Business Tools ⯀  

Faster processes means lower costs, which ultimately means fatter profit margins. While the logic is sound, the delicate part is figuring out where exactly to start since you don't want to be changing processes that are already working. IT is an area of your business that can always use some improvement.

Technology  

There are so many technologies out there that people take for granted but should not. Science is an amazing part of humanity, and it has helped humanity grow closer in many ways, which should be celebrated.

It is easy for people to be unimpressed with science in these modern times. A survey shows that people are not impressed about the first time a person set foot on the moon. This was a feat that defined a generation and propelled human imagination, yet people do not think it was much of anything now. The following are four scientific marvels that people have also begun to take for granted.

Compasses

Scientists figured out that there is a magnetic pull across the plane; this is something that cannot be seen with the naked eye. They built a small magnet-based compass that could align with the earth's magnetic pole, which shows you where you are heading at all times. It is a pretty exciting and simple piece of technology that is often taken for granted.

Flight

Human beings do not have the ability to fly like a bird, no matter how much you might have dreamed about it, yet we figured out how to 'fake it' with planes. People think of planes as nothing more than aerial buses and get upset when there are delays. Many people read a book or watch a movie to pass the time because being up in the air is a little too boring. The fact is that being able to fly is an exciting ability given to people by scientists, yet no one makes a big deal about flying.

For centuries people dreamed of flying, now we take it for granted.

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Bottles

Naturalists do not care for plastic, but making this material did revolutionize the way things are packaged. It made packaging easier, cheaper, and the material is long-lasting. Making plastic is a pretty complicated procedure as it requires a combination of things like coal, cellulose, natural gas, salt, and crude oil, just to name a few of the compounds present. If you’re ever curious to see just how amazing plastic really is, try googling a company like E-Plas who manufactures plastic. You might be surprised what you see.

Phones

Communication is essential for a growing society. There was a time when long distance communication relied on birds or beacons that were lit across lands, but the amount of information shared among these was limited. The idea of using a device to transfer voice from one location to another instantly was science fiction, yet this is what a phone can do. The device captures sound and transfers it to another location. Phones today can even transfer images and live video, but some people do not care much about the invention beyond its ability to share videos or pictures that can be liked on social media.

There are several other marvels out there that people take for granted and should not. Science is an essential part of our humanity, and it has helped us grow closer.

By  Kara Masterson	Embed

Batteries  

Hitachi has announced that it has developed a new lithium-ion rechargeable battery with an energy density twice as high as that of the company's existing product.

I think we can all agree modern smartphones are incredibly convenient. They allow us to remain connected to the Internet no matter where we are, and that brings a whole host of features and options. Of course, there’s one significant drawback to this. The more powerful and connected our phones get, the shorter the battery life gets.

It makes sense, after all, because even with larger-capacity batteries in a smartphone, it won’t last any longer if you’re constantly using your device. Sure, when in standby mode most phones can last for days, but let’s be realistic. How many of us actually leave our phones alone for that long?

We need better battery technology, that much is certain.

That’s why new technology from Hitachi Maxell could revolutionize the mobile industry. It developed a new type of lithium-ion battery that has twice the capacity of current tech, and yet it’s no thicker. In short, it means the new tech could double the life of the average smartphone without any significant drawbacks, such as making a device thicker in size.

Introducing Hitachi Maxell’s ULSiON Battery Tech

The new technology has been coined ULSiON, and it will allow Hitachi to create mobile batteries that are small and thin yet offer exceptional capacity.

“We will realize compact lithium-ion batteries that have a width of 13mm or less and an energy density twice as high as that of the existing product of the same size,” says Hitachi.

How does it work?

The new technology employs a composite material, which is generated when the silicon-based layer of an electrode is coated with carbon. Usually negative electrode layers made of silicon materials will expand and contract, which is what causes the overall size of the battery to grow or swell. The new technology from Hitachi, however, reduces that pattern by employing much finer silicon particles that are less likely to expand or contract.

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No Impact on Design

The result is that smartphone manufacturers could create devices that have much longer battery lives, without sacrificing minimal design. This is good news indeed, as batteries for high-drain devices tend to be larger in size, which is why you often see more powerful smartphones with less battery life. This is because manufacturers opted to keep the form factor smaller and thinner, instead of equipping a higher-capacity battery.

Where this technology could benefit most is the wearable tech market, where devices need to be ultra-thin and reasonable in size. No one wants to wear a brick on their wrist or around their neck, so manufacturers are struggling to offer wearables with decent battery life.

Hitachi’s new technology could allow it to offer smartwatches and fitness trackers that stay charged a week or more at a time. This is one of the biggest hurdles with wearable tech currently, as most smartwatches require you to charge them every night or every other night, which can definitely get ridiculous.

Bigger Phones, Bigger Drains

Plus, smartphone manufacturers have been slowly increasing display sizes over the years. These days, it’s not uncommon to see a 5-inch or larger display on new smartphones, which can certainly increase the load on the battery. It seems crazy that while devices are growing in size — phablets are incredibly popular these days — the general battery life tends to be decreasing.

Hitachi’s new technology will certainly change the market for the better, provided it can mass produce it. The company is set to demo the new technology to the public at the 2nd Wearable Expo in Tokyo, Japan, taking place from January 13 to 15.

By Kayla Matthews

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Author Bio - Kayla Matthews is a technology journalist and blogger, as well as editor of ProductivityBytes.com. Follow Kayla on Facebook and Twitter to read all of her latest posts. 

 Gadgets  

New technology behind better smartphone batteries is on the way and developers are making more and more adjustments to improve batteries for longer use.

There's nothing worse than having one of the flashiest, sleekest smartphones on the market today only to discover that it has the battery life of a New York minute. If you're in the market for a new smartphone, or if you want to know what makes some smartphone batteries last longer than others, arm yourself with knowledge so that you aren't blinded by all of the cool apps and features of the newest smartphones. Keep reading to learn about the latest battery technology that could give your phone a few extra hours.

The Power Amplifier

One of the main reasons that smartphone suck up so much power throughout the day is because of the power amplifier. Not only do power amplifiers suck up roughly 65 percent of a smartphone's power, they also cause it to heat up. New technology known as asymmetrical multilevel out-phasing selects the lowest voltage necessary to build a connection and refreshes itself roughly 20 million times every second in order to operate more efficiently. Currently, the innovative power amplifier is being created in a single chip that's intended to be the new face of an energy efficiency revolution.

Self-Healing and Full Terabyte Batteries

Another technological breakthrough that can greatly improve the battery life of a smartphone is the self-healing battery. The way this particular battery works is that it actually repairs the damage done throughout the day to cells while a battery is operating. There's even talk of brand new technology that could be available as soon as 2015 that allows up to a full terabyte of memory, which is said to consume 20 percent less power and last ten times longer than normal smartphone batteries. If successful, the breakthroughs could mean having a smartphone with a battery that lasts several days or even weeks on one charge.

Current Smartphones with Powerful Batteries

While you're waiting for new smartphone battery technology to be released and implemented, there are a few

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smartphones that are currently available that have great battery life. Thanks to the ultra-power-saving mode, the Samsung Galaxy S5 can potentially last 24 hours even with ten percent power left. The LG G Flex touts a 3,500mAh curved battery that allows it to perform better and last as long as 18 hours on a single charge. The OnePlus One phone is one that's currently only available by invitation, but its long battery life is thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 as the CPU. While users might not like the fact that they can't remove the battery, it's one of the reasons that the phone can last an entire day on a single charge. No matter what smartphone you have currently, you can easily improve the battery life by limiting apps, colors, brightness, and activities.

Now that developers are providing users with stronger batteries, every smartphone brand is after the latest technology to make the longest-lasting battery. Having to charge your phone multiple times a day is inconvenient, hence, developers and marketers are trying to beat out the competition when it comes to battery life. The good news is that as this technology develops, all smartphone batteries will be improved somewhat—making everyone’s user experience a little better. The information for this article was provided by the smartphone professionals at Apple Shark who provide an Apple iPhone trade in program for those with older models, or even damaged devices.

By Dixie Somers

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 Foldable Electronics  

Researchers have developed a new stretchable and transparent electrical conductor, bringing the potential for a fully foldable cell phone or a flat-screen television that can be folded and carried under your arm closer to reality.

University of Houston researchers have developed a new stretchable and transparent electrical conductor, bringing the potential for a fully foldable smart phone or a flat-screen television that can be folded and carried under your arm closer to reality.

Zhifeng Ren, a physicist at the University of Houston and principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, said there long has been research on portable electronics that could be rolled up or otherwise easily transported. But a material that is transparent and has both the necessary flexibility and conductivity has proved elusive – some materials have two of the components, but until now, finding one with all three has remained difficult.

The gold nanomesh electrodes produced by Ren and his research associates Chuan Fei Guo and Tianyi Sun at UH, along with two colleagues at Harvard University, provide good electrical conductivity as well as transparency and flexibility, the report in a paper published online Tuesday in Nature Communications.

The material also has potential applications for biomedical devices, said Ren, lead author on the paper.

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The researchers reported that gold nanomesh electrodes, produced by the novel grain boundary lithography, increase resistance only slightly, even at a strain of 160 percent, or after 1,000 cycles at a strain of 50 percent. The nanomesh, a network of fully interconnected gold nanowires, has good electrical conductivity and transparency, and has “ultrahigh stretchability,” according to the paper.

And unlike silver or copper, gold nanomesh does not easily oxidize, which Ren said causes a sharp drop in electrical conductivity in silver and copper nanowires.

Guo said the group is the first to create a material that is transparent, stretchable and conductive, as well as the first to use grain boundary lithography in the quest to do so. More importantly, he said, it is the first to offer a clear mechanism to produce ultrahigh stretchability.

The grain boundary lithography involved a bilayer lift-off metallization process, which included an indium oxide mask layer and a silicon oxide sacrificial layer and offers good control over the dimensions of the mesh structure.

“This is very useful to the field of foldable electronics,” Guo said. “It is much more transportable.”

Sun noted that Korean electronics maker Samsung demonstrated a cellphone with a bendable screen in October; LG Electronics has introduced a curved cellphone that is available now in Asia.

But neither is truly foldable or stretchable, instead curving slightly to better fit against the user’s face. “For that kind of device, we need something flexible, transparent,” Sun said of a foldable phone. “If we want to further that technology, we need something else, and the something else could be the technology we are developing.”

Ren noted that, although gold nanomesh is superior to other materials tested, even it broke and electrical resistance increased when it was stretched. But he said conductivity resumed when it was returned to the original dimensions.

That didn’t prove true with silver, he said, presumably because of high oxidation.


SOURCE  University of Houston

By 33rd Square

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 Electronics  

While everyone is familiar with Moore's Law effect on microprocessors, other electronic components are also shrinking at exponential rates.  Murata Manufacturing recently unveiled chip ferrite beads that are used in smartphones and wearable devices of the future.

Japanese company Murata Manufacturing has developed the world's smallest chip ferrite beads, which are 0201 size, with dimensions measuring 0.25 x 0.125mm. Chip ferrite beads are electronic components used in smartphones and other mobile devices. Their role is to eliminate noise from electronic equipment and prevent errors in operation.  The development of smaller electronic components goes hand-in-hand with Moore's Law.

"Compared with the 0402 size, which was the smallest available until now, these products have 75% smaller volume. The main application for this 0402 size is smartphones. A smartphone contains about 500 of these, or even more. So, by making each one smaller, the area needed overall can be reduced quite a lot," said a representative from Murata.

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Last year, Murata also developed similar sized monolithic ceramic capacitors and chip inductors. Even though they are incredibly small, systems which can mount them in devices are currently available, and Murata is working on mass production technology with the aim of providing samples this fiscal year.

Monolithic ceramic capacitors are assembled into all kinds of electronic devices and it is said that 400 to 500 of them are used in the latest smartphones. The number of electronic components used in compact mobile devices continues to increase to enable an increasingly greater number of features. The growth in size of mobile devices is not proportional to the increase in number of features, which means that volumetric efficiency is a key factor in product design. This is driving a growing need for ultra-small components that can support high-density mounting.

"The 0201 size monolithic ceramic capacitors we announced last year are so small, people asked us whether they could really be mounted in devices and mass-produced. Here, the capacitors are inside this glass, and there's a huge number in here. This is how we've made it possible to mass-produce them. This video shows them being mounted on a board, in collaboration with Fuji Machinery and Panasonic. Here's the actual board with the products mounted. It shows how these different sized capacitors can be mounted together."

"We think 0201 size components will be needed for future smartphone and wearable devices. They'll be essential in five or ten years' time, so such devices can have all kinds of capabilities, and be even more compact."



SOURCE  DigInfo News

By 33rd Square

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