Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Verve’s El Salvador La Montañita, the countdown to Lady Gaga’s new album, or Lady Gaga’s new album cover making her look like a Terminator reject, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Why hasn’t battery technology improved as rapidly as other technologies? Phones have powerful dual-core processors these days. Handheld consoles and tablets are capable of displaying dazzling high-resolution images in 3D. Yet most consumer electronics are still using some form of relatively old lithium battery tech. This results in amazingly powerful devices…with single-digit battery life hours. Just look at the HTC Thunderbolt and Nintendo 3DS for example.
I’ve been reading about incredible advancements with hydrogen, polymer, and zinc batteries for years, but none of these technologies have found their way into consumer electronics. Let’s get on it battery people! Electronics are becoming more powerful and portable every day, but they’re being handcuffed by old battery technology.
I want my phone, laptop, tablet, and portable consoles to have battery life that’s measured in days, not hours. At the very least, their battery life shouldn’t be measured in single digits, don’t you agree?
Great Coffee Talk topic. I just recently got my first smart phone and I'm seriously thinking about going back to a regular cellphone because the battery dies so quick on this thing. I have to charge it every night and sometimes it's dead by 6:00 PM THE SAME DAY! My old phone only had to be charged every 3 or 4 days. This will be my last smart phone until battery life improves.
Who stills hates R. Truth now? His heel turn was sorely needed. He is the top heel on RAW now in my opinion. The Miz will be back to mid card where he belongs without the title. Who believed that he had a chance to beat Cena in an I quit match? R. Truth is getting more heat than even Alberto Del rio.
This is the best Truth has been in a long time, but they need to time his mic work. He usually loses coherence after 90 seconds.
Agreed. But I think he'll get better with all the practice that he's getting now. To get more heat they should do videos of a little kid asking R. Truth to dance and he makes the little kid cry.
He needs to smoke more.
@rpad
What happened to awesome kong? Er i meam kharma. Did she really have a nervous breakdown on Raw??
There are reports that it was punishment angle and she'll be gone for nine months. I hope those are wrong.
Wow that would suck if she is gone for that long
I'm complete opposite of RROD here. Give me close to 10 hours and I'm fine with my battery needing a charge then. It's a device that does more than receive bland boring phone calls. Truth be told I can't stand when someone calls me. I hate having to speak to them or listen to them fumble around with whatever they are doing.
Whenever someone needs to know something I email it or use KiK. I greatly appreciate when this gesture is reciprocated.
This was the case before smartphones for me. Perhaps because I multi task too much? Maybe I'm just that rude? I don't know. I even get annoyed half the time when someone comes over and wants me to watch a video in front of them.
Dear god I am getting old.
Don't get me wrong, I love the features on smart phones but I find myself not using any of them just to conserve my battery. I hate having to charge my phone every day, sometimes twice a day.
That's the way tech is now. I actually can't picture life without a smartphone. I always have an extra battery on hand. For E3, I'll actually be packing two extra batteries.
Sure, the technology has improved, but hitting her with a phone book still hurts like hell and doesn't leave marks.
Oh… I just read the article… nevermind.
I was just talking about this the other day with a friend. We improve so much other technology but not batteries, and I can't figure out a good reason why not. It would be the next logical step, but it hasn't really happened.
I want to be able to go a whole day on one charge. I don't feel that that is something I can do, or could do, with all technology but would really like to be able to do. Getting an extra battery (or two) for a phone is a solution, but not the one I would prefer to feel I have to go with. I'd rather the phone simply had a good battery life in the first place. Apparently that's too much to ask for since that tech. hasn't made it to our electronics yet.
From what I've read, the tech is there, but nobody is mass producing it (yet) to get costs down.
Seriously man!!!! I got a new game made for the Tegra2 chip (Riptide GP) and played it for less than 30 minutes and my cell battery was at 29%.
It should be like ammo and armor, one makes the other step up its game.
Reread my post and thought but forgot to type that the game was being played on my HDTV via the HDMI port.
Curious to hear how long you can play without outputting to HDMI.
Once I get home I'll charge the battery to the max and let you know.
I charged my phone here @ work and @ 9:40am I unplugged my phone and proceeded to play Riptide GP for a little until 10:15am and the battery is at 80%. I knew that playing via HDMI would drain the battery but not like this lol.
Maybe they should use that thing in Iron Man's chest. I'm sure that thing can power a phone for weeks.
Agreed on the battery deficit. It's really annoying when my laptop runs out of power in 2-3 hours, especially when working on schoolwork. Battery is a big problem for all portable devices. Luckily, there's research going on about some pretty revolutionary tech. Get this: Radio-Frequency Charging. If a phone could absorb a certain amount of radiation from radio waves while turned off, it would charge completely. In a couple hours, you could charge your device without an electric outlet! Of course, this tech is far off, but I can't wait for the day when this kind of technology comes out on the market!
As soon as companies figure out a way to make you pay through your nose for this, then we'll see the technology available to the masses.
-M
Of course it'll cost large sums of cash, but in exchange for convenience, you'd be surprised what people would be willing to pay.
He's not talking about the end user, he's talking about the costs to OEMs.
Nikola Tesla (the same guy who built the first ever hydro electric dam at Niagra Falls) had light bulbs that lit by sticking them in the ground. He was being funded by JP Morgan to build the Wardenclyffe Tower that would not only boost radio signals drastically, it would provide free power to a large amount of people in the area. When Morgan found out that there was no way to make money off of the energy use, he pulled the funding.
That all happened in 1904… and not much has changed since.
The reason we have the technology we have today is because of Tesla. Especially everything that uses AC power and anything wireless.
My wife was reading about Tesla in a book on business. She claims that Tesla got screwed over by Thomas Edison. Tesla was the one that really invented the whole "harnessing the power of electricity" thing and Edison simply bought the rights to it and basically f-ed over Tesla on the business end of the deal. Tesla died an old, bitter man, even when they recognized his brilliance in his twilight years.
I didn't read much of it, but it seemed pretty interesting. It is also interesting to note that scientists have been getting screwed over by greedy businessmen for over 100 years. How little things change. The modern version of this is the "as seen on TV" items that inventors flock to in hopes of selling their motorized, pet-hair cleaning machines and cheap, plastic kitchen pseudo-appliances only to realize that the rights to their invention have been turned over to the marketing company in exchange for a relative pittance.
-M
That story is actually much deeper and took place over many of years.
Tesla came here as a Serbian immigrant. One of his earliest jobs here in the states was actually working for Edison (what eventually became GE). He had some ideas that literally scared the piss out of Edison because Edison figured his whole business would topple if these ideas ever get out. Edison kept him down and basically stonewalled him to the point where he was smart enough to realize he had to get out on his own.
Bare in mind… Tesla talked CRAZY sounding things for the time that most of which have become a reality. He would say things like "The telephone as it is works, but given our technology, there's is no reason a person in New York shouldn't be able to speak with a person in London as if they were in the same room". Long Distance didn't come around until 60 years later or something when AT&T (a company founded by Edison and Morgan) were the only game in town.
But… Tesla would go on to say in the same breath "And if that's possible, there's no reason why we can't make transfers with pictures… or even solid matter." Now… pictures… we're doing right now. Teleporting solid matter… is still a ways off.
All that said… it's obvious Edison didn't need to go on the malicious smear campaign that he did against Tesla.
Edison produced this video:
Edison had the patent on DC (Direct Current) power. Tesla came up with AC (Alternating Current) power. One will power a lamp… the other will power city blocks. Edison was scared shitless so he resorted to electrocuting elephants in public to show how dangerous it was. It didn't end there though.
Tesla had quite a few of his labs mysteriously burn down. He believed that it was Edison.
Edison had a huge investor in JP Morgan. Morgan saw how scared Edison was and started funding Tesla too. He stopped funding Tesla after the Wardenclyffe thing I noted above and this pissed off Tesla.
Tesla then invented and patented the infamous Death Ray. This was the weapon to end all wars. It basically condensed air and other matter and shot it back out at an accelerated rate. Everyone in the WWI era wanted it. Morgan was mainly an international banker who also dealt in dealing arms. But now, it was at Tesla's discretion as to who would get it.
He split the plans into 4 parts. He gave a part each to the US, England, the USSR, and Belgium (think Antwerp Stock Exchange). So… in order for anyone to get this weapon, they'd have to play nice. That's how Tesla pissed off the arms dealer Morgan.
Guys in Morgan's position don't have people killed anymore. They see to it that they die of old age pennyless and alone… that's exactly what happened to Tesla.
Seriously though, check out his wikipedia page and at least look at all the patents he has.
Edison the OG Patent Troll
With all of the features on the NGP I wonder how long that battery will last?
I had Cyanogenmod 7 (Gingerbread) on my Captivate. I was lucky to get 10-12 hours out of it under normal use. I put Cognition 4.4.3 (Froyo) on it and now I get 20+ hours under the same usage.
Also I just signed up for Netflix 9.99/mo deal. Love the instant play. I can watch movies at work now over my cell phones internet without all that much buffering. I am pretty impressed with it. It takes me around 45 seconds to get a movie started and then it plays just fine via tethering.
You wouldn't happen to work for the Border Patrol, would you?
Because if you did, that would explain a lot.
-M
….did I miss something????
Well, when you said "I can watch movies at work now over my cell phone", I had an image of a border patrol agent sitting in his car watching movies on his phone parked right by a chain-link fence between Mexico and Texas. In the near background, I envision a huge, gaping hole in the fence where waves of Mexicans are just pouring through right behind the parked border patrol vehicle. One old woman is even riding a donkey with a sombrero and eating from a Taco Bell bag. Everyone else is an exaggerated stereotype of a popular Mexican character in the U.S. like Cheech, Chong, George Lopez, Jennifer Lopez, Danny Trejo, Speedy Gonzalez, Rey Mysterio, and Bumblebee Man from the Simpsons.
-M
Wow. HAHA. Nope, civil engineering. We get paid a set sum of money and we have to "spend" all of it on each job. So a lot of my time is spent goofing off because I can knock out a set of plans faster than anyone else in the office.
Miami Heat 3-1!!!!
WOOO!!! I'm leaving the arena now. People are going nuts. I think I had three separate heart attacks during the last 10 minutes of the game.
Wade was flat almost the entire game. I can't believe we played that bad and still won. LeBron carried that game. I'd really hate to be a Cleavlander right about now.
Keep bringing on the haters and doubters. It only fuels the fire.
Final game in Chicago, baby.
-M
I can imagine they are! Wade definitely had an off night tonight, but fortunately Lebron came back and finished strong in the second half. I see everyone just hating the Heat right now and waiting for them to lose, but they are simply living up to the hype right now—and it's awesome to watch!
I'm str8 up hating, eff LBJ!!!
I haven't really had lots of time to play games lately, so last night I decided it was time to play.
Put in Bad Company 2, my player score dropped to 0, don't know why for sure. There was so much lag it was unplayable.
Then storms started rolling in so I decided to play something that didn't require internet. Castle Crashers, was at the final boss on Lava World (the mountain dragon) and the power flickers and my PS3 shuts down.
Got pissed and quit playing. An hour later I decided to play something less 'important' in case the power flickers again. TETRIS. On level 9 of a marathon and the power goes off for nearly an hour.
I did however pick a bad night to decide to play again though. We had several tornadoes last night, golf ball sized hail, 70+ mph winds. A tornado went down the street just south of me. Oddly enough I don't even bother getting in the storm cellar anymore.
I just some some pics of the hail online, glad your safe man.
Yeah the hail was horrible. Luckily my new house has a huge carport. I got my truck under just in time. A bunch of the employees from the restaurant started crowding their cars under it too. Lots of broken windshields today all over town.
@ALL
I was reading release dates on cell phones. Does Q3 mean the calendar year or fiscal year?
Thats a damn good question, I always assumed it was calendar.
Thats what I was thinking, but I was really hoping it isn't
For some companies Q1 goes beyond 12/31 and into 2/1. It seems to vary depending on relative factors such as industry, location, etc.
GS2? hehe
HAHA…..yes. :(
A company can start its fiscal year whenever it wishes. Sometimes there's no reason to it.