We recently explained why insufficient energy storage is renewable energy's biggest problem: when the sun is not shining or the wind isn't blowing, it creates all kinds of disruptions to the electric grid.
Existing solutions to the problem are extremely expensive, and aren't even that efficient.
Now, Harvard researchers say they've found a cheap solution that addresses both those problems.
In a new paper published Jan. 9 in the journal Nature, they say an overlooked group of organic compound, called quinones, can be used to create an inexpensive battery capable of charging and discharging renewable electricity much more rapidly than existing metal batteries can.
"That's really our innovation — quinones turn out to be naturally abundant and very inexpensive and very stable," co-author Michael Aziz told Business Insider by phone Friday.
The trick is that they are water soluble, which means you can set up large, inexpensive tanks to hold electricity, instead of having to engineer solid-state batteries like ones found in cars. These "flow batteries" would be capable of storing one kilowatt hour of energy using chemicals that cost $27, a third of the price of existing systems, according to a write-up of the study -- For more information read the original article here.
-- For more information read the original article here.
It's tempting, if you're not a fan of grown men grappling, to dismiss last night's announcement of WWE's new digital streaming network. Don't. Because it's our best glimpse yet at what the future of television should look like.
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-- For more information read the original article here.
The MOGA Ace Power controller, priced at $99, will be available from the MOGA website, the Online Apple Store and Apple retail stores on Wednesday. For additional details on the Ace Power, make sure to check out the full TouchArcade review.
Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Apple Relaxes Water Damage Restrictions for iPhone Trade-Ins
• Sprint and Best Buy Team Up to Offer Students One Year of Free Talk, Text, and Data With Phone Purchase
• Apple Launching India Smartphone Trade-In Program for Credit Towards iPhone Purchases
• Valentine One Radar Detector Connects to iPhone Via New Bluetooth LE Adapter
• Annual iTunes Connect Shutdown to Take Place December 21 to 27
• United Airlines Launches Redesigned iOS App with Travel Cards, Multi-Location Booking
• Nest Mobile Gets Update With Redesign, Nest Protect Compatibility
• Apple Seeds Safari 7.0.1 and 6.1.1 with Autofill and PDF -- For more information read the original article here.
Other than the new design, Find My Friends does not appear to have any new features.
Last week, Apple released updated versions of iBooks and iTunes U with similar redesigns.
Find My Friends is a free download for the iPhone and iPad from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• FiftyThree Announces Bluetooth 'Pencil' Stylus to Accompany 'Paper' App
• Southwest Airlines Updates iOS App with Redesigned Navigation, Airport Information Pages
• Apple Relaxes Water Damage Restrictions for iPhone Trade-Ins
• Sprint and Best Buy Team Up to Offer Students One Year of Free Talk, Text, and Data With Phone Purchase
• Apple Launching India Smartphone Trade-In Program for Credit Towards iPhone Purchases
• Valentine One Radar Detector Connects to iPhone Via New Bluetooth LE Adapter
• Annual iTunes Connect Shutdown to Take Place December 21 to 27
• United -- For more information read the original article here.
Watch out, Nike -- in the footrace for domination of the huge and growing digital fitness market, a competitor just leapt into contention. Under Armour, a major manufacturer of fitness and sports performance products, acquired MapMyFitness -- a company with one of the largest digital fitness communities.
MapMyFitness current has over 20 million registered users, many of whom use the company's popular Map My Run, Map My Walk or Map My Fitness Workout Trainer iOS apps and a large selection of connected activity trackers and wearable sensors. In fact, the company says that its apps integrate with more than 400 fitness tracking devices.
For the time being, the apps will continue under the MapMyFitness brand and the company will operate from its Austin, Texas, headquarters.
Under Armour acquires MapMyFitness to bolster digital fitness originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
-- For more information read the original article here.
Android has hit a new milestone of popularity: it now owns 81% of the world smartphone market, according to a new market research report from IDC.
That's not a huge jump. It was knocking on the door of 80% market share last quarter, when it hit 79.3 percent. But the growing dominance of Android is still impressive, especially considering that the smartphone market as a whole grew wildly, up 40 percentage points over Q3 2012, IDC says.
In Q3 2013, people worldwide bought 261 million smartphones and 212 million were Android, IDC said. Apple sold nearly 34 million iPhones.
Not surprisingly, the low-cost Android phone is why Android is so popular. But the irony is that most Android phone makers except Samsung are struggling to get a measurable bite of this huge pie. IDC notes:
Samsung accounted for 39.9% of all Android shipments for the quarter, while the rest of the vendors either saw single-digit market share or, in the case of the majority of vendors, market share of less than 1%.
Here's a breakdown of the quarter.
Top Four Operating Systems, Shipments, and Market Share, Q3 2013 (Units in Millions)
Operating System
-- For more information read the original article here.The major pay TV operators have lost a total of 113,000 customers during their last quarter, according to new numbers from independent research firm MoffettNathanson, by the way of the Los Angeles Times. Time Warner Cable took the biggest hit, losing more than 300,000 subscribers thanks to its retransmission fight with CBS. Most of those were absorbed by DISH, DirecTV and At&T, but some decided to cut the cord entirely. It's worth noting that Craig Moffet long questioned whether cord cutting even existed. This week, his research note said that “the pay-TV industry has reported its worst 12-month stretch ever.”
Story posted at: latimes.com
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