Today’s car batteries are massive, yet can only go about 100 miles, and can never come close to gasoline. But a new technology currently being developed under IBM’s “Battery 500 Project”, could result in a battery that would power cars for more than 500 miles on a single charge. They are developing a light-weight, ultra high-density lithium-air battery, or air-breathing battery, which actually breathes air.

In a lithium-air battery, oxygen will react with the soft element lithium to create lithium peroxide and electrical energy. When the battery is recharged, the process is reversed and oxygen is released. Since the oxygen used for the reaction comes from the atmosphere, the battery will be much lighter compared to conventional batteries.

And these batteries have a much higher energy density than lithium-ion ones. Theoretically, the maximum energy density of lithium-air batteries is 12 kWh/kg. That’s around 15 times greater than li-ion, but more importantly comparable to gasoline. If the project is a success, lithium-air might not only replace li-ion, but also gasoline. That won’t happen anytime soon, but it’s certainly possible.

The talks about lithium-air battery actually started way back in 1970, but at the time we did not have the materials required to build one. But li-air is possible today as we have graphene and carbon nanotubes, and also IBM’s famous computer architecture, Blue Gene. IBM has received assistance from Asahi Kasei and Central Glass.

The post IBM’s 500 Mile Lithium-Air Battery Breathes Air (Video) appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The newest batch of MacBook Pros are on their way and, according to DigiTimes, this means 200,000 initial monthly shipments of the Ivy-Bridge powered 15-inch MacBook Pros. This will be followed up by a 13-inch, thinner Pro in June that might have initial shipping numbers that are as high as 400,000 units.

Consistent with previous rumors, the 15-inch Pro would go into first production and arrive as early as sometime this month. From what we’ve heard, Apple’s newest MacBook Pros are going to take a few cues from the Air and that means a much thinner design than we’ve ever seen before. It will be nice to see a retina display actually come to being. Supposedly, the Pros will ditch the optical drive to make them as thin as possible. These machines will likely come with Intel HD 4000 graphics and i7 processors.

Honestly though, this leaves me with a few questions of my own. Will the Air cease to exist and just be a configuration model of the Pro if they are indeed becoming the same size and general form factor? I also hope that Apple understands that there at least some users that would have interest in a built-in optical drive option, even if that means a slightly larger size. Honestly, slim drives don’t take that much space in my opinion. We are certainly moving towards an age with PCs where optical drives are disappearing, but is it too soon? I suppose the answer to that question will vary from person to person.

[ source ]

The post New MacBook Pros On Thier Way? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.