Rice University Adds Asphalt To Speed Lithium Metal Battery Charging By 20 Times (nextbigfuture.com)

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Rice University Adds Asphalt To Speed Lithium Metal Battery Charging By 20 Times (nextbigfuture.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday October 4, 2017 @03:30PM from the new-and-improved dept.

schwit1 writes: The Rice lab of chemist James Tour developed anodes comprising porous carbon made from asphalt that showed exceptional stability after more than 500 charge-discharge cycles. A high-current density of 20 milliamps per square centimeter demonstrated the material's promise for use in rapid charge and discharge devices that require high-power density. The Tour lab previously used a derivative of asphalt -- specifically, untreated gilsonite, the same type used for the battery -- to capture greenhouse gases from natural gas. This time, the researchers mixed asphalt with conductive graphene nanoribbons and coated the composite with lithium metal through electrochemical deposition. The lab combined the anode with a sulfurized-carbon cathode to make full batteries for testing. The batteries showed a high-power density of 1,322 watts per kilogram and high-energy density of 943 watt-hours per kilogram. Testing revealed another significant benefit: The carbon mitigated the formation of lithium dendrites. These mossy deposits invade a battery's electrolyte. If they extend far enough, they short-circuit the anode and cathode and can cause the battery to fail, catch fire or explode. But the asphalt-derived carbon prevents any dendrite formation.

"The capacity of these batteries is enormous, but what is equally remarkable is that we can bring them from zero charge to full charge in five minutes, rather than the typical two hours or more needed with other batteries," Tour said. "While the capacity between the former and this new battery is similar, approaching the theoretical limit of lithium metal, the new asphalt-derived carbon can take up more lithium metal per unit area, and it is much simpler and cheaper to make. There is no chemical vapor deposition step, no e-beam deposition step and no need to grow nanotubes from graphene, so manufacturing is greatly simplified." The findings have been published in the journal ACS Nano.

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ac gets the nod by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:37 · Score: -1

what are we discussing again?
1. Re:ac gets the nod by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:30 · Score: 0
  
  Mining Buttcoins.
We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:39 · Score: -1

several times a month, but it's just sad how the Republicans won't let us have them.
1. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:41 · Score: -1
  
  Because Hillary's emails!
2. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:51 · Score: -1
  
  Just like cancer treatments that the medical cartel withholds.
3. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:51 · Score: -1
  
  Stop replying to yourself and STFU, you dumb motherfucker.
4. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:17 · Score: -1
  
  But cancer is just too profitable for the medical cartel.
5. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:25 · Score: -1
  
  Without cancer, the for-profit medical system would collapse.
6. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:52 · Score: -1
  
  I'm going to suck my own DICK now you've made me so mad
7. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:18 · Score: -1
  
  I'm going to suck my own DICK now you've made me so mad
  Damn. I hate when that happens. As Bill Clinton once said, I feel your pain. I FEEL YOUR PAIN! But I won't feel your vein. Sorry but I don't play for that team. I do enjoy when a woman jams a finger up my asshole and stimulates my prostate but that's a woman doing it. Sorry, man. Other dudes here are a lot more open minded. Me? I'm old fashioned.
8. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:18 · Score: 1
  
  Well this one uses oil as a base component, so it confuses the fuck out of everyone.
9. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:35 · Score: 0
  
  Steve Bannon posts to slashdort?
10. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:36 · Score: -1
  
  Without cancer, the for-profit medical system would collapse.
  Without cancer, even more dumbass stupid moronic imbecilic people would breed out of control. Especially níggers! So violent, tribal and thuggish these níggers are! Did you know the majority of ALL US murders are black male níggers shooting other black male níggers?? Check the FBI crime stats. This is FACT.
11. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:37 · Score: 0
  
  And all those socialized medicine countries without for-profit medical systems?
12. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:42 · Score: -1
  
  Well this one uses oil as a base component, so it confuses the fuck out of everyone.
  Well some strange people do this weird thing called PAYING FUCKING ATTENTION. But yes, it does tend to confuse everyone else.
13. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 19:06 · Score: 0
  
  BENGHAZII!!!11
14. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 19:21 · Score: 1
  
  There shall be no discussion of common sense here!
15. Re: We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 19:47 · Score: -1
  
  Yes, why o why don't they shoot smelly shitty obnoxious hindu-chimps, kind of parasites that invade america, take our jobs and make us homeless. Exterminate hindu-chimps, save America.
16. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Rei · 2017-10-04 23:51 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Meanwhile, cell phone batteries keep shrinking while their amp hours keep growing.
  No, any given announcement isn't likely to ultimately play out. But some fraction of them do, and they change the world behind the scenes. The classic example is silicon anodes, which were the subject of big news stories on Slashdot years ago, then there was nothing.... but today they're commonly used in high-capacity li-ions.
  As for this specific research: I read the study, and I have to admit, it's pretty impressive. One of the big things is that not only is the ion mobility high, but the coulombic efficiency is also very high (95-96% at high charge rates, 99% at low rates). If you want fast charging, having both is critical; otherwise, you'll never remove all of the waste heat at a fast enough rate.
  After having read the paper, I have to add some caveats about this:
  
  The batteries showed a high-power density of 1,322 watts per kilogram and high-energy density of 943 watt-hours per kilogram.
  This is for the active materials only, not for whole cells, and only at low power density. First, the cell capacity is quite sensitive to how fast you charge it - if you charge it fast, the peak capacity is significantly reduced. That said, it's not a permanent difference; if the next time you charge it's a slow charge you go right back to the higher capacity. Secondly, when you include the inactive materials, they show about 450Wh/kg at low charge rates, and around 300Wh/kg at high charge rates. That said, it's still nice - and further refinement could probably reduce the inactive mass.
  The capacity loss over 500 cycles - perhaps I'm not reading clearly, as I'm not seeing where that figure is given out. One of their graphs appears to show something like 10-15% loss over 130 cycles at 0,5C charge rate. It's hard to say how the curve will continue from there. A caveat is worth adding, in that the higher your maximum capacity, the fewer cycles you actually need, since for a given task you put fewer cycles per unit time on a higher capacity battery than a smaller capacity battery.
  I see nothing about accelerated aging tests to see if there's any particular aging effect. Then again, I don't expect much of one, given their chemistry.
  As for manufacture, it's a simple process, and requires no (relatively) expensive mined materials (e.g. no cobalt or the like). That said, one of their components - graphene nanoribbons - I have no clue what the current manufacturing costs are, nor what the potential is to bring them down in mass production. In theory, for something that's pure carbon, the cost should be able to go way down, since basic organic feedstocks are dirt cheap compared to most inorganic feedstocks. But that doesn't mean we've gotten it down that much at this point.
  Just my takes from reading the paper :)
  
  --
  "If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
17. Re:We read about battery improvements... by jellomizer · 2017-10-05 00:42 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is batteries improve at a linear rate, while technology improves at an exponential rate. We get these improvements all the time, But the time it goes from the Lab to the consumer takes years. So by the time we get this technology in place the Recharge time change would not be as noticeable, as improvements from other labs in the past start getting implemented.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
18. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-10-05 00:54 · Score: 1
  
  Carbon! In its many forms, what can't it do?
  Soon, it will be simply to valuable to leave sitting around in the atmosphere.
19. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Scottingham · 2017-10-05 02:44 · Score: 2
  
  You may have said that as a joke, but you might not be that far off.
  There are processes now using molten-lithium carbonate electrolytic cells to pull the carbon out of the air. The real innovate though is the electrode has nucleation sites that allow for the growing of carbon-nanotube whiskers long enough to be harvested and spun into a carbon fiber with not much more processing (compared to current forms of carbon fiber manufacture). The other component to making useful carbon fiber materials is epoxy resin. Resin is pretty much all organic, read-carbon!
  This coupled with cheap PV solar and focused solar heating (for the carbonate cells) we could really be pulling truly significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Not just sequestering, but providing true value-added structural materials (ie market driven!!)
20. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 06:34 · Score: 0
  
  Read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson.
  E.C.P.
21. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Gr8Apes · 2017-10-05 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  First, the cell capacity is quite sensitive to how fast you charge it - if you charge it fast, the peak capacity is significantly reduced. That said, it's not a permanent difference; if the next time you charge it's a slow charge you go right back to the higher capacity. Secondly, when you include the inactive materials, they show about 450Wh/kg at low charge rates, and around 300Wh/kg at high charge rates. ...As for manufacture, it's a simple process, and requires no (relatively) expensive mined materials (e.g. no cobalt or the like).
  
  about 15 years ago, when batteries looked like they'd plateaued, I pretty much thought the future of batteries would be in a nano-structure. My thinking was more along the lines of super capacitors shrunk to nano size structures, allowing for virtually instant charging and regulated discharging. I'll admit some of this was based on Phillip Jose Farmer's description of the "batacitor" in his Riverworld series and thinking there wasn't a real reason we couldn't come up with something to make that sci-fi concept real.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
22. Re:We read about battery improvements... by hawkfish · 2017-10-05 10:51 · Score: 1
  
  You may have said that as a joke, but you might not be that far off.
  There are processes now using molten-lithium carbonate electrolytic cells to pull the carbon out of the air. The real innovate though is the electrode has nucleation sites that allow for the growing of carbon-nanotube whiskers long enough to be harvested and spun into a carbon fiber with not much more processing (compared to current forms of carbon fiber manufacture). The other component to making useful carbon fiber materials is epoxy resin. Resin is pretty much all organic, read-carbon!
  This coupled with cheap PV solar and focused solar heating (for the carbonate cells) we could really be pulling truly significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Not just sequestering, but providing true value-added structural materials (ie market driven!!)
  I would love to believe this but... ... in order to pull all the carbon out of the atmosphere you would need to have an industrial demand equal to the amount of coal and oil we have burned over the last 250 years. The volume of which is truly staggering.
  
  --
  You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
23. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Rei · 2017-10-05 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  There's been some interesting work with quantum capacitors, although it hasn't really gone anywhere. The concept is that at incredibly tiny scales, charge is quantized, and you can use this as an effective barrier to prevent dielectric breakdown. In theory, the only thing limiting the strength of your battery / capacitor is its internal tensile and compressive strengths. The unfortunate thing is that tensile and compressive strength limits are more limiting than we'd like, even if you could pull off such a quantum capacitor. In theory, you could get a good, but not "staggeringly awesome", battery with a quantum capacitor... but it's probably not worth the huge amount of research to try to bring such a thing to commercial production, if you even could.
  There's also been some interesting conceptual work in storing energy in things like quantum electron traps, with electrons circling nanowires like particles in tiny particle accelerators - that one doesn't have the same sort of structural constraint problems. But that's again not gone past the conceptual stage.
  
  --
  "If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
24. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Scottingham · 2017-10-06 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  It wouldn't happen tomorrow, but the demand could be there if the energy/materials were.
  Some combination of sequestration and transmutation (not literally, but CO2->carbon fiber) could be a winning ticket. Not to mention we could try and reforest areas. That'd have a pretty large negative carbon effect. I recall recently reading an article about how in the early 90s in Costa Rica they dumped tons of orange peels onto depleted scrub land. 30 years later the growth was so impressive that they couldn't find their original signs marking the experimental area!
  Am I being optimistic? Of course. I'd prefer to waste my brain cycles on thought experiments like these vs the 'Subject of hate du jour' or 'Look what The Idiot said now' being peddled everywhere else.
25. Re:We read about battery improvements... by Ranbot · 2017-10-06 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Certainly there's lag between technology in the lab and consumer retail, however if one steps back and looks at consumer battery [or other] technology over a relatively short 10 year period the individual improvements are incremental, but occur often/quickly that are significant overall. If people don't notice the changes it's because they aren't paying attention (but that's typical).
Why Lithium? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:46 · Score: 1

I'd love to see how much energy they could get out of Ni-Fe and Ni-Zn batteries using modern manufacturing techniques... no toxic or exotic compounds required!
1. Re:Why Lithium? by Michael+Woodhams · 2017-10-04 16:11 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Battery chemistry is a hot topic and pretty much anything that shows promise is being researched by someone somewhere.
  Ni-Fe
  Ni-Zn
  and those results are just for 2016-2017, and I didn't search for synonyms "Nickel", "Iron", "Zinc", "cell" (instead of "battery".)
  
  --
  Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
2. Re:Why Lithium? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:14 · Score: 1
  
  Nickel is plenty nasty on its own, thanks...
3. Re:Why Lithium? by Waffle+Iron · 2017-10-04 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  I'd love to see how much energy they could get out of Ni-Fe and Ni-Zn batteries using modern manufacturing techniques... no toxic or exotic compounds required!
  Very few industrial processes create more pollution than nickel smelting.
4. Re:Why Lithium? by Khyber · 2017-10-04 17:27 · Score: 1
  
  Nickel-Zinc whiskers so damned badly that it's about as useful as rechargeable alkaline - you might get 20-50 charge cycles at best then you're fucked.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
5. Re:Why Lithium? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:33 · Score: -1
  
  Nickel-Zinc whiskers so damned badly that it's about as useful as rechargeable alkaline - you might get 20-50 charge cycles at best then you're fucked.
  Oh yeah man. So very hardcore fucked. That's the point at which you start trying to pull the great big black huge níggerdick straight out of your asshole, only to find that the combination of your sphincter clenching "involuntarily" and the way that níggerdick curves upwards and to the right means that separation is difficult. Difficult and not very rewarding. Not at all. Go with the dick. Accept the nígger jammed up your rectum. Feel the flow. Just go with it man.
6. Re:Why Lithium? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 19:47 · Score: 0
  
  Lithium is light, good for portable, but must be handled with care.
  NIckel extraction process is quite nasty (although anything used for batteries can in theory be recycled).
  There is also interesting research in using sodium instead of lithium, not quite as light, but abundant and non toxic (actually necessary for life in moderate quantities). Could be a good solution for fixed installations (home storage).
7. Re:Why Lithium? by Rei · 2017-10-04 23:32 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  That's some pretty hefty hyperbole. It got that reputation from the past history at Sudbury, but today Sudbury is used as an exemplary case study of reducing environmental pollution from mining and remediating damaged landscapes.
  
  --
  "If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
8. Re:Why Lithium? by Zeromous · 2017-10-05 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah man, Im from there, I remember when it was scorched earth, moonlanding like. Rock climbing for miles and river pollution oh man. Crazy colours ive seen in creeks south of the superstack.
  On the drive in on the Kingsway it would feel like another planet, but today there are forests galore. They started planting in the 80s and now it has really improved, there is soil again, less bareface rock, and the air is so much better.
  
  --
  ---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
9. Re:Why Lithium? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  Nickel is plenty nasty on its own, thanks...
  But not so nasty that most Canadian coins aren't made from it.
  Refining it may be funky, but there's nothing wrong with the metal itself. It's used in all kinds of everyday items.
10. Re:Why Lithium? by Waffle+Iron · 2017-10-05 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  Meanwhile, spewage continues at places like Norilsk.
  Fixing it in one place hasn't eliminated the problem.
Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 15:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Let's hope this isn't patented, so that anyone can use the research. Universities have a habit of taking federal funds, then patenting the research that those funds produce. This research was partly funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Congress should repeal the Bayh-Dole Act and require that any innovations from federally funded research be placed in the public domain.
1. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 18:45 · Score: -1
  
  Congress should repeal the Bayh-Dole Act and require that any innovations from federally funded research be placed in the public domain.
  Nicely said! That way university scientists lose a crucial incentive to invent.
2. Re:Patents by Ogive17 · 2017-10-04 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  I understand the point but then where's the return on investment in the research if the private sector can immediately profit from it?
  
  I think there needs to be a middle ground, patented but easy to license the technology.
  
  --
  "Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
3. Re:Patents by Hodr · 2017-10-05 00:18 · Score: 2
  
  I think you missed his point. If the investment is ours, the return should be ours. The school's return is in the form of tuition and prestige (leading towards more tuition), the students return is a valuable and marketable education, and the professor's return is continued employment and the opportunity to publish.
  Obviously if it's a private university, or the work is entirely funded by non-government funds, then there is no issue with privatizing the results.
4. Re:Patents by darthsilun · 2017-10-05 00:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Then let private industry provide the funds for research. Or if the University wants to patent it and license it then they shouldn't take federal grants in the first place.
  if the money comes from all of us the research should benefit all of us equally.
5. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 02:42 · Score: 0
  
  Why should I give you incentive to invent something if you are going to patent it and then extort money from me with "licensing" fees. I already paid for your research by way of grant, your research belongs to me.
6. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 04:34 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  A couple of points to consider on this (I am a prof at a University, but used to work in industry):
  1 - in my field at least (biomedical research), industry won't touch something without patents, which means it won't make it to market. It just costs too much to do all the safety & efficacy testing etc for it to make economic sense without a patent. The appropriateness of pharma pricing is a separate discussion, but the reality of the situation is if you want patients to benefit, you need industry to get on board in pretty much all but a few edge cases.
  2 - conservatively, I would be making twice as much (probably more, possibly a lot more) in industry, with less stress about funding my research, and there is a lot more scope for a high-level career trajectory as well. The potential to earn royalties on inventions I develop is an important counterbalance to this (usually split between the Uni, myself, and my trainees, although YMMV depending on country - my understanding is in the US faculty don't get direct royalty payments but make up the difference by consulting for the licensee). If you're going to cut off that income stream, and you still want to recruit the kinds of people who can come up with these inventions, you will need to find a lot more money to bump up salaries.
7. Re:Patents by EndlessNameless · 2017-10-05 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  Congress should repeal the Bayh-Dole Act and require that any innovations from federally funded research be placed in the public domain.
  Only if they adjust university funding to compensate. Public universities generally license their patents liberally, so it's not like the public is stripped of access to the technology.
  University funds ultimately come from the public regardless. The only impact of these patents is what that money flows through: a private company or the US treasury.
  I would support a mandatory FRAND licensing model to prevent anyone from stepping out of line though. Public-funds patents should be available to any interested party.
  
  --
  
  ---
  According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
8. Re:Patents by EndlessNameless · 2017-10-05 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  Then let private industry provide the funds for research.
  Like all that research funded by the tobacco industry that said smoking was OK?
  Or the research funded by the sugar industry that implicated everything except sugar as a contributor to heart disease?
  
  if the money comes from all of us the research should benefit all of us equally.
  We can achieve this with mandatory FRAND licensing for all public-funds patents. Private organizations already do this for industry-standard technologies like DRAM and LTE, so we know it works.
  This way, the universities have a financial incentive to perform useful research, and any interested party is guaranteed access to the technology at a reasonable cost.
  
  --
  
  ---
  According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
9. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 08:37 · Score: 0
  
  The common setup is that the University patents it, but the one who paid for it has a fully-paid-up license to use it and often to sub-license it. That's also the standard arrangement for copyright when the govt pays for university research. So no, it's not "public," but the public gets the benefit of it. And the patent is published so if somebody wants to commercialize it they can with suitable authorization. Universities do work with patent trolls at times, but they also make a lot of money the old-fashioned way: by selling or licensing a patent to somebody who has a use for it to make something.
10. Re:Patents by darthsilun · 2017-10-05 09:12 · Score: 1
  
  Then let private industry provide the funds for research.
  Like all that research funded by the tobacco industry that said smoking was OK?
  Or the research funded by the sugar industry that implicated everything except sugar as a contributor to heart disease?
  You're conflating junk "research" and real science. What patents did Big Tobacco or Big Sugar get out of those "studies" ? And honestly, who believed them anyway? Nothing I said implied that publicly funded research had to stop – only that universities shouldn't be allowed to tie up discoveries made with publicly funded research grants.
  If industry wants to flush its money down the toilet by funding junk science, more power to them. They can – and do – fund real science too. They have to answer to their share holders either way.
  And if some fool wants to believe junk science, who am I to say they shouldn't? Just look at all the Essential Oils nonsense that's going on now.
11. Re:Patents by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-06 02:30 · Score: 0
  
  I think that's not quite as far as I would go. I would say it is patented to any U.S. citizen. That way, the U.S. citizens who paid for it will profit from it.
Live dangerously by fnj · 2017-10-04 15:55 · Score: -1, Troll

Oh boy! An even better BOMB!
1. Re:Live dangerously by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:47 · Score: -1
  
  Oh boy! An even better BOMB!
  Like your mom's sloppy loose old stanky pussy after I EXPLODE my CUM inside it! Just how did you think you got here anyways?
2. Re:Live dangerously by Maxo-Texas · 2017-10-04 18:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Come on-- even the header says it prevents fire and explosions.
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
3. Re:Live dangerously by fnj · 2017-10-05 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  Wake up, chump. Rapid charging is highly dangerous. Batteries which take a long time to charge are much safer. Any time you speed up charging, you get more heating and pressure buildup. Sorry, but TANSTAAFL.
4. Re:Live dangerously by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 03:29 · Score: 0
  
  Rapid charging with current technology is highly dangerous.
  FTFY, chump.
5. Re:Live dangerously by Shotgun · 2017-10-05 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  No. You didn't fix it. Any transfer of concentrated power is highly dangerous.
  I asked my son to plug in my air compressor one day when he was about 12. I didn't realize the compressor was switched on, and he dallied when pushing the plug into the socket. But, I know there was something wrong when I heard him scream and looked up just in time to see six inches of flame shooting out of the the electrical socket. The stalled compressor looked like a short to the socket, and when the plug came in slowly it set up an electric arc that melted the tab off the plug in a split second.
  I repeat:
  Any transfer of concentrated power is highly dangerous.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
6. Re:Live dangerously by Maxo-Texas · 2017-10-05 19:11 · Score: 1
  
  Huh. On the one hand we have rice university researchers who say they have already done this successfully without problems.
  On the other hand, we have a random person on the internet.
  So hard to choose which side might be correct...
  
  --
  She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
7. Re:Live dangerously by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-06 08:20 · Score: 0
  
  No. You didn't fix it. Any transfer of concentrated power is highly dangerous.
  I asked my son to plug in my air compressor one day when he was about 12. I didn't realize the compressor was switched on, and he dallied when pushing the plug into the socket. But, I know there was something wrong when I heard him scream and looked up just in time to see six inches of flame shooting out of the the electrical socket. The stalled compressor looked like a short to the socket, and when the plug came in slowly it set up an electric arc that melted the tab off the plug in a split second.
  I repeat:
  Any transfer of concentrated power is highly dangerous.
  More like, any father who allows a child to work with potentially dangerous machinery without proper knowledge and supervision is an irresponsible dipshit. When it results in a fatality, this is called natural selection.
Snore... by dicobalt · 2017-10-04 16:00 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Oh wha... you woke me up... What's that? Another news story about an amazing battery breakthrough? I'm going back to sleep, wake me up if it somehow shows up in an end product.
1. Re:Snore... by ls671 · 2017-10-04 18:10 · Score: 0
  
  Nope, it is a story about America. Praise asphalt and gasoline!
  By the way, David Bowie says god is an American so you better get used to it:
  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyric...
  Another good one involving gasoline:
  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyric...
  
  --
  Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
2. Re:Snore... by ShanghaiBill · 2017-10-04 19:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Over the last decade batteries have improved dramatically in capacity, reliability, charging speed, and (especially) cost. This is a result of the very breakthroughs that you so flippantly denigrate.
  If you aren't interested in reading about leading edge research, then what are you doing on Slashdot?
3. Re:Snore... by thegarbz · 2017-10-04 20:56 · Score: 2
  
  It has, constantly.
  Or did you think you've always had 3Ah batteries capable of producing an insane amount of current and being charged in 30minutes sitting in a device that is 7mm thin in your pocket?
4. Re:Snore... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 21:16 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, and then you will say "This is old news .... what is it doing on Slashdot?".
5. Re:Snore... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 22:37 · Score: 0
  
  If you aren't interested in reading about leading edge research, then what are you doing on Slashdot?
  I'm here to read the hilariously bad "women in STEM" flamebait articles (+ even worse comments) and the Dunning-Kruger Effect poster children arguing about politics and economics because they think having a comp-sci degree makes them experts in every field that exists. Slashdot being "News for Nerds" died long before the site's byline did. It should be no surprise that the remaining dregs of Slashdot tend to react poorly to the occasonal tech-related article that pops up.
6. Re:Snore... by Mostly+a+lurker · 2017-10-04 22:39 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If you aren't interested in reading about leading edge research, then what are you doing on Slashdot?
  He is here to post, not read anything he posts about.
7. Re:Snore... by ledow · 2017-10-05 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  I have a pack of AA 2800mAH rechargeable batteries at home that can give me something quite similar.
  I bought them for my GP2X back in.... hold on... 2008, according to my emails from the person I bought it from. They will happily fry themselves if you short-circuit them, the current available is unbelievable.
  They could fast-charge in a little over an hour, I think, but I never bought ridiculous chargers, I just bought more of those batteries. I reckon there were fan-cooled chargers that would do it in 30 minutes back then too.
  The charge time is about the only part I'm absolutely GUESSING on. The rest is something I could show you, and dig out the purchase emails for, with dates.
  Sure, they may have got a tiny bit cheaper, and a tiny bit slimmer (but my currently mobile phone battery is at least the size of a single AA battery, and only 2.1Ah). But in the last ten years, the technology, capacity, size and charge times have barely changed.
  Ten years is a long time in computing. In anything, we now enjoy the benefits of lower-powered computers (my GP2X needed 2 x high capacity AA's to run an ARM 200MHz), not better batteries.
8. Re:Snore... by EndlessNameless · 2017-10-05 05:30 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I reckon there were fan-cooled chargers that would do it in 30 minutes back then too.
  Recharge efficiency and heat dissipation are two areas that these batteries specifically improve.
  Smart phones and laptops have already benefited from faster recharging---as recently as 2-3 years ago. They can't just throw better cooling into the mix, so they rely on improvements like this.
  
  But in the last ten years, the technology, capacity, size and charge times have barely changed.
  The improvement of ~20% is much less than what we get in the microprocessor industry, but every bit helps.
  And as far are charge times are concerned--- that is straight up wrong. You can now charge a phone from ~25% to ~75% in about 15 minutes, and that was not possible a decade ago. Fast-charging has quickly but quietly become the norm.
  The ability to squeeze more energy into a smaller volume is what makes modern smart phones possible at all. Android could not exist if we still used 1980s-era battery tech.
  There are other factors. LiPo batteries are about 1/5 lighter than traditional lithium ion batteries (of equal capacity). This is hugely advantageous for drones and other markets where weight really matters. And everyone likes lighter laptops/phones, even if the difference is not critical from a design standpoint.
  
  --
  
  ---
  According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
BUT! by Templer421 · 2017-10-04 16:08 · Score: 0

It contains EVIL OIL products..........
1. Re:BUT! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:23 · Score: -1
  
  It contains EVIL OIL products..........
  Your mom internally contains EVIL PERSONAL LUBRICANT oil products. Her dried up old post-menopausal pussy just can't keep up with the likes of my cock anymore.
  Captcha: furrow. Man you just can't make this shit up. Slashdot's AI is self-aware now?
2. Re:BUT! by jellomizer · 2017-10-05 00:47 · Score: 1
  
  Considering all the cool things that we can make out of oil. It is a shame that we are just burning most of it.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Actually Looks Pretty Promising by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

At 943 WH/kg and 1322 W/kg, this is really quite good. According to wikipedia, this is 4x "traditional" Li-ion density in terms of storage and decent in terms of charge/discharge rate.
I know they tested 500 cycles. Get to 1000 and it is practical. Get to 5000 and it owns the market.
1. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by AmiMoJo · 2017-10-04 23:45 · Score: 1
  
  Phone batteries are typically good for about 500 cycles. That's why heavy users who get down to a few percent every day find they only last 18 months.
  Phone manufacturers motivated to improve battery longevity because it just means extra sales for them and the new model will be out in a year anyway.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
2. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:05 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, given it's not forming the dendrites, it hopefully will get to 5000, and hopefully at >95% original capacity too. And hopefully sooner rather than the classic "five more years"...
3. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by jellomizer · 2017-10-05 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  For the most part, expect companies would want their customers to upgrade because they want to, vs because they have too. This is why these companies try to change the look and feel and add new features to their devices. Because it is was just because their batteries died on them, then chances are they will go with an other company who had better battery life.
  I think the biggest killer, is every upgrade, expects more processing power, so each upgrade will use more battery faster.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
4. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by AmiMoJo · 2017-10-05 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  Most people get new phones on contract, which means every two years. So the manufacturers design for two year lifespans, and an average user will get through their 500 cycles in a bit over 2 years, so there really isn't much incentive to provide a better battery. Or even a user replaceable battery.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
5. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by JackieBrown · 2017-10-05 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  You're not right. People that buy the high end phones are not typically waiting for their current phone to stop working. They are buying the new phone because it's faster, has different features, or is just new and shiny.
  Heck, portable batteries are so cheap and small now that - short of the charging port breaking - a new battery should never be a reason to buy a new phone.
6. Re:Actually Looks Pretty Promising by Shotgun · 2017-10-05 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  They hinted that it could be made without expensive processes that are currently used. This will push it to market faster than any other aspect.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Pancaked by Tablizer · 2017-10-04 16:15 · Score: 2

Accidentally discovered when somebody ran over a phone

--
Table-ized A.I.
DIY Batteries for home are much more fun by Champaklal · 2017-10-04 16:20 · Score: 1

Talking of batteries, here's one as DIY (Many of them are there).
The idea is - we have too many battery blue prints to work on. None of them are practical enough to be produced.
Finally - petrochemicals are back! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:25 · Score: 0, Interesting

Of course! Rice = Houston = Petrochemicals!
I predict the final realization will require strapping a 10 kg lump of tar to every 1 kg battery, based on helpful industry input.
Is this actually it? (Maybe) by locater16 · 2017-10-04 16:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

So any /.er knows battery "breakthroughs" are once a month or more on average (or so it seems). But most, or so far one supposes all, of them have major problems. A battery needs to hit high power density, IE how much power it can deliver over time. High energy density/specific energy, IE how much energy it can store per liter and per kilogram. It needs to be able to last over a long amount of charge/discharge cycles, because if your battery loses too much energy/shorts/explodes after a few charges then it's useless. And it needs to be cheap to make.

Well, surprise, but somehow this one seems to be the announcement that, could, hit all of those points. The reported numbers are several times the current best for li-on power density, energy density (assumedly for both volume and weight), lasts a lot of charge and discharge cycles, and doesn't require some exotic rare earth material to make. Assuming the actual creation process isn't exotic or complex, IE can be economically scaled, this could actually be the coming of the affordable electric car/smartphone battery that actually lasts all day/etc. that's been promised for a while now. Here's fuckin hoping.
1. Re: Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:54 · Score: -1
  
  Flagged as spam, you said nothing bad about Trump. Can't have that around here, you MUST insult Trump.
2. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'd have to agree. This does appear to be the game changer and it doesn't use expensive materials.
  EV range out to 800k's or so - no more range anxiety problems.
  Charge rate fast enough that it's no longer the bottleneck in driving distance - helped by the better range. And yeah, that matters, turning a one day trip into three massively increases costs. Accommodation for a start.
  Or alternately, the same range as now with much less battery - drop the cost and size of batteries and more sensible (1-2 person) commuter targeted cars become viable. Make those cheap enough and maybe you can convince me that the next car I buy should be an EV.
  There are still infrastructure issues - like we can't poke energy into a car at the rate the batteries could charge which still means long charge times with the existing gear. That's a big problem, but again it's one we could solve if we had to.
3. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:55 · Score: 0
  
  TL:DR
  I assume "commercial viability" in the next 5-10 years like every other breakthrough reported here.
4. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by jabuzz · 2017-10-04 21:43 · Score: 1
  
  If you can push the range out to about 600 miles, which these batteries look like they could, then you only need to be able to recharge over night.
  Put another way this is more than you can legally drive in the EU under the working time directive going around in circles at 70mph. Which of course is not realistic.
  Actually I would say at more like 450 miles of real world driving is the most you can drive in a day without doing a driver change before you become dangerous on the road due to tiredness. However I would stick with the 600 miles as a target for a brand new car as it means the car is still good for 480 miles when the capacity is down to 80% of new.
  There are a number of battery technologies been announced in the last year or so (this, glass electrolytes) that will enable cars of this range to be manufactured. If anyone of these makes it to production then the end is nigh for the ICE, in really short order.
5. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 22:12 · Score: 0
  
  If you can push the range out to about 600 miles, which these batteries look like they could, then you only need to be able to recharge over night.
  Put another way this is more than you can legally drive in the EU under the working time directive going around in circles at 70mph. Which of course is not realistic.
  Actually I would say at more like 450 miles of real world driving is the most you can drive in a day without doing a driver change before you become dangerous on the road due to tiredness. However I would stick with the 600 miles as a target for a brand new car as it means the car is still good for 480 miles when the capacity is down to 80% of new.
  There are a number of battery technologies been announced in the last year or so (this, glass electrolytes) that will enable cars of this range to be manufactured. If anyone of these makes it to production then the end is nigh for the ICE, in really short order.
  Also for those who live in apartments or other places where the charging is problematic, they could whip into a charging station once a week for 15-20 minutes, wander into the often-attached convenience store to pick up a six-pack, Friday night goodies etc., meander back to the car and drive home. Assuming that they don't put insane amounts of miles on their car every week.
6. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 23:25 · Score: 0
  
  Assuming that they don't put insane amounts of miles on their car every week.
  If they do, they might have to PAY EXTRA for the ability to have convenient charging, much like the trucker who has to get a place where he can park his rig from time to time.
  Oh gosh, what a concept, to get things, you pay for them!
7. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:13 · Score: 0
  
  I'd argue that most commuters with a 600 mile battery pack would only need to recharge once a week.
  But the argument that this means far cheaper 200 mile commuter cars that are still good for long-distance journeys because of 5-10 minute recharges, hopefully hitting sub $30K pricing, hopefully $20K eventually, is a compelling one that can make EV from "nice, but my once a year long journey" into something that people can't argue with.
8. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:18 · Score: 0
  
  Having regularly done 1,000 miles in a day in the US (not professionally, recreationally, need to get where we are going for vacation) and once doing 1300 miles in less than 24 hours (took a nap along the way for that one) I'd not get a long distance car that is capable of less than 1,000 miles or a fast recharge (like a few minutes, rather than a few hours).
  That being said I do have a Leaf as the second car, Electric for anything less than 100 miles round trip (and occasionally for longer trips of I know there is a fast charger there) and gas for anything longer (like a regular trip to the in laws just over 300 miles away, or vaccations cross country) If both me and the wife need a car, who ever is going further takes the electric, and the other takes the ICE (since it is cheaper to drive the electric, and it keeps the ICE engine running regularly instead of sitting unused)
  Anyhow if I'm replacing my ICE at this point with electric I'm going to need a super fast charger (comparable to a slow gas pump, willing to put up with a little while longer as I Can plug in a car and walk away can't do that with a gas pump, so saving time by peeing and shopping while re-fueling will make up some of the difference) or a range of about 1,000 highway miles with the capability for an overnight recharge. (infrastructure will need to be in place too, right now that 300 mile trip to the in laws has no level 3 chargers for 250 miles, and nothing at all for the last 40 miles, meaning I either need to do level 1 charging at the in laws or keep 40 miles of reserve power to get back to a charging station while we are there.)
9. Re: Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:47 · Score: 0
  
  I'm usually rather skeptical on this particular topic, but after reading the paper a couple of times i have to admit they appear to have achieved a very impressive and exciting result.
  Let's just hope the corporations don't lock it up behind an unreasonable tech 'paywall', or find some other method to fuck us all over yet again in the name of centralized 'profits'.
10. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by ledow · 2017-10-05 02:42 · Score: 1
  
  To be honest... unless you're actually a scientist with access to a lab to create this stuff... it still "doesn't matter" until they are in shops, available to buy, just like everything else.
  Until then, it's quite literally a science experiment.
  It's like telling me that we have fusion-reactors. That's great. Cool science. The scientist in me loves the idea. But until someone actually BUYS ONE and puts it into the real world, it's entirely and literally academic. It doesn't affect my life, or almost anyone else's whatsoever.
  You have to be a futures trader, or a research scientist for this kind of article to have any impact on you that wouldn't already happen if they just kept quiet and then brought out a product with it in.
11. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by JesseMcDonald · 2017-10-05 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  You have to be a futures trader, or a research scientist for this kind of article to have any impact on you...
  Everyone is a "futures trader" to some extent. For example, if you think there will be a massive improvement in commercially-available batteries within the next five years or so then it may not make sense to go out and buy an expensive electric vehicle based on soon-to-be-obsolete battery tech. Articles like this one help you estimate the likelihood of that happening and make a more informed decision, even if the commercial applications are still some years down the road.
  
  --
  "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
12. Re:Is this actually it? (Maybe) by Shotgun · 2017-10-05 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  You know what they say about assumptions.
  There is no really break through materials or processes here. Just a slight modification of current technology with readily available materials. The process actually appears to eliminate a few exotic and expensive processes.
  If the results are replicated, manufacturers will be falling over themselves to license the technology so that they can beat their competitors to market with either an ever-so-slightly cheaper product (got to save those profit margins), or a "high-end" product for the same price.
  
  --
  Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
  Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again... by millertym · 2017-10-04 16:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

That might be an exaggeration... but seriously. After 15 years of reading amazing stuff on Slashdot, the amount of that stuff that actually becomes something beyond "University discovery" even 5+ years out from the initial story is depressingly tiny.
Chicken-head! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:17 · Score: -1

what are we discussing again?
Your mother nodded her head up and down when she SUCKED MY DICK AND ATE MY CUM!!
1. Re:Chicken-head! by sTERNKERN · 2017-10-04 19:20 · Score: 1
  
  You really got up today and said to myself, I'll show the world today what I am capable of..... then grabbed the keyboard and barfed this comment out. What the hell? What was the purpose? Did it just make you feel better and that's all.. or what?
2. Re:Chicken-head! by h33t+l4x0r · 2017-10-04 20:25 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  2017 already, man. Learn to not feed the trolls or GTFO.
3. Re:Chicken-head! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 14:52 · Score: -1
  
  You really got up today and said to myself, I'll show the world today what I am capable of..... then grabbed the keyboard and barfed this comment out. What the hell? What was the purpose? Did it just make you feel better and that's all.. or what?
  So how do you feel about níggers?
4. Re: Chicken-head! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-07 02:10 · Score: 0
  
  You're yelling at a bot.
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:27 · Score: -1

the amount of that stuff that actually becomes something beyond "University discovery" even 5+ years out from the initial story is depressingly tiny.
In that respect, it bears a remarkable resemblance to your PENIS!
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 17:40 · Score: -1

is depressingly tiny
Yeah, that’s what your mom said about your dad’s dong last night.
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by Tharsis · 2017-10-04 19:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

Welcome to the world of research! The gap between physical possibilities and economical viability is large, but without sufficient breakthroughs on physical possibilities we will never find one that is economically viable.So, regardless of the chances being slim that we will reap the benefits of all these breakthroughs anytime soon, I am still happy to see such breakthroughs happen.
Not only that, but reading that they used asphalt for this makes me think I'm driving on the biggest darn battery everyday (I know, it's not true... still...;)
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by thegarbz · 2017-10-04 20:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

Really? Because 15 years ago I certainly didn't have 3Ah battery capable of being charged in 30min and only 4mm thick sitting in my pocket.
Alright cool by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-04 22:57 · Score: 0

Tell me again about this if it ever reach the market.
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by AmiMoJo · 2017-10-04 23:48 · Score: 1

Try enabling the "This Day on Slashdot" sidebar, if you have not already. It shows you five most commented stories from previous years, and it's fascinating to see what we were concerned about back then.
Today we have "A Car With A Mind Of Its Own" from 2004. Thirteen years later and self-driving cars are still not ready.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Asphalt is a Fossil Fuel by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 00:55 · Score: -1

Asphalt comes from oil. It is fossil fuel.
So... naturally it seems a bit contrary to the mission to condone the continuance of raping our Earth for oil.
1. Re:Asphalt is a Fossil Fuel by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 04:24 · Score: 0
  
  Just because we're aiming to stop using "fossil fuels", that doesn't mean we're going to stop "raping our Earth for oil." There are a thousand other uses for oil that do not include processing/burning it as fuel.
who's fault? Asphalt! by kbaud · 2017-10-05 00:56 · Score: 1

It does seem fitting to use the stuff we drive over inside the vehicle as well as outside.
Miles to go before I sleep by fyngyrz · 2017-10-05 01:28 · Score: 2

Actually I would say at more like 450 miles of real world driving is the most you can drive in a day without doing a driver change before you become dangerous on the road due to tiredness.

The speed limit here is 80 mph. 450 miles is just under six hours of actual driving when you keep to the limit (and a lot of people drive a few mph faster.) Which will be interspersed with food stops at the very least.
Also, people are different. Your and my personal safe driving range really doesn't define the same thing for everyone else. For myself, I have vehicles I really enjoy driving, a companion who engages me in interesting conversation, a great entertainment system, and an abiding interest in both scenery and people-watching. Someone else may lack some or all of that.

--
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Canadian Oil Sands by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 01:29 · Score: 0

Cool, so now we need Alberta's oil sands to make batteries.
Thick oil is not used to make fuel. It is mostly used for waxes, plastics, roads, waterproofing, roofing, etc. So the oil sands will remain in production for the next 100 to 200 years. Only about 20% of oil is used for fuel, so even if everyone switches to electrics by next week, the oil industry will barely blink.
Assault and batteries by fyngyrz · 2017-10-05 01:38 · Score: 1

15 years ago I certainly didn't have 3Ah battery capable of being charged in 30min and only 4mm thick sitting in my pocket.
To be fair, you also didn't have a phone that was so thin it needed one, so power-hungry it needed one, and you could actually replace the battery if you needed to so it wasn't an outright horror if it couldn't make it through the day. Oh, and you could also opt for a higher-capacity aftermarket battery and back. You know, because the battery was replaceable.
Welcome to the future, where "better" means "we milk the consumer ever harder."
Also, goodbye 3.5mm audio jack. You won't be needing that. Here, have this nice profitable dongle instead - signed Apple, and now Google.

--
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
1. Re:Assault and batteries by Gilgaron · 2017-10-05 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't had a chance to verify it, but in the thread about the Pixel's loss of the headphone jack someone mentioned it was the chipset manufacturers mandating the feature be deprecated. This seemed odd, because while I could see why Google or Apple might want to sell lots of expensive and easily lost Bluetooth earbuds and dongles, I didn't get a chance to see what Intel might have in the game
2. Re:Assault and batteries by Scottingham · 2017-10-05 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  Closing one of the last analog holes means that your music an only pass through digital approved devices.
  Soon:
  *Danger, music from an unverified source detected, sound output disabled*
3. Re:Assault and batteries by Gilgaron · 2017-10-05 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe, but if there are still dongles... how good was a DAC on a phone anyway? If anything you could make a better one if the software on the phone supports digital output from the USB to something that is anticipated to swap it to analog.
4. Re:Assault and batteries by thegarbz · 2017-10-05 08:34 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, you also didn't have a phone that was so thin it needed one, so power-hungry it needed one, and you could actually replace the battery if you needed to so it wasn't an outright horror if it couldn't make it through the day.
  I don't have one now that needs it. Heck my Galaxy S5 has no problem lasting 18 days when I enable the power mode that makes it feature comparable to my old Nokia brick. Nothing "needs" it. We "want" it. Modern technology "enables" it.
  
  Oh, and you could also opt for a higher-capacity aftermarket battery and back.
  You can do that with pretty much every modern phone as well if you're happy with the extra bulk. It's called trade-offs. They haven't changed in last 20 years.
  
  Welcome to the future, where "better" means "we milk the consumer ever harder."
  Please go back to the technology you had back then. At least that way we wouldn't have to put up with your undiagnosed clinical depression, dismissing the wonders of the modern world and not appreciating anything you have. We'll even sing you a goodbye song video record it on our small pocket devices and upload it to youtube. Maybe sometime in the next year you can download it over a shitty internet connection and transfer it to your phone over a period of one month using the IrDA interface and then watch it on your 2 in wide black and white screen.
  
  Also, goodbye 3.5mm audio jack.
  
  There's more than one phone on the market. I certainly still have a 3.5mm audio jack. The worlds best selling Android handset also still includes it, oh and best of all, thanks to the wonders of modern battery life, you don't actually need it.
5. Re:Assault and batteries by thegarbz · 2017-10-05 08:36 · Score: 1
  
  chipset manufacturers mandating the feature be deprecated
  No such thing. There's nothing stopping anyone from adding DACs external. There certainly isn't anything stopping someone ordering something by the millions from requesting the feature on an SoC which is already bespoke.
6. Re:Assault and batteries by thegarbz · 2017-10-05 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  Closing one of the last analog holes means that your music an only pass through digital approved devices.
  Sorry but that doesn't pass the pub test. You can't actually close the analogue hole in any way at all because the signals required to produce sound are perfect for recording. It makes no difference if they come from the phone and go directly to a headphone driver, or if they come from a phone over wireless to the headphones via a built in DAC and then directly to the headphone drivers.
  The analogue hole can't be closed, not without fundamentally changing the way human ears work.
7. Re:Assault and batteries by thegarbz · 2017-10-05 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  how good was a DAC on a phone anyway
  Fantastically strong and clean power source from lithium batteries, essentially most modern delta-sigma or advanced segment DACs are difficult enough to tell apart by measurement let alone listening, all it comes down to is a tiny bit of silicon with most of the differences related to actual implementation and dependent on the skill of the person doing the silicon work. Frankly I'd take the skill of the people doing board design on complex devices like phones over those "audio experts" any day of the week. 90% of the dollars you spend on sound would be best placed in the headphones. You basically start looking at upgrading your source if there's something seriously wrong with the one you have, or you've run out of things to buy.
  
  If anything you could make a better one if the software on the phone supports digital output from the USB
  Actually quite wrong, not absolutely wrong, but most likely wrong. USB is a horrible way of transferring audio. The normal method of transferring audio is to do it synchronously. With the USB master clock deciding the timing. The problem is that this is not a multiple of any normal audio clock frequency and is pretty much guaranteed to produce the worse possible clock jitter on the DAC input which has a measurable effect on the output (see above about scepticism whether you can hear all but really messed up implementations of this). The solution to this is asynchronous clocking and typically doesn't have much standard support given that it isn't part of the standard USB audio profiles, or a heavy amount of digital filtering and asynchronous sample rate conversion. Bottom line is it is it's very difficult to make USB sound better than a DAC which brings all it's own requirements along with it and simply tells the OS what to do rather than being sent a bucket of shit and told to polish it.
8. Re:Assault and batteries by fyngyrz · 2017-10-07 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, and you could also opt for a higher-capacity aftermarket battery and back.
  You can do that with pretty much every modern phone as well if you're happy with the extra bulk. It's called trade-offs. They haven't changed in last 20 years.
  Yes, they have changed. You're just not paying attention. My S3 had a removable back, and buying an aftermarket extra-capacity battery for it was exactly as difficult as visiting Amazon for five minutes. My S7 does not have a removable back, and I can't get at the battery. Many other brands also now sport non-removable backs and non-replacable batteries. This is the trend. Why are you unaware of the trend?
  
  There's more than one phone on the market. I certainly still have a 3.5mm audio jack.
  Yes, so do I - I have an S7. However, the new phones from Google and Apple do not. Again, this is a significant change in strategy. Why are you unaware of this?
  
  best of all, thanks to the wonders of modern battery life, you don't actually need it.
  I assume you were at least trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing it. Long battery life doesn't make the requirement for a dongle go away to restore the missing functionality. What does battery life have to do with not needing a 3.5mm phone jack?
  
  At least that way we wouldn't have to put up with your undiagnosed clinical depression, dismissing the wonders of the modern world and not appreciating anything you have.
  lol. :)
  
  --
  I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
9. Re:Assault and batteries by thegarbz · 2017-10-08 01:35 · Score: 1
  
  My S7 does not have a removable back, and I can't get at the battery.
  
  And yet functionality is still there if you want it. https://www.gottabemobile.com/... You're just being pedantic about the specifics of exactly how you want to achieve it.
  
  However, the new phones from Google and Apple do not. Again, this is a significant change in strategy.
  Actually there's more than 2 phones on the market too. Having to quote a Google pixel doesn't help your case. No one gives a crap about a phone with almost no market share. Apple can wallow in their filth. Wake me when I am unable to buy a flagship phone with that feature. Otherwise it's just complaining that not every single manufacturer supports every single feature.
  
  I assume you were at least trying to make a point, but I'm not seeing it.
  
  That much is obvious. You're spending so much time wanking over phone feature lists on GSM arena that you're ignoring the underlying point: Battery technology and battery life has improved incredibly over many years. Phones and all sorts of portable devices have been enabled and improved by these, and we have more functional variation on the market than we ever have had before allowing everyone to buy that phone that they want.
  The fact that you compare modern better technology to the thought that you're being screwed points more to your entitled little snowflake status than technology itself.
  
  lol. :)
  I'll say, you just got insulted over the internet. Welcome to the "better" world.
Gilsonite is not Asphalt by rahvin112 · 2017-10-05 01:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Gilsonite might technically be Asphalt by definition,but it's a unique natural bitumen composed of a mix of light but solid hydrocarbons. It only occurs in one spot on the planet (the Uinta Basin in Utah).
It's believed to have been created when a few million years ago a geothermal event warmed up the Uintah oil shale (the same stuff they frack) and liquefied a bunch of the hydrocarbons into a slurry that then oozed up the cracks and solidified. It's a solid, actually looks quite a bit like obsidian (glossy and black) but is super light weight and obviously not glass. It's so light weight they mine it by hand with air hammers and use vacuums to collect it and bring it to the surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
1. Re:Gilsonite is not Asphalt by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 05:17 · Score: 0
  
  The substance is mainly found in the Uintah Basin of Utah and Colorado, United States. Although it occurs also in other locations, its large-scale production occurs only in the Uintah Basin.[1]
2. Re:Gilsonite is not Asphalt by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 05:28 · Score: 0
  
  http://gilsonite.pro/global-locations-of-natural-bitumen/
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by eth1 · 2017-10-05 01:59 · Score: 1

Welcome to the world of research! The gap between physical possibilities and economical viability is large, but without sufficient breakthroughs on physical possibilities we will never find one that is economically viable.So, regardless of the chances being slim that we will reap the benefits of all these breakthroughs anytime soon, I am still happy to see such breakthroughs happen.
Also, I got the impression from this one that it's not "aha, we've developed this new, fragile thing that can't yet work outside of a lab," but more "aha, we've found a way to solve some of those annoying economic viability problems! And it charges really fast!"
At the risk of sounding pessimistic... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 02:41 · Score: 0

How long will it be before these batteries catch fire or blow up? Isn't that the norm for today?
1. Re:At the risk of sounding pessimistic... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  When was the last time you had a battery catch fire or blow up on you? Seriously, when was the last time your phone burst into flames? Wait, never? It's very clearly not the norm. Now STFU.
Oh boy! Can't wait! by p51d007 · 2017-10-05 03:25 · Score: 1

More "better/faster/gooder" battery news....story number 3,402 that STILL isn't in mass production. LOL.
Don't forget... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 04:00 · Score: 0

Order explosion- and fire-proof bags to store your batteries while traveling.
So instead of burning petroleum... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-05 04:37 · Score: 0

...we should be pushing to find ways to put compounds based on it into batteries to make them charge more quickly. Better electric cars. What's not to like?
Re:Bookmark this, you'll never hear about it again by Shotgun · 2017-10-05 06:15 · Score: 1

This. 100 times this.
They are not out on some limb exploring new concepts that requires all sorts of supporting context. They have discovered a way to fix problems with current tech using CHEAPER processes and materials to get BETTER batteries.
Expect this to be scarfed up and put into production with the utmost haste.

--
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba