Researchers at Stanford discovered a clever way to utilize silicon nanowires to reinvent regular rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that usually power laptops, video cameras, mobile phones, iPods and various other similar devices. Research was led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and it highlights a new version that actually produces 10 times the amount of regular electricity that exists in lithium-ion. This basically means that a laptop that was previously able to run 2 hours on a full charge could now get up to 20 hours, something that was previously only a happy thought for businessmen and regular users alike. According to Cui, his exact words were that this research brought a result that “is not a small improvement, it’s a revolutionary development”.

Another interesting thing is that this breakthrough could also bring in the attention of car manufacturers. Nanowire technology combined with Lithium Ion can be utilized in offices and homes in order to store electricity generated by solar panels. Cui added that the technology can be brought to life really quick because of the mature infrastructure that is behind silicon. Technically speaking, the electrical storage capacity of Li-ion batteries is limited to the amount of lithium that can be held in the anode, typically made of carbon. Silicon comes with a higher capacity than carbon but will also bring in one flaw. Silicon has the property of swelling as it absorbs lithium atoms that are positively charged while charging, while shrinking during use. This change can lead to the silicon pulverizing, thus degrading the performance of the battery. Such a problem is eliminated with the use of nanotechnology and use of silicon nanowires. They do not fracture while swelling so this solves the problem. Cui said that a patent application has already been filed and we can expect production to start once it is approved and a manufacturer is contracted.

The new Penryn notebooks have been leaked and Notebook Italia is responsible for posting some insider specs. Intel’s 45 nm Penryn based server and desktop based processors were released a few months ago and on January 6 we can expect the new Intel Penryn-based notebook processor to surface. The good news for us tech geeks is that we do not have to wait until the official January’s Consumer Electronics Show for details issued by Intel as notebook manufacturers already started leaking various details on upcoming Penryn-based notebooks.

First on the list is Acer, which will launch 8 new such notebooks in January. They will range from a 12.1 inch Aspire 2920 (coming with a Core 2 Duo T8300 processor and 320 GB HDD) to the much more impressive 20.1 inch Aspire 9920G (coming with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU, a Core 2 Duo T8100 processor and 500 GB of storage space). You might also opt in for various other Acer notebooks that come in various screen sizes. Fujitsu will also launch two new Penryn-based notebooks, the Amilo Pi 2550 and the Amilo Xi 2428. The second one comes with a better processor and both have 2 GB of DDR2 memory and a 15.4 inch WXGA screen. Sony also comes strong to the table with 5 new VAIO models that range from the 13.3 inch VAIO SZ71XN/C to the 17.1 inch VAIO AR61ZU. There are also various specs when it comes to hardware but the fact is that this is just the first wave of Penryn linked announcements and we do expect a lot to appear including Dell, Asus and HP/Compaq. The leak was expected and now we do have it although we can expect something special to have been left out. This means that we must also watch the official statements made at CEO in January.

Recent statistics released have caused some uproar when talking about music and movie downloading software. A new report issued by Digital Music News and BigChampagne showed us that iTunes is not the most popular such program around. LimeWire stands out as one of the most looked after software with a lot more user support than previously thought of. We thus see that all personal computers that have a peer 2 peer client installed makes out a huge deal – 35 percent. LimeWire holds around 46 percent of them all, which translates in around 18 percent of all computers having the software installed. This means that it is the leading P2P client available. We can easily say that the darknet makes up for the majority of media downloads and piracy is not likely to go down in the future. One of the reasons why this happens is the price of media content. One iTunes song costs 99 cents. If we do the math we can easily see that filling up one iPod does cost a lot of money.

The major labels are constantly trying to increase the price paid for each song download and if we take a look at the data mentioned above, this is not a good idea. Also, another report pointed out the fact that BitTorrent is the leading P2P protocol when talking about nighttime P2P traffic. This can either mean that this client is more popular or that it is used to download more and/or larger sized files. The truth of the mater is that media price is still too high for the regular user and the capacity of storage we see in media players is continuously rising. A current generation iPod would cost an amount of around 5 digits in order to fill and with the possibility of getting it all free through P2P, although illegally, we can only think that a price that becomes higher would mean even more people turning towards LimeWire and BitTorrent.

The War between Google and Hyperphrase Technologies is still going on although Google did gain one victory. The bad news for them is that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit only upheld Google’s request of summary judgment in a partial note while remanding a part of the case for reconsideration. For those that are not aware, this is just the latest round of a battle that started in 2006. The two companies are fighting over who owns the intellectual property that stands behind the AutoLink feature you can notice in Google Toolbar. Hyperphrase Technologies sued Google for patent infringement and Google responded with filing for summary judgment in November 2006. After receiving it in December, Hyperphrase did not agree and appealed it. The result is both companies going back into district court to re-examine AutoLink.

In order to understand this patent case you need to hold basic knowledge of how AdSense and AutoLink work. Those that have Google Toolbar know that AutoLink is included and is a tool that scans a loaded web page and identifies certain character strings. If it detects something that seems to bee a valid character string, it will link it to a relevant URL. AdSense also scans the web page and analyzes it. It then cross-references the keywords found with the keywords in the advertising database and then the results are re-analyzed in order to select with advertisement should be displayed. The original district court ruling stated that AdSense does not infringe HyperPhrase’s patents. On the other hand, the topic at hand still remains AutoLink and at the rate the current battle is going, who knows when a positive answer (and final) will be released? With all the appeal and re-appeals possible, we might as well simply use AutoLink and wait till it might disappear from the toolbar.

The possible collaboration between DirecTV and Microsoft has been announced in 2006 but no results have appeared yet. A lot of people wanted to utilize the Media Center DVR platform combined with the satellite TV service but nothing really happened. Now we finally might have something as some sources pointed out that the project is still alive. Rumors have it that Microsoft is currently testing for DirecTV and Sky TV solutions in the United Kingdom and they are hoping that different other satellite providers might come on board. We have reports that Microsoft is currently working on TV tuners that are designed to offer Premium TV experience provided by “world class Satellite TV network operators.”

We also know that Microsoft needs to support H.264 HD because DirecTV announced some time ago that they were shifting their high definition content to this codec, backing out of MPEG-2. Also, we need to think about pay per views as all operators will want this included as a good revenue earner. The truth is that these satellite operators do not really like services like TiVo because of not being able to work with PPVs. When talking about the Europe contact that Microsoft might be using, we have no confirmation but according to solid speculation, SKY TV might be the beneficiary. As we could expect, no official statement was released. Different sources highlighted the fact that the biggest problems noticed were corporate and not technical. The truth is that, no matter the real reason behind these problems, it sure took a long time for things to develop. We still do not have no official word on a release date so we might end up having to wait even more.

Nokia recently announced a very impressive success in a real-world test of their 4G. We are talking about LTE (long-term evolution) wireless technology. Nokia performed this test in an urban area using the 2.6GHz spectrum, which was able to achieve peak download speeds of 173 Mbps, coming up more than previous controlled trials. As you can imagine this is quite impressive and the 3G Partnership Project that Nokia is a port of claims that the results actually confirm the fact that LTE can be a very good combination of scalability, bandwidth range and low power use that users are looking for in a 4G service.

A prototype base station was installed by Nokia at the top of the Heinrich Hertz Institute building in the middle of Berlin in order to test LTE. This is one location that shows interference and usually degrades bandwidth. The first test had many users connected to this new base station and gave the 173 Mbps credibility if considered a real world peak. Nokia also tested this LTE station with using terminals in vehicles that were 1 km away from the station. According to Matthias Reiss, Nokia can demonstrate that LTE actually meets the expectations users have for the new technology. To make it even better, the company also has proof that future LTE networks can function on an existing base station site and mobile phone operators can build LTE networks without having to get new antenna sites. If all this is true (and it most likely is), we might be witnessing the future of mobile phone networks in Nokia’s 4G LTE variation. All wireless vendors want to make the switch from 3G to 4G as easily as possible and we might have the solution here. Even Verizon announced that they want to join the LTE camp so we are dealing with constant rise when talking about support.

Popsicle promotions have always been interesting and most included prizes that were printed on the stick. With the evolution of technology, we should have expected something like this coming but we really did not think about it. A Brazilian ice-cream company called Kibon recently took it to the next level by putting in the prize inside the popsicle. Kibon will manufacture 10,000 special propsicles that will come identical in both color and size with the actual thing but will have an iPod shuffle frozen inside. The company that is responsible for developing the idea for Kibon is Bullet Brazil. They started to ponder on the possibility in March as the objective was to put the iPod shuffles directly in the hands of the winners. The consumer basically purchases a Fruttare popsicle, which comes in 10 possible flavors and may actually find an iPod Shuffle inside the package, ready to play. The problem was that people could tell if such a gadget was in the package by simply looking at it so a solution needed to be found. The lucky popsicles needed to be the same size as a regular popsicle and the possibility of putting a Shuffle inside the ice cream was bad as humidity can destroy it. On the other hand, the winning idea was a prototype that emulates the real ice cream, thus a face ice cream that is aimed to protect the iPod Shuffle from humidity while feeling just like the real ice cream. You basically can not differentiate without opening the package.

Apple also did some tests in order to make sure that the propsicles will protect the iPods and once all was successful they gave the go ahead for the campaign. The only drawback is that you will get the shuffle but in order to get the charger and the manual an 800 number needs to be called and a special code that the winners will have is used to get these two pieces. They will also receive a real popsicle with the same flavor as the fake one that contained the gadget.

Monster and Friends recently created a special iPhone application that can help you in recording at 45 frames per second. The final version is still not ready. On the other hand, they recently released the application in a beta version. It can only record 5 seconds at up to 10 frames per second but at a resolution of 2 megapixels. The program is called Drunknbass and the tests done show that it does work perfectly.

Drunknbass does not come with an interface and we do not think the full version will have one either. All you need to do is download the application and put it in your iPhone’s Applications folder. Next you can click on the button and recording starts. In this beta version, as soon as the 5 seconds are up you will see that the clip is replayed once. According to Monster and Friends, the final application will make it possible to record clips of unlimited size with up to 30 frames per second. Interface to save clips will also be provided and they are still looking for interested developers to help with the graphical side of Drunknbass. The good news, as we see it, is that the only real limit we will have stands in our own available storage space. Video recording does work great on the iPhone and we might even see Drunknbass as an official release from Apple in the next update. This is just a rumor but it might be true. Drunknbass does prove that third party application can be a huge success for the iPhone and can come with a lot of features. Monster and Friends might be among the first third party developers that will get official support by Apple and we all know that the company does not do this often.

CyberLover is soon to be launched by a Russian web site. This is a special program that will simulate chat room flirting. The idea is quite strange and it is said that the aim is to help nerds that have no skill when it comes to getting together with women. CyberLover is said to be able to chat with “up to 10 women at one time” and should score. Also, according to the web site, “not a single girl has yet realized that she was communicating with a program!” Another feature that is possible with the program is performing virtual sex online. If we were to talk about fun and games we could say that it is quite interesting although the possibility of loosing a credit card number is also possible according to PC Tools, an Australian anti-virus software developer.

Although this program promises the world, we need to wonder if it really delivers. It seems that all it takes is around half an hour of use and CyberLover will basically introduce the user to girls, exchange photos and even be able to get a contact phone number. Now the real question is: now that you do not have the program to aid you, what will you do in a real conversation? You will probably not be Don Juan anymore! Also, Sergei Shevchenko, a malware analyst at PC Tools, said that CyberLover comes with a previously unseen level of social engineering for a tool that can be utilized by hackers for identity fraud. CyberLover is scheduled for release on February 15th, right after Valentine’s Day, which is probably a good move for such software. We are very curios as to the success rate of getting to meet girls as the program might be good for cheating a virtual date but a real one will expose you for the inexperienced nerd that would use CyberLover.

How much can fit inside an iPod now? The answer is: pretty much! You can basically put in so much information, music and video to last you for days, maybe even weeks of continuous playback. A recent presentation at the Captains of Industry Conference saw Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google BP, emphasize on the fact that storage technology played and is still playing a huge role in technology in all fields of activity. If compared with the year 1982, the factor of storage is now under by 3.6 million, which is an incredible growth rate. According to Sukhinder, if this trend continuous and we get to see storage costs constantly decreasing, around the year 2020 all of the world’s content could actually fit inside an iPod. She also added that all of the world’s music can sit in an iPod (yes, just one unit) by 2015, thus making CDs virtually unneeded. Besides storage facts, something else was also pretty interesting in some stats highlighted by Sukhinder. Current estimations say that around 65,000 new videos are added daily to YouTube and around 100,000 blogs are created. It is quite interesting to stand and think about the huge rate of development of information we are noticing and the fact that storage capability manages to keep this alive and continue growing.

The scary part is that Sukhinder Singh Cassidy might be right on everything fitting in an iPod. We already can fit basically all we want inside these gadgets, huge discographies and more. It is impossible not to have every type of song you would need in given situations and this is when talking about music alone. Think about the fact that a text document is dozens of times smaller than an .mp3 file. Information is the key and the iPod can become the storage of the key.