Slashdot Mirror
MIT Secretly Built Mega-Efficient Nano Batteries
mattnyc99 writes "There was plenty of chatter last week about an MIT announcement that researcher Angela Belcher had developed a way to create virus-based nanoscale batteries to power mini gadgets of the future. In a fascinating followup at Popular Mechanics, Belcher now says that her unpublished work includes full-scale models of the batteries themselves, and that they could power everything from cars and laptops to medical devices and wearable armor. Quoting: 'We haven't ruled out cars. That's a lot of amplification. But right now the thing is trying to make the best material possible, and if we get a really great material, then we have to think about how do you scale it.'"
And Obama thinks it will take 10 whole years!
I see nothing in those articles about these batteries being "mega efficient", as the title of this Slashdot post screams. The novelty seems to be the fact that they're grown using viruses and can be applied in thin films.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'm not sick. Just recharging my battery.
Good thing bacteria can't infect anything...
Of course, now I'll have to worry about my batteries getting a Staph infection:
"Doctor, I need some Vancomycin for my laptop."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
lemme explain why they haven't yet in case you missed how they phrased it. They built a "model" of the battery. They still haven't nailed down how to make the inside part work or how to build a real one. I could take out my legos and build a car battery sized box and say it's a "model" of what a magic battery would look like and say I haven't quite figured out how to make it generate electricity. This isn't news, this is like someone drawing a picture of a flying car and having no idea how to build it or make it fly but releasing a press release anyway.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Come on. It's not THAT bad. They did do this in secret.
Well, until they went to the press...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Bring product to market.
Stop blabbering on and do it already.
Think about what you're saying here.
Is MIT, a university, going to bring this technology to market?
We always hear about research because the people doing it need to show it off so that they can find business & manufacturing partners to bring it to market. Quitely shopping it around isn't the way its done.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
No.
For one, your lego battery wouldn't even work in theory. An actual scientific model is supposed to represent what would work as well as possible.
For two, they aren't just using a model. They've actual built components of this.
"
A much-buzzed-about paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month details the team's success in creating two of the three parts of a working battery--the positively charged anode and the electrolyte. But team leader Angela Belcher told PM Wednesday that the team has been seriously working on cathode technology for the past year, creating several complete prototypes. "
"
The M13 viruses used by the team can't reproduce by themselves and are only capable of infecting bacteria. At just 880 nanometers long--500 times smaller than a grain of salt--the bugs allow researchers to work at room temperatures and pressures with molecular precision, using and wasting fewer hazardous materials in the process. Now that they've demonstrated the construction of such tiny electronic components is possible, the challenge facing researchers is how to make them practical."
As in the virus "inside part" is actually done. They've also got the anode construction done. They're working on the cathode.
This is a practical engineering project at this point. This is news. Who knows if it will end up "practical", but nevertheless it is real whether you rtfa or not.
The enemies of Democracy are
The last 6 or 7 paragraphs explain what progress they've made on these things. Seems to be a bit farther along than a "model". So far they've got 2 out of their 3 bits created already. It'll be nice to see an update on this when they get a bit further along, though.
plop
Heh, that's exactly how it's done. You recognize that the research has commercial application, ask for spin-off rights, found a startup company, build a prototype, then get investors. The result is a whole lot of secrecy, and, eventually, an actual product.
On the other hand, if all you're trying to do is create buzz and get more government grant money, you make press releases.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Wasn't it Popular Mechanics that predicted in the 1970's that by the year 2000, robots would be doing all of the work, and we could all be sitting by the pool, sipping on Daiquiris? Unfortunately, they forgot about how people were going to get a paycheck. I can't believe even Slashdot would mention anything from Popular Mechanics.
"A much-buzzed-about paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month details the team's success in creating two of the three parts of a working battery--the positively charged anode and the electrolyte. But team leader Angela Belcher told PM Wednesday that the team has been seriously working on cathode technology for the past year, creating several complete prototypes. "
"The cathode material has been a little more difficult, but we have several different candidates, and we have made full, working batteries."
They've actually built things, that work, though the 3rd component the cathode is still apparently a work in progress. The summary says "models", which of course means something specific to /.ers, but that isn't the reality reflected in the articles.
The enemies of Democracy are
And with what money will you build that prototype and finance that company?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
"Prototypes" mean something specific to us too.. and it isn't "2 out of 3 critical components, not even integrated yet".
How we know is more important than what we know.
Angel investment. Friends and family investment. Like every other startup.
Seriously, if you don't know this stuff then why are you being so indignant?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Huh? - You must have missed the death of western manufacturing in the 80's-90's.
Robotic factories, robotic warehouses and Chinese peasants ARE doing all the work! The rest of us are sitting around in office blocks posting to slashdot.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What's next? Adware Batteries? Free power, only you get to watch adds on your portable tv, or listen to ads on your radio... oh wait... never mind...
WAIT!... Let's call Eveready and Duracell say we are consultants from Symantec, Mcafee or Sophos and we are here to create a strategy to help them win in this market space. A virus based battery... let's push out a pattern for that one boys...
PROFIT!
We also hear about research because this is Slashdot: News for Nerds. If you only want to hear about ready-to-use products, go to Best Buy.
01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011
01110100 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110011 01101000
01100100 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111
EOF
Slashdot is a poor substitute for Daiquiris, but the combination is a good idea. Cheers!
Blank until
It's obvious that weaving these batteries into fibre (for example) or just the fact that they can create such tiny batteries is hugely advantageous from an engineering perspective. Now clothes can be powered, etc.
What isn't clear is why would you want these batteries to power your car? I don't really see any discussion on whether these pack more power than a 50lb car battery would. From the description it sounds like they're just regular batteries which expire, but are tiny. So by my no-math-involved logic, 50lbs of these nano-batteries should pack about the same punch as a regular 50lb car battery.
Am I wrong about this? Do the infected bacteria constantly replenish the components of the battery making them more like a generator that runs on raw materials ? Because it doesn't look like that, it looks like they create the components, stop the process and put them together.
Very very cool, but it sounds like the same technology we've always had is the end product. Please tell me I'm wrong, I want this to be the mini nuclear generator powering our cars we were all promised in the 1950's.
"Can we stick it on the head of a pin? People love it when we do that"
Ace
When scaling for growth, especially when talking about the automobile sector, shouldn't the larger concern at this point be disposal and/or recycling?
I'm not exactly running around hugging trees, but we ARE talking about billions of batteries here. Even with a 1:1 replacement ratio of current battery tech, demand will increase exponentially when you get the automotive markets ear.
Good example of better, yet not safer would be our pigtail light bulbs we're putting in everywhere.
Publish it, get peer reviews and THEN post on Slashdot if reviewers don't tear it apart completely.
it's got electrolytes.
mov ax,4c00h
int 21h
Isn't Popular Mechanics the rag where half-baked technologies go to die? Right after the part where they will revolutionize All Life As We Know It? And right before the part where The Idea is killed by an Evil Conspiracy?
They are usually late with the important news and way too early with stuff that will eventually crash and burn. Not that they can't build a raging headline and a totally misleading cover out of it.
I stopped going to Popular Mechanics for my cutting edge technology news when I was about nine years old. They are long on hype and short on details - not to mention short on discrimination in their editorial department.
Excuse me, but the nuclear battery in my flying car is running low. Gotta run...
Whoops. Not yahoo fantasy league. My apologies. Wrong website.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I'm going to sound crazy here, but this is my question :
Instead of creating conventional batteries (which is what I *think* is happening here) on a nano-scale ; wouldn't it be better to make bacteria to be used in ongoing reactions ?
Create a battery we can feed sugar (or something) to continually separate or replenish the reacted electrolyte?
I know that's a whole stupid theoretical idea on its own, but it seems like they would be so close to doing this instead with the virii / bacteria they are using right now.
Comments? Flames?
Ace
"They built a "model" of the battery. They still haven't nailed down how to make the inside part work or how to build a real one. I could take out my legos and build a car battery sized box and say it's a "model" of what a magic battery would look like and say I haven't quite figured out how to make it generate electricity."
This shows why analogies can be so bad. The two situations - despite sounding convincingly similar - are extremely different, as other people have pointed out.
Mind you, it's not quite as bad as an anology I heard on the TV news the other day, that almost had me throwing something at it, the analogy was so misleading.
Exactly how big IS a 'full-scale' model of a nano battery? Quite small I suspect and you would definitely require a steady hand. I look forward to the Airfix kit.
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
Shouldn't it be also counted as news if a record-breaking product (in some way) has just been made available to the public too? I hardly ever see those kind of stories on slashdot.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Actually, I'm curious how this is supposed to work. Aside from people always finding something to do, I really can't see why we couldn't be sitting by the pool. I mean, obviously, work still needs to be done. But if we get more efficient at that (e.g. by building machines that then do the work with fewer human hours involved), we _should_, on average, have more free time for a given level of prosperity, right?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
It's VIRUSES, not virii, or viri, or any other variation of that word!
Friends & family for financing a material science startup? Your family must be a lot richer than mine.
As for angel investors, how do you suppose they hear about your invention & plans?
And yeah, I have been through the whole startup thing. Seems like you are the one who is clueless.
I just don't see the efficiency. But I do see a totally new way of thinking when it comes to battery packaging. Even if they don't better current state-of-the-art batteries in amps, this offers a bigger innovation:
Imagine your laptop's case being the battery (better packing). Or you car's undercarriage (better weight distribution). Or your cellphone case being the battery (more packaging). This engineering innovation will change industrial design more than power-efficiency.
There is just no pleasing some people. These guys have been consistently working away on a hard problem, making progress along the way, published their work, so others can run their own experiments, and worked towards a product.
Meanwhile, what exactly have you been doing?
Like somebody else said, if you only want final products, go to Best Buy.
The approach they're taking makes complete sense.
If they have a way of significantly improving batteries, they're holding the key to enabling a lot of technologies that have been waiting on better batteries....
I think it's fair that Angela Belcher has us by the balls...
But if we get more efficient at that (e.g. by building machines that then do the work with fewer human hours involved), we _should_, on average, have more free time for a given level of prosperity, right?
The Law of Diminishing Returns is universal. We can't ALL sit by the pool. Someone has to clean it.
As you increase a "level of prosperity" the TYPE of work may change - from picking berries in a field 14 hours a day to analyzing power-point presentations in teleconferences over the internet 7 hours a day - but you still have to work. There can only be one or two really really rich guys per 100 population, it's a time-honored scale. You may be far "richer" than the berry picker, but only the really really rich guy gets to sit by the pool. And not even that (or he won't be rich for long - snooze and you lose).
The pool is for weekends.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Paraphrasing the original:
"Make a product or it never happened"
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
on Final Fantasy Film (not the grotesque "advent children", the first one), he uses a "bio energy" cell to all devices. Fiction goes real? hehe
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Like letting the air out of a balloon!
That's because they come out every month. Wouldn't be news unless managed another half again on Moore's law.
I see them all the time, and generally they're followed by a few dozen posts complaining about slashvertisements....
your lego battery wouldn't even work in theory.
I thought it was possible to make ANYTHING out of lego.
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
How is the fact that they can only infect bacteria relevant? I have plenty of essential bacteria that I consider more or less my organs. That is not any better than saying it can only infect kidney cells.
If they cannot reproduce (even after infecting a bacterium) it shouldn't matter, as there should not be a sufficient amount of these to stop anything.
However, if these things are being mass produced, it seems to me the odds are that pretty soon at least one virus will show up that can reproduce itself. The question is: how many mistakes in transcribing the virus' genome in the lab would be required to allow it to reproduce?
Copying errors are the heart of evolution, and they will happen even on the production line.
You don't get Daiquiris where you work either, huh? Your job must suck as bad as mine. They want to stick us with kegs of Guiness here.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
But if we get more efficient at that (e.g. by building machines that then do the work with fewer human hours involved), we _should_, on average, have more free time for a given level of prosperity, right?
And you most certainly could RIGHT NOW. You would just have to scale back your standard of living to the time when humans were doing all the work. Back to a family of 4 in a 1000sq.ft. home, with no AC and a max of one car per family. Going to see a movie would be an event. Most people prefer their McMansion with constant entertainment. "Stuff" cost money, and the level of spending generally outpaces the increases in pay scales.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
1) What could possibly go wrong?
2) Grow virus, Stir in cobalt oxide and gold, Add electrolyte, Invent cathode, ...,
PROFIT!
3) I for one welcome our new secretly developed, Army-funded, virus-based, electricity producing overlords.
4) But will it run Natalie Portman's vibrator?
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
I do. I work two months a year. I don't own a car and my only hi-tech gadget is my PC. I've chosen to live more simply and I'm amazed at how little money I spend compared to when I was working full time. And I'm much happier. Spending the best years of your life in an office is bullshit.
It is. It's just not possible for ANYONE to make anything. Some people just don't have the lego skills it takes.
YOU may be in an office block, but *I* am in my parent's basement, with the rest of /.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
They HAVE made working models. They are just trying to perfect the process.
"Prototypes" mean something specific to us too.. and it isn't "2 out of 3 critical components, not even integrated yet".
Actually, it can, because they can be prototypes of the components. Two of which have been integrated. And they've made full, working batteries, just not using their cathode technology yet.
Why don't you just RTFA instead of continuing to poo-poo their accomplishment based on a single word taken out of context, the first one you latched onto not even existing in the article? Right, right, I must be new here.
The enemies of Democracy are
What would be awesome is if there was a Wiki site for new technology claims like this where you could go and see what the current state of the technology is. For example, if you're curious about whatever happened to bla bla that you heard about 5 years ago, you can go look it up and find out why nothing ever came of it (instead of assuming the power industry bought it up and killed it).
Oh man, my dreams of owning a Mospeada power armor is finally possible! I want a Cyclone!!!!!
Soon we'll be able to harness our bodies to power machines!
I don't really see any discussion on whether these pack more power than a 50lb car battery would
Well, assuming that power-per-mass ration is roughly equivalent, then these batteries have one big advantage: space
A large collection of "brick" style batteries is somewhat restrictive due to the shapes and material of the batteries. For these, the same advantage is gained as it is for clothing, etc.
For clothes, yes, you could have an LED shirt or whatever with a bunch of "aaa" batteries in a pack at your side, or it could be woven right into the fabric.
In a car, you could integrate these batteries much more easily into the design of the car. There's less necessity for a single huge compartment to house them.
Of course, one big question then becomes, how do you charge them? If you can't, then it becomes an issue of discarding and replacing them. If they're enviro-friendly when discarded, then perhaps you can use a method almost like a common car now. Have a fuel tank that you would purge of power cells - or bacteria - and then refill, perhaps through a liquid of some sort?
To me, this sounds a lot more convenient than hauling around 50lb batteries.
Some projects require nano legos apparently.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Meh. They're still nearly useless: Mega-efficient * nano-battery = milli-power.
Come back when you have something approaching unity.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
yep, finally, the era of nano-batteries. Can you imagine? wireless tech is now within grasp! no more wires for mp3 players, headphones, etc... this is way cool! :)
Actually, I'm curious how this is supposed to work. Aside from people always finding something to do, I really can't see why we couldn't be sitting by the pool. I mean, obviously, work still needs to be done. But if we get more efficient at that (e.g. by building machines that then do the work with fewer human hours involved), we _should_, on average, have more free time for a given level of prosperity, right?
Here's the reason you and I won't be sitting by the pool anytime soon: you won't get the money generated by automation. Businesses will, and the more profit is made and the more automation goes into it, the more businesses grow, and the more the people on the top will keep.
A more likely scenario of automation: the rich get richer, and everyone else is marginalized. People with money invest in, and run businesses that automate everything. The rest of society does the tasks that humans still need to do, making little in comparison.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
Wait so those 'living' parts of Voyager are becoming reality?
Living batteries could be a good idea. Less bio hazards are good. If these could be powered by garbage, that would rock. Helps get rid of stuff we do not want and give us power to do things we do want.
They still haven't nailed down how to make the inside part work or how to build a real one
From TFA: "...and we have made full, working batteries." "
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
What's next? Adware Batteries?
Nothing like avoiding popups... in the middle of the street.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
We do anyway.
When was the last time you went to see a movie? Ate at a restaurant? Walked the dog?
In the not-so-distant past, these were pastimes of the wealthy, luxuries that most normal people couldn't afford. I'm not talking about the 70's, but more like the turn of the 20th century.
But people are able to afford more luxuries today than they did in the 50's and 60's. Cellphones, cars, television, computer? Just because we choose to spend time sitting in front of a moving-picture screen instead of by a pool doesn't mean we're not living that life now.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
You propose your plan to the angel investors like everyone else?
Lots of people have sufficiently rich family to create a material science startup. You only need maybe ~50million for that, there are at least a couple hundred thousand people with family that rich.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'm reading slashdot on my floaty chair in my pool with existing battery technology, while a robot is cleaning my pool and vacuuming my floor. Another robot washes and dries my laundry. With one more to cook my meals, and one to fold my laundry, I'll pretty much have all my common household tasks handled by robots.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
As they already are designed to make things. Virii don't, they are essentially inert information bombs. The virii infect bacteria. Can you imagine the destruction of our civilization by these bacteria getting into electronics world-wide and these nano-scale wires being produced, shorting out electronics? Like the American carbon-fiber bomb used to short out power transformers, but on the micro scale.
post to remove accidental troll mod.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
Its not funny its true. A person costs about $150 on the human trafficing market. Building a robot as good as a person will take you billion of dollars and years and years and then each one will cost you a shocking amount of money. People are good at doing shit.
Producing a demo model doesn't mean that you have produced a cost-effective means of mass production. Producing a cost-effective means of mass production requires investors. Investors require press and hype. Slashdot happily provides that.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Get rid of computers, mass electronics, wireless internet, and Slashdot while you're at it.
Air conditioning I can live without. Wifi I can not.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What kind of work do you do for those two months?
1) For one, MIT is an institute. 2) MIT is state AND governent funded in many projects. 3) Research projects at MIT, CalTech, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and the like, are probably closely linked to governement and private sector projects.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
> The M13 viruses used by the team can't reproduce by themselves
> and are only capable of infecting bacteria.
In related news, uranium isn't capable of exploding by itself, and is only capable of exploding in a nuclear bomb.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And to answer the follow-up question, no, she is not required by law to date other nerds.
BTW, she went from a BA in Creative Studies to a PhD in chemistry studying nanotech construction techniques?
Kind of like Homer, but they forgot to put back the crayon.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The batteries components are incredibly small, which when put together makes the battery more efficient then a normal battery. This is probably due to the increased surface area that the anode and cathode have per volume.
What I would like to know is if I've got a 9 volt battery size of this new battery what type of power would I get from it. What is the actual gain in efficiency that we are talking about.
Anyone know?
I went on an overnight trip and stayed at a B&B. Silly me, I forgot to bring a book. There was an old Popular Science magazine in the bedroom though (at least 5 years old), and I was pleasantly surprised to read the articles and see how close their predictions had come!
Of course some of the products didn't turn out, but it was surprising how "right" most of the magazine turned out to be.
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been wide
"Can you imagine ... these bacteria getting into electronics world-wide ..."
No, I can't.
I have recently attended a talk given by Belcher and one of the major struggles they have faced is that they cannot make the cathode using the same strategies they used to formulate the anode, so I foresee this battery still to be far off in the future.
Maybe, it sounds like they're making progress. It's actually the cathode that they claim to have prototypes of (the anode and electrolyte apparently being more complete). It isn't clear if the "full working battery" they are talking about is using one of those prototypes or a stand-in cathode.
With regards to being "mega-efficient", notice how no numbers are mentioned in either article. Belcher in her talk has stated that these new batteries are about a 10-20% improvement in charge capacity from current Li-Ion batteries. Even then, they are still facing problems with maintaining charge capacity over many charge-discharge cycles, which drops off faster than current rechargeables.
Yeah, I have no idea if these will actually represent any significant improvement in batteries by itself. It's actually the manufacturing technique that seems like it is the most exciting.
Also - calling them virus batteries is quite the misnomer. The charge carriers are actually long DNA strands with high affinity to certain metal oxides.
Sure, the viruses are just part of their method of creating the devices. It sounds cooler so I'll run with it. :)
The enemies of Democracy are
"You propose your plan to the angel investors like everyone else?"
How do you find an angel investor? We either get scientists making a buzz when they've got something good, or a constant barrage of angel investors advertising that they'd like a scientist to propose a plan.
"Lots of people have sufficiently rich family to create a material science startup"
The question is whether *these* people have sufficiently rich families.
For an angel investor, you put together a business plan and shop it to the investment market. An angel investor is just an investor willing to take more than the usual level of risk.
If you're not the one lucky enough to have those family members, then you, you better go with the angel investor route.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Did it top the internet not being a truck but a series of tubes? If it did, you better share.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Apparently you have never observed legos under an electron microscope.
They are MADE of nano-legos.
That all depends on your definitions of terms. Todays mean would be considered really really rich in another place and time.
Take a look at my cousin. He's broke and he doesn't do shit.
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Mega-efficient bombs maybe! ...wait, this isn't about iPod Nano batteries?!
"shop it to the investment market"
and where is the investment market? That's right, its in popular mechanics and new scientist and discover. They've just gone straight to the investment market.
Your problem is that you're reading the same journals as bluesky investors. If you don't want to read about new discoveries, don't read the periodicals that investors read.
So then buy stock in the robotics companies.
Neither a washer nor a drier are robots! Neither is a microwave oven.
They are programmed mechanical devices with computer processors in control, what else defines robot such that it differentiates roomba from them?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I specifically left out the Roomba, since I think that's more of a grey area, but here's part of the first paragraph of Wikipedia's entry on robot that I think is appropriate:
A person specifically puts clothes in a washer and puts in soap, makes the specific settings for that load (cold/warm), and tells it to go.
I don't have a Roomba, but I presume that a person initially sets up various settings ("preferences"), then on its own, it goes and vacuums the floor/carpet on a predetermined schedule. Its collision detection and room-mapping (or at least coverage) capabilities make it seem intelligent to people (though it's really just computer programming), rather than a device that simply automates a task. A lawnmower on a rope that wraps around a tree that "automatically" mows a lawn isn't doing something that a person would interpret as intelligent.
They have made more than models, you missed this in the Popular Mechanics article: "The cathode material has been a little more difficult, but we have several different candidates, and we have made full, working batteries."