’re making inroads, though. It’s pretty interesting tech. [PC World and DVICE]

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.

Rumors had suggested the Android 2.0-powered A1 might arrive in September, and low and behold, it’s now up for pre-order at eXpansys (France and Germany). The listing also includes previously unknown full specs:

What’s immediately noticeable is the faster-than-average processor, and the quad-band GSM/tri-band 7.2Mbps HSPA. The 3.5-inch touch-capable display has a sharp 800×480 (WVGA) resolution, but the page doesn’t say if it’s capacitive or resistive.

There’s no release date—or U.S info—but the pre-order price is 390 Euros (about $571). We’ll let you know when Acer fills us in on any U.S plans as its definitely an Android phone to keep an eye on. [eXpansys (translated) via Android Guys]

Specifications
• Processor: Qualcomm 8250 768 MHz Qualcomm 8250 768 MHz
• Operating System: Android 2.0 (Donut)
• Memory: ROM: 512 MB / RAM: 256 MB ROM
• Display: 3.5-inch touch-sensitive screen with WVGA resolution
• Network: HSPA/WCDMA: 850, 1900, 2100 MHz – Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz Quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent)
• GPS: Internal GPS antenna
• Connectivity: Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP for wireless stereo headsets. Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi ®: IEEE 802.11 b / g, 3.5 mm audio jack 3.5 mm audio jack
• Camera: 5.0 megapixel color camera with auto focus
• Battery: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Capacity: 1350 mAh, Talk time: Up to 300 minutes Talk time: Up to 300 minutes, Standby time: Up to 400 hours. (The above are subject to network and phone usage)
• Expansion Slot: microSD ™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
• Dimensions (LxWxT): 115 x 62.5 x 12.5 mm 115 x 62.5 x 12.5 mm
• Weight: 135 grams with battery 135 grams with battery

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 [...]