BATTERY DEVELOPMENTS: Korean scientist claims eight-fold leap in power-up time

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It is a bit of a shame and quite an embarrassment for mankind that batteries haven’t come on in leaps or bounds since the 1970s, with modern Duracells only being marginally better than the Duracells used to power a Big-Trak for about 35 minutes on Christmas Day, 1981.

But that might possibly be about to change – thanks to a man called Prof. Cho Jae-phil who works at the Department of Applied Chemistry at Hanyang University, in South Korea…

Toshiba SCiB battery could start a revolution, assuming the revolving mechanism is battery powered

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Toshiba is apparently in the process of inventing and testing a revolutionary new type of battery, that it claims will be available next year. Bankrolled by it’s “utopian dreams” division (headquarters in fantasyland), it has apparently come up with a battery that fixes all of the problems that normal batteries have…

VIDEO: Reverse polarity battery test

Hey everyone. This week’s video is about batteries again, but I’ve decided to do something a little bit different this time. Something exciting. Something dangerous!

I though I’d see what happens when you put batteries in the WRONG WAY ROUND. Will there be a fire? An explosion? Some leaking chemicals? A matter/anti-matter detonation that rips a hole in the space/time continuum?

VIDEO REVIEW: PIFCO AA battery power performance tested under a variety of conditions

How do the PIFCO batteries perform? Is buying 16 PIFCO zinc carbon batteries for £1 financial suicide, or can they run a torch? And what about the holy grail of battery power tests – can they power up a digital camera?

There’s only one way to find out. Get some PIFCO batteries from the pound shop, get some things that take the same size of batteries, then record a video of the results for the internet. Here is that video.

Japanese researcher claims batteries dangerous. Oh, hai there, Sony!

powerbatteries.jpg Someone get Gary, the Idiot Toys battery aficionado on the phone stat! We have some awful news about batteries that will probably render him useless to update his various sites for at least the next three days.

A Japanese researcher is claiming that lithium-ion batteries are dangerous, and not made well enough for the heavy-duty tasks they’re meant to perform. Masataka Wakihara, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is calling for a change in design…

SEE toys: A range of eco-friendly toys charged by kid-power

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The Zen Design Group is to launch a range of children’s toys which feature LEDs powered by a hand crank that the child operates to provide power to the rechargeable batteries.

SEE Toys (Safety, Ecology, and Economy) include Dynafly, a laughing bug which moves its arms and head and whose eyes and tail light up with LEDs when the crank is turned.

“I wasn’t trying to be trendy,” said company president, Sun Yu. “I looked at my product line one day and thought about how nice it would be to not have to replace and purchase batteries. The product I wanted to make just fit into the times.”