Sony Powers Walkman With Sugar-Based Battery

Sony has announced a breakthrough in battery technology--a bio cell that uses sugar to produce electricity.
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

A year ago it seemed Sony Corp. couldn't even get a laptop battery right. A massive recall of lithium-ion cells tainted its image and had the company scrambling, but on Thursday it reported a sweet breakthrough in bio battery technology.
Sony, one of the world's largest battery makers, said it had succeeded in creating a battery that produces electricity by breaking down sugar. The bio cell, which measures 39 millimeters cubed, delivers 50mW (milliWatts) -- a world record for such a cell, according to the company.

A video provided by Sony shows four of the cells connected in series delivering enough energy to power a Walkman music player. The battery uses glucose solution as a fuel. A second video shows a small fan being powered by the cell with a glucose-based sports drink used as the fuel.

As in other cells, power is produced through a flow of electrons between a cathode and anode.

In the bio cell sugar-digesting enzymes at the anode extract electrons and hydrogen ions from the glucose. The hydrogen ions pass through a membrane separator to the cathode where they absorb oxygen from the air to produce water as a byproduct. The electrons flow around the circuit outside the device producing the electricity needed to power it.

Details of the bio battery were accepted as a paper at the 234th American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition that is taking place this week in Boston.

Sugar is naturally occurring so the technology could be the basis for an ecologically-friendly energy source. Companies like Sony are researching numerous technologies that could replace the dominant lithium ion cells as a clean power source for portable electronics.

One of the most talked about is fuel cell technology. While hydrogen-based cells have taken off for home or automobile use, versions based on methanol for use in electronics products have yet to be commercialized. Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. are among the companies that promised methanol fuel cell-based laptops in previous years, but each time technology launches have been delayed.


SOURCE:pcworld.com
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Sony Unveils World's First HD Video Walkman

Through the sheer brilliance of Sony we had the Walkman, now obsolete though, then came the Discman, which was just the next-gen Walkman for playing CDs and not tapes and let’s not forget the Walkman phones from Sony Ericsson. If you were wondering what Sony’s next step (or should I say “Walk”) would be, wonder no more. Enter the world's first HD Video Walkman. Ta –Dah!

The HD Video Walkman is the portable solution for viewing HDV and DV tapes while traveling. It also plays back miniDV tapes (SP and LP) and can also record HDV1080i/DV signals from an external source. It also has an HDMI output that allows HD viewing on any connected HD-ready TV or monitor.

It’s equipped with a 7-inch widescreen (16:9) LCD that offers a resolution of 1,152K (800x480x3[RGB]) dots for monitoring video and still images. An All-scan function ensures that 100% of the recorded frame area is displayed on the LCD monitor for accurate reviewing. Up to six LCD panel setups can be stored and loaded at any time. The on-screen position of displayed timecode can be moved to any of six positions according to user preference. The screen folds down when the GV-HD700E is not in use.

It’s the first Video WALKMAN supporting x.v.Colour. Based on the new xvYCC standard, x.v.Colour almost doubles the gamut of colors that can be displayed accurately on an xvYCC compliant display. HDV tapes recorded with x.v.Colour can be replayed with x.v.Colour signals available via HDMI and i.LINK outputs. x.v.Color signals can also be read via the i.LINK input, and x.v.Color information is passed through to the portable deck’s HDMI output.

A separate HD/SD component output is provided in addition to the HDMI output. An i.LINK port allows direct recording and playback of HDV and DV signals, while analogue video and audio can be recorded and monitored via S Video and RCA input connectors. In addition, still images can be captured from tape (HDV or DV) during playback and stored onto Memory Stick. For convenient operation, any of fourteen commonly used functions (including search, index mark and playback zoom) can be assigned to three function buttons. There’s also a Status Check mode that gives a handy on-screen confirmation of key Audio, Output, Assign and LCD settings. The GV-HD700E can also be used with InfoLITHIUM L and M Series batteries. Supplied accessories include an AC Adaptor, wireless remote controller, component cable and AV Multi Cable (without S Video).

The GV-HD700E HD Video WALKMAN will be available throughout Europe from September 2007 but there’s no information on its price tag yet.


source:tech2.com
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