At least that’s what Yoel Fink, an associate professor of materials science and researcher at MIT claims. Fink and his lab have been working on producing piezoelectric fibers, that is fibers that can convert motion into electricity or vice versa. If you happen to know anything about speakers they operate in the same fashion, taking more »

With a few exceptions, despite all the advancements in computer technology there is one place where the industry hasn’t seemed to make huge leaps forward: batteries. Apple made some interesting advancements to the batteries in the new 17″ MacBook Pros, but that was more in dealing with how the energy is stored and used. There haven’t been too many batteries pushed out to consumers that really pushed the boundaries of what we’d expect. A major issue I find is how long it takes to change the damn things. Having to wait hours for a netbook or laptop to fully charge can be extremely frustrating for the impatient.

In a few years that may change, thanks to a new battery material developed by researchers at MIT. The material could lead to batteries that could power laptop or other devices in seconds rather than hours. It can do this by allowing the electrically-charged ions travel through the material much faster than they possibly could in our current batteries.

There’s reports that through 50 charge/discharge cycles that the batteries with the new material show no real drop in capacity. That’s very good news for those of use who are always afraid of the lifetime of a battery.