Toshiba prepares world's lightest notebook with SCiB battery

[kl0012]

The charge time of SCiB battery to 90% is rumored to be 5-10 minutes only. Very impressive if true.
http://nexus404.com/Blog/2010/05/07/...g-battery-too/

[Hornet331]

ble.. good charge rate but stinky capacity... SCiB only has ~ 1/3 of the capacity as normal lithium ion bats.

[Manicdan]

ble.. good charge rate but stinky capacity... SCiB only has ~ 1/3 of the capacity as normal lithium ion bats.

hopefully capacity isnt going to be as important if laptops can continue to reduce their power consumption. but there just may be a limit until we can get super low power screens as the norm.

[saint-francis]

Batteries as we know them always have been and always will be garbage. We need to get off the map entirely and move to some more sophisticated technology.

[NKrader]

Batteries as we know them always have been and always will be garbage. We need to get off the map entirely and move to some more sophisticated technology.

like dylithium crystals?

[Particle]

He's probably thinking fuel cells or some kind of metal economy.

[Manicdan]

when you compare the energy per pound, or per size, yes batteries do suck. but what other method should electronics use?

[K404]

The article mentions that fast charging times mean it doesnt matter if battery life isn't so good.

I disagree entirely. Charging times for normal laptops arent really a problem..... its the availability of plugs when the user is out and about that is!

No Charge= No Laptop. No Plug= No Charge. -> No Plug= No Laptop.

[NKrader]

the article mentions that fast charging times mean it doesnt matter if battery life isn't so good.

I disagree entirely. Charging times for normal laptops arent really a problem..... Its the availability of plugs when the user is out and about that is!

No charge= no laptop. No plug= no charge. -> no plug= no laptop.

= no porn... Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo

[Manicdan]

The article mentions that fast charging times mean it doesnt matter if battery life isn't so good.

I disagree entirely. Charging times for normal laptops arent really a problem..... its the availability of plugs when the user is out and about that is!

No Charge= No Laptop. No Plug= No Charge. -> No Plug= No Laptop.

if your stuck for 8 hours with no charger, yes your screwed, probably with both laptops. but if you have a half hour break, 10 minutes to charge, 20 to each, one laptop will get you back 4 hours, one will get back 1 hour. the one that gets back 1 hour will need a 7 hour battery, while the one that gets back 4 hours, only needed 4 hours. granted there are options, like a backup battery that fits in the cdrom slot. and in the end there is a preference to each owner. will this be for everyone, most likely not. but there are a few people who will kill for faster charging, and so why not give it to them

[NKrader]

but there are a few people who will kill for faster charging, and so why not give it to them

ive accually killed a man cuz i thought it would make my ipod charge faster..


didnt work..

[Manicdan]

ive accually killed a man cuz i thought it would make my ipod charge faster..


didnt work..

its easy to tell your lying, cause everyone knows time flys while having fun, and killing is fun. there i said it, lol

[annihilat0r]

He's probably thinking fuel cells or some kind of metal economy.

Or the electricity-by-wireless technology?

It's technically not mature enough yet, but once it is, it will be great. Look at how little time it took for everywhere we go to be covered under some kind of WiFi. Maybe the same will happen with this tech too.

[saint-francis]

when you compare the energy per pound, or per size, yes batteries do suck. but what other method should electronics use?

He's probably thinking fuel cells or some kind of metal economy.

Something like that. Fuel cells sound good but there are some usability issues.
I'm not exactly sure what to do actually. If I did I'd have filled everyone in on it a while ago and we wouldn't be using batteries today. I just hope that a great number of individuals who are more able than I will get to the bottom of this soon.

[Katanai]

= no porn... Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooo

No porn?

[Caparroz]

Or the electricity-by-wireless technology?

It's technically not mature enough yet, but once it is, it will be great. Look at how little time it took for everywhere we go to be covered under some kind of WiFi. Maybe the same will happen with this tech too.

Everytime someone mentions wireless electricity all I can think of is this happening everywhere...

[Manicdan]

Something like that. Fuel cells sound good but there are some usability issues.
I'm not exactly sure what to do actually. If I did I'd have filled everyone in on it a while ago and we wouldn't be using batteries today. I just hope that a great number of individuals who are more able than I will get to the bottom of this soon.

i remember seeing something years ago about batteries that could charge like 100x faster, and held like 20x the energy in the same space. it was in popular science i think, this is going back like 3-4 years im sure. so i guess it wasnt very practical. but its what we need

[Smellydeli]

Or the electricity-by-wireless technology?

It's technically not mature enough yet, but once it is, it will be great. Look at how little time it took for everywhere we go to be covered under some kind of WiFi. Maybe the same will happen with this tech too.

But think of the possibilities of cancer!

EVERYONE PANIC!!1``ONE!ONE2

[Death^Dread]

Or the electricity-by-wireless technology?

To what do you refer?

[zanzabar]

if that thing gets 3 hours of life and dose not degrade affter a year like normal batteries then it would be great, especially with 15m recharges and the weight drop

[Behemot]

What about carbon nanotubes? I read about it quite some time ago. It's supposed to produce supercapacitors with 1000times the current capacity and with some added foils, acumulators with like a 100times the current capacity...but no more info after the single article

[Clint]

its easy to tell your lying, cause everyone knows time flys while having fun, and killing is fun. there i said it, lol

And here Im sitting believing Im the wicked one... Thanks for the perspective...

[Frank M]

like dylithium crystals?

I was thinking more along the lines of crystalline minerals and vespene gas...

hopefully capacity isnt going to be as important if laptops can continue to reduce their power consumption. but there just may be a limit until we can get super low power screens as the norm.

You're kidding, right?
My most energy-efficient laptop, the Vaio with Core Solo and 11.1" led-
backlit screen, consumes around 7W at it's lowest. This is the entire
thing, cpu, nb, screen, hdd, ram, vrm, etc (wifi is off though). You can
barely get lower than that. Yet it has a 72Wh battery, which is by no
means small.

What about carbon nanotubes? I read about it quite some time ago. It's supposed to produce supercapacitors with 1000times the current capacity and with some added foils, acumulators with like a 100times the current capacity...but no more info after the single article

Yeah, me too, I'm waiting for more news about that.
Last I heard they were talking about first tests, where just shoving in
nanotubes increased a battery's capacity 20-fold; but that was about
a year or two ago. Mass production of carbon nanotubes is necessary
for this to make it viable.

---

Lately, this place feels more and more ... random, if you know what I
mean (Rule 1)

[Bobsama]

IIRC, they've still not solved the issue with manufacturing long enough good-quality nanotubes; by default the nanotube's tiny in both diameter and length, but it's the length aspect that hasn't been solved yet. Wouldn't do much good if the carbon nanotubes were shoved into a battery like tic-tacs in a bottle. Structure's important but very difficult to get right when mass-produced.

[Manicdan]

You're kidding, right?
My most energy-efficient laptop, the Vaio with Core Solo and 11.1" led-
backlit screen, consumes around 7W at it's lowest. This is the entire
thing, cpu, nb, screen, hdd, ram, vrm, etc (wifi is off though). You can
barely get lower than that. Yet it has a 72Wh battery, which is by no
means small.

7W idle is still alot. as we get better power gating on cpus, soon it will be down to 1W idle with either 2 or 8 cores. and the screens are still always on, im thinking of OLED where it can shut off pixels not being used. cpus are naturally getting better at power reduction, monitors are just limited to brightness. thats why i say we might be limited by the monitor until we get OLED out. i never said the monitor was the biggest source of power draw, just the one thats the biggest pain change until new tech is mainstream.