Tag: Mobiles

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New Silver-zinc Battery provides longer Battery Life for Laptops & Mobiles

Battery

Silver-zinc batteries pack more energy than lithium-ion batteries, giving laptops 40 percent more run time, according to Dueber. If a laptop runs for two hours with a lithium-ion battery, it should run for closer to three hours with a silver-zinc battery.

The batteries will be available in consumer and business laptops from major PC makers starting in August, according to Ross Dueber, the CEO of ZPower, although he declined to name any of the vendors on Thursday.

The battery’s water-based chemistry also makes it nonflammable, compared to lithium-ion, which uses dimethyl carbonate, a flammable liquid. Cells can go off “like firecrackers” in lithium-ion batteries.

It also remains to be seen if silver-zinc batteries can compete on price, since lithium-ion is relatively cheap. The silver-zinc batteries contain silver, which can be expensive.
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Motorola Inc in Trouble? “Split in Motorola”

Motorola

Motorola Inc. announced plans to separate its struggling handset business from other operations Wednesday, forming two separate publicly traded companies after months of agitation from frustrated investors.

The suburban Chicago-based cell phone maker has been under pressure from billionaire investor Carl Icahn for changes meant to revitalize its cell-phone business. The cell phone unit has seen its sales and stock price plummet with the company unable to produce second act to the once-popular Razr phone.

Motorola said the handset business will operate separately from another company that will encompass its home and networks business, which sells TV set-top boxes and modems, and its enterprise mobility solutions, which sells computing and communications equipment to businesses.

Last year, the company pulled back from developing markets, cut 7,500 jobs and CEO Ed Zander resigned.

A flock of executives have left the company this year, and more cuts and changes are likely as the new management team scrambles to retain control in the face of a revived threat from Icahn.

Icahn, who has been steadily increasing his Motorola position, disclosed in a filing this month that he now owns 142,362,000 million shares, or 6.3 percent – up from 5 percent a month ago.

Wednesday’s announcement came two days after Icahn sued Motorola, seeking documents about its executives and its cell phone business.

 source:tech2

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Garmin Announces GPS-Ready Handset

Garmin

Garmin Ltd., the leading maker of satellite-powered navigational devices, is getting into the wireless phone business with the launch of the nüvifone, a handset that incorporates GPS.

“This is the breakthrough product that cellphone and GPS users around the world have been longing for – a single device that does it all,” said Cliff Pemble, the company’s president and COO. “We believe nüvifone will change the way people view converged devices in future.”

The all-touchscreen device is claimed to be the first of its kind to integrate premium 3.5G mobile phone capability with an Internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging, and personal navigation functions in one device.

Personal messaging functions include email, text, and instant messaging. Also available is access to Garmin Online, which offers constantly-updating information such as real-time traffic, fuel prices, stock prices, news reports, and weather forecasts.

The nüvifone is Garmin’s first device to include Google local search capability, which harnesses the vast point of interest information available from the Internet.

The built-in camera will allow individuals to take a picture that will automatically be tagged with the exact latitude and longitude of where the image was taken. The device also provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available via Google’s Panoramio picture sharing site.

Garmin anticipates that the nüvifone will be available in the third quarter of 2008. Specific details about pricing and sales partners haven’t been announced yet. For more information, please visit the official website.

source:tech2