Stretchable, serpentine lithium-ion battery works at three times its usual size

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="copy post-body" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> <div class="image-container" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Stretchable, serpentine lithiumion battery works at three times its size" data-src-height="340" data-src-width="620" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/northwestern-stretchable-battery.jpg" /></div>While we've seen more than a few flexible batteries in our day, they're not usually that great at withstanding tugs and pulls. A team-up between Northwestern University and the University of Illinois could give lithium-ion batteries that extreme elasticity with few of the drawbacks you'd expect. To make a stretchable battery that still maintains a typical density, researchers built electrode interconnects from serpentine metal wires that have even more wavy wires inside; the wires don't require much space in normal use, but will unfurl in an ordered sequence as they're pulled to their limits. The result is a prototype battery that can expand to three times its normal size, but can still last for eight to nine hours. It could also charge wirelessly, and thus would be wearable under the skin as well as over -- imagine fully powered implants where an external battery is impractical or unsightly. There's no word yet on whether there will be refined versions coming to real-world products, but we hope any developments arrive quickly enough to give stretchable electronics a viable power source.<br /> </div></div>

Stretchable, serpentine lithium-ion battery works at three times its usual size

While we've seen more than a few flexible batteries in our day, they're not usually that grea...

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E Ink reference phone and flexible display hands-ons E Ink, e-ink, EInk, flexible, flexible display, FlexibleDisplay, hands-on, mobilepostcross, mwc2013, reference, video

<div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;" trbidi="on"><hr dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" /> <div class="image-container" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="DNP Eink reference phone and flexible display handsons video" data-src-height="411" data-src-width="619" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/dsc04755-1361990803.jpg" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Looking for your dream phone? Chances are, this isn't it -- but it could be the precursor to what could eventually be cradled in your pocket, especially if you are a fan of E Ink. The device seen above and in the first gallery below is one of just five prototypes of the E-ink reference phone in existence. The point? The company wants to have a tangible Android-powered (2.3.5 Gingerbread, to be exact) model to give to potential partners, so they can craft something similar down the road. We're told that it will most likely be used on the back of color phones, much like the YotaPhone, but partners are welcome to get crazy on the front screen as well. No official timeframe for availability or seeding has been set, but it is expected to roll out in limited capacity sometime this year.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> Official specs are few and far between, but what we do know is that this nameless phone is driven by a Cortex-A5 CPU of some kind. Given that this is an extremely early prototype, the E Ink device had a lot of bugs when we played with it: force closes, reboots and slow response are among the things we noticed. However, we imagine this will continue to improve with time, so by the time of seeding it may be a completely different story.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"> The UI reminds us of a simplistic feature phone geared toward the basic user, with six icons on the front screen including an app menu. As we'd expect, the phone is great for reading books, and it comes with the option to install applications (though it's possible most games wouldn't look that great). You can also shake the device to clean the text in case it ends up getting "dirty," or misaligned.</div></div>

E Ink reference phone and flexible display hands-ons E Ink, e-ink, EInk, flexible, flexible display, FlexibleDisplay, hands-on, mobilepostcross, mwc2013, reference, video

Looking for your dream phone? Chances are, this isn't it -- but it could be the precursor to wha...

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