Showing posts with label battery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label battery. Show all posts

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Mainstream Cellular Phones



So who remembers what a "telephone" is? Not just that wireless thing hanging from your kitchen wall. I'm talking old school turn dial phones. Well, I would understand for the kids of today to have little or no recollection of such a futile tool. It was the thing of the past. Who needs those when everyone is carrying around a cell phone. It is personal, light, and useful for more than just calls anymore. So how much has the telephone evolved since the old turn dials? Let us look at just a few of the advancements that phones have had over the years.



One the greatest differences that can be made about cell phones and telephones is the literal fact that telephones run via telephone wiring and now fiber-optics along cable lines. Cell phones are run via satellites sending signals from one phone to the other. The use of satellites over cable and phone lines is the fact that it travels faster and without any cords of wires. It can get reception from just about anywhere and can be used at any time. As far as fiber optics has come for sending information, it doesn't beat the waves used in cell phones.



Another large difference in the old home phone and the cell phones is the portability. Before, when you had to talk gossip with your best friend on the phone, you would have to take the phone cord, pull it all the way to the bathroom and lock yourself in to keep from others to listen. With cell phones, you can take it outside, upstairs, in the car, in a tree, etc. Also, even when they created portable phones in the 80's, they were large and clunky. Now they are sleek enough to fit in a wallet.



The cell phones have come up with other numerous ways to just simply communicate. Not only can you just talk into the phone, but you can have speaker phone, walkie-talkie mode (where everything is voice activated), text messages, AIM connections, etc. If you thought saying words was hard, there are now other ways of "speaking".



With the advancement of memory, cell phones have features never dreamed of by older phones: Cameras, music, games, AIM, Internet, and other fun little bells and whistles. The phones started putting in the little things like the planner with calendar, the calculator, the stop watch, etc into its entourage. Then they slowly added innovations like music downloads, an Internet connection, and music that takes their importance and shoots it through the roof. Now there is no need for any other electronic, it is all on your paper thin 1 by 2 inch phone. You don't need anything else.



One last thing I can mention that makes cell phones so great is the fact that they are cheap! I mean whne I can see a hobo on the greyhound buses using a cell phone, then you know that it is accessable to anyone and everyone. In which it should....except not to hobos....



Resources: RazorTurn Dial Phone

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

New and Truly Improved Batteries


At the high school I went to, students could be in a program that had them take harder classes to get them more ready for the real world. As a part of that program, the seniors were required to do a project of some sort and take it to the Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair. For my project, I worked on making yeast bio-fuel cells. They worked, but only produced millivolts, nothing useful in today’s world.

My try at making an alternative battery wasn’t very successful, but the people at Lucent Technologies Bell Labs and mPhase Technologies have developed a very successful battery.

They call it the nanobattery.

In order to fully explain how it works, I will start with how regular batteries work. Batteries are basically miniature chemical reactors, except that they are controlled. When things are working right, the battery reacts in two parts, with an electron moving through whatever the battery is hooked up to and an ion moving through the electrolyte. The moving electron creates electricity. The problem with these kinds of batteries is that the reaction can happen even when the battery isn’t hooked up to anything.

The nanobattery is here to solve that problem. It works using a tiny silicon honeycomb. When the battery isn’t hooked to anything, the honeycomb is hydrophobic, it doesn’t like water. This makes the electrolyte stay out of contact with the two sides of the battery. When the battery is needed, then the honeycomb becomes hydrophilic and the electrolyte rushes in to connect the two sides of the battery. This small modification gives the nanobattery a great shelf life. It’s also really small, as its name suggests, because the honeycomb allows for lots of surface area.

Thank Aunt Janna for the idea, GizMag, mPhase Technologies, and ScienCentral for the content and GizMag again for the image.