New Materials For Twice as Powerful Lithium Batteries - A layered material doubles the life of a lithium-ion batteries - Softpedia

New Materials For Twice as Powerful Lithium Batteries - A layered material doubles the life of a lithium-ion batteries - Softpedia: "The biggest drawback of most portable electronic devices, such as notebooks, cellphones, PDAs and many others is the fact that they become useless after the rechargeable batteries completely discharge.

Unfortunately, the devices themselves have known huge developments, while their batteries remain a source of discontent among users. Even the most advanced laptop can only last for three hours if relying only on the most advanced lithium batteries.

Now, researchers at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new approach to increasing the capacity and stability of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

It's based on a new material that the positive electrode will be made of. The material itself has a multi-layered nano-crystalline composite structure.

The new approach of the Argonne laboratories focused on a two-component structure, an active component responsible for the charge storage that is embedded in another, inactive component that has a stabilizing role in the structure.

The first tests are promising, as the new composite materials showed exceptionally high charge-storage capacities, in excess of 250 mAh/g, which is more than twice the capacity of materials in conventional rechargeable lithium batteries.

Furthermore, the stability of the new batteries has also increased, even though few people know that conventional lithium batteries can be dangerous if mistreated and unless care is taken their lifespan may be reduced. "

Free Music Content on Yahoo's Page - Just the lyrics for now - Softpedia

Free Music Content on Yahoo's Page - Just the lyrics for now - Softpedia: "Yahoo added one more shortcut to its search engine results page, allowing users to view lyrics straight from the website. All you need to do is type 'artist lyrics' and you'll be able to see the lyrics integrated straight into the results. Yahoo recently introduced its Lyrics service that was presented as the first free and legal website that provides lyrics for numerous artists. Until Yahoo Lyrics was released, there were a lot of similar websites that provided the same content but, as the giant portal sustained, most of them were either not freeware or not legal. Now, the clients are able to use a lyrics platform for free and get licensed content offered by the giant portal Yahoo.

Today, the company debuted a new integration of Yahoo Lyrics into the search engine, displaying the lyrics straight on the SERP. The entire interoperability was done with the support of the shortcuts, a special Yahoo function that offers instant access to certain products powered by the company."

The Invisibility Tunnel - Electromagnetic "wormholes" from metamaterials - Softpedia

The Invisibility Tunnel - Electromagnetic "wormholes" from metamaterials - Softpedia: "The invisibility is descending from fiction and movies to reality. New measurements show how to build an electromagnetic 'wormhole', an invisible tube from both sides, that allows the light to pass down the unseen center.

The idea is based on the technology of the spherical invisibility cloak proposed in 2006.

An invisibility cloak should be built of metamaterial, a thicket of metal rings or other elements that manipulate light. The hollow shell of metamaterial would direct light off its inner space without slowing down, making the hole invisible to an outside watcher. 'But the invisibility cuts both ways. If light does not enter, then whatever is in the cloak cannot see outside,' said mathematician Allan Greenleaf of the University of Rochester.

That's why Greenleaf came with an opposite idea. His team wants to manipulate light employing an open tube with flared ends. A straight-on view would render visible the cylinder. "

Gmail to Work with Other Instant Messengers! - The first one is AIM - Softpedia

Gmail to Work with Other Instant Messengers! - The first one is AIM - Softpedia: "Gmail, the mail solution provided by the Mountain View company, will get some fresh updates soon that will surely improve the functionality of the product. Mp Web Wizard, a translator for the Google language, identified some new features that will be soon implemented into Gmail. First of all, it seems like the search giant plans to include support for Presently, the upcoming presentation tool that was designed to complete the Google Office suite. “Clearly Google Presently will be integrated into Gmail straight from the get-go. Google is probably prepared for this because Google Apps is meant to be Google's collaborative suite of enterprise Apps that integrate with each other,” the translator sustained. As you know, Gmail is already compatible with Docs & Spreadsheets, allowing the users to open an attached document with one of these two services.

Another interesting function is the conference capability of Gchat, the web-based messaging client included in the Gmail interface. According to the same source, the search giant plans to add multi-user conversations that will allow a user to communicate with multiple Gmail clients at the same time.

The integration of other instant messaging clients was often discussed, but the company refused to comment on them as it wants to promote its own solution, Google Talk. However, Google Talk is quite unpopular, so the users demanded some other clients to communicate on the Internet. It seems like the search giant wants to include AIM in the Gmail interface just as if it were its own service. "