Scientists use viruses to make miniature rechargeable batteries

London, April 9 (ANI): Scientists have used genetically engineered viruses that assemble into electrodes to make complete miniature rechargeable batteries for the first time, which could improve the performance of hybrid electric cars and electronic gadgets.

According to a report in New Scientist, the new lithium ion batteries are as powerful as existing devices but smaller and cleaner to make, claim the team behind the work.

Lithium ion batteries exploit the reactivity of lithium to produce a current. Inside the battery, lithium ions move from the anode to the cathode, forcing electrons in the opposite direction around an external circuit.

This process is reversed when the battery is recharged.

Making these batteries takes a tough manufacturing process because of the highly reactive components, aggressive solvents and high temperatures used in construction, as well as the dangers of handling lithium.

Viruses could make this process much safer and cleaner, according to Angela Belcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Her team converted a harmless virus called M13 into a cathode by inserting a gene that causes the virus to produce proteins that bond with iron and phosphate ions in a surrounding solution.

As a result, the long, tubular virus particles become sheathed in an “armour plating” of iron phosphate, turning them into nanowires.

The resultant batteries were not as good as commercial models, however, the cathodes turned out to be good at conducting lithium ions but not electrons.

To solve this, the team inserted a second gene that creates a protein at the tip of the virus that bonds to a carbon nanotube.

The nanotube increases the electron conductivity of the combined structure.

“We were basically adding a highway that allows the electrons to move in and out rapidly,” said Belcher.

The resulting battery turned out to be as good as the best commercially available that use crystalline lithium iron phosphate materials.

Since the team had previously used the same viral technique to produce anodes, it has now been able to make a full virus-based 3-volt lithium ion battery.

Compared to conventional lithium ion batteries, the biologically grown battery is environmentally friendly because much of the materials can now be made at room temperature or on ice and without harsh solvents.

“It’s a pretty simple process that doesn’t require fancy equipment,” said Belcher. (ANI)

10 Things to know when buying a HD Camcorder

Looking for a HD camcorder? They are proliferating like bunnies, but is it a good time to buy one yet? Not only are there more HDTV camcorders on the market today than there were last year at this time, but the variety of HD camcorders recording methods has expanded as well. Sure, you can record on tape, but wouldn't you really rather record to a hard drive, or better yet, a flash memory card? What about recording to DVDs, or even to Blu-ray discs? All these choises are available at prices that are often above RM5,000. Here are things you need to know before you plunk down your cash.

1. All HD camcorders' videos look great. Each one of the latest HD camcorders we have seen-seven in all-delivers a high quality video, almost as good as what you see on cable or satellite systems from the networks, but it does not look as clean and sharp as Blu-ray or HD DVD.

2. Know what you want to do with the camcorder. If you want to upload videos to YouTube, the easiest way to do it is using the video capabilities of point-n-shoot still camera.

3. The HD camcorders are easier to use if you plug them directly into HDTV via HDMI. Almost all the camcorders have HDMI output, so it is easy to just connect that camcorder to your HDTV and use the supplied remote. In fact, it feels like this is what the camcorder companies would prefer you to do, because the editing software included with each one of the camcorders is almost unusable. Read on.

4. Editing AVCHD footage is tricky. Many of the latest camcorders use the highly compressed AVCHD format, a variant of the H.264 used in Blu-ray and HD DVDs. Cutting HDV footage of older camcorders is easy, because it is a mature HDTV video format that has been around for three or four years. AVCHD is quite different, newer and more burdensome. While many editing software packages now support AVCHD, it is still a rather maladroit process to move the footage from camcorder to PC, though a little easier when you are dealing with a mac.

5. If you plan to edit HD footage, especially AVCHD, get yourself a mofo PC or Mac. Make that a dual-processor machine with eight cores. It is advisable to have a powerful PC, because of the numbers of tasks your computer will be dealing with as this requires a spectacular amount of power.

6. Who will you show your masterpiece video to and how? With HD gone are the days of never-ending playback devices for your videos. It would be better for you to burn your footage on a Blu-ray disc, but you would need burners and/or players sets.

7. Decide if you want a comcorder that records on hard disk, plash memory card, DVD, HDV tape or Blu-ray. A hard disk stores more footage but is bulkier and more fragile than flash memory. But a 4GB flash card only stores 40 minutes worth of footage. Recording on DVD and Blu-ray both involve spinning removable media which seems anachronistic and demode, but then your footage can be played back immediately on many Blu-ray disc players. Then there is DV tape recording HDV footage, which gets good results, but its analogue.

8. Prices are reasonable. You would be surprised how prices are plummeting with HDTV camcorders. With the advances technology and new gadgets on the market everyday, it is better to do your homework before buying a HD camcorder as prices are falling continuously.

9. Most camcorders end up gathering dust on a closer shelf. Be realistic. Are you really going to be shooting lots of video? Accurately assess whether you will actually be using a camcorder frequently, or just occasionally. Also think about whether anyone will be eager to watch your HD videos that you may not have the time or patience to edit. If you have a special event coming up, consider borrowing or renting a camcorder rather then blowing all your spare cash on an'ornament' that will be used once or twice and end up as shelf-ware.

10. Catch up on some reviews of the latest HD camcorders to get a lay of the land. Camcorder info in the USA, picked as its camcorder of the year, the Canon HV20, a HD model that uses old-time DV tapes and records in the HDV format. This is very practical as it unables you to record in good old DV whenever you want with no further rendering.

Mac Mini -- The New New Internet Computer

I have seen the future and its name is Mac mini. The mini is one seriously great little computer. I got one last week and have been singing its praises ever since. It is not the fastest computer. It is not the cheapest computer. It is not the smallest computer. But it is certainly the smallest cheap and fast computer out there. And the cheapest small and fast computer out there. And, yes you guessed it, the fastest cheap and small computer out there (my apologies to Apple, which advertises the mini as "Inexpensive, But Never Cheap" -- semantics -- at $500 it is darn cheap). Add the fact that the mini now ships with Tiger, as well as Apple's fantastic iLife software, and you can purchase one heck of a computer for under five hundred bucks.

This week I was visiting the new offices of a startup I recently funded. The company is in the process of pulling together the infrastructure necessary to support their business. After looking at their options, the guys decided to outfit the office with Mac minis. For a little over $600 it is possible to provide each of the company's telesales and customer service agents with all the computing power they need. This is particularly true because the company's sales and support functions are going to be run on web apps like saleforce.com and Five-9's. Thus, the only thing that those folks will really need in a desktop computer is a web browser and a reasonably fast pipe. In that respect the Mac mini is plug and play. All the company will need to do when it ads new reps is run across the street to the Apple store, buy a new mini and super cheap monitor, bring it back, plug it in, launch the browser and they are off to the races.

It strikes me as a bit ironic that Apple has managed to make good on Larry Ellison's network computer vision. Sure, it's more expensive than the couple hundred bucks once envisioned for a true dumb terminal. But it frankly isn't that much more expensive and delivers a whole lot more computing muscle than Ellison envisioned when he launched the New Internet Computer (NIC) Company.

Here's what you got with the NIC 2.0 in 2001:

* VIA Cyrix MII PR266 processor
* 64MB RAM
* 4MB EEPROM
* 24X CD-ROM Drive
* 56K Modem
* 10/100 base T Ethernet
* 2 USB Ports
* Keyboard & Mouse
* Speakers

The NIC 2.0 started at $199.99 and went up to around $700 with a 12 inch LCD. Thanks to Moore's Law, scale, manufacturing efficiencies, etc., here's what you get today with the Mac mini:

* 1.25/1.42GHz PowerPC G4
* 256MB RAM
* 40/80GB Ultra ATA drive
* Slot-lading Combo Drive
* 56K Modem (802.11g optional)
* 10/100 base T Ethernet
* 1 FireWire 400 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, DVI/VGA output
* Internal speaker and audio line out

All that starting at $499 and going to about the same $700. The mini is such a great little box at a surprisingly low price point, it makes me want to buy more of them. It must run in the family. When my dad saw that the mini had a DVI/VGA out, he pondered buying a mini so that he could use it for his picture in picture while watching TV.

My dad and I are clearly not the only ones who are smitten with the mini. A few weeks ago I was visiting another one of my portfolio companies. They are in the process of rolling out the beta of their enterprise software product. But rather than risk any difficulties with download and installation, the company was shipping its beta as an appliance by simply loading the software onto the Unix shell of a mini and shipping the mini to its beta customers. Configuration of the beta at the customer premises then consisted of simply plugging in the power and the ethernet cable. Couldn't be easier.

Sure, I know that there are cheaper machines to be had running Linux on Intel processors. But the combined power, simplicity and beauty of the Mac mini can not be beat. I suspect we'll be seeing them popping up all over the place -- in the home and in the office -- in the coming months and quarters as people discover that Apple has built a versatile net-connected workhorse/show-pony.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs : All Things Digital

This year was the 5th addition of Walt Mossberg's and Kara Swisher's "All Things Digital" conference. I'm sure that it will come as no surprise to you that I have attended all five and intend to attend the next five as well. They say that first year conferences are a huge crap shoot because of the chicken and egg problem of attracting fantastic speakers and a fantastic audience -- you need one to get the other but can't get one without the other. By force of personality and reputation, Walt and Kara blew that away the first year by simply getting the most amazing speakers ever. The fabuloous audience quickly followed. But they created a problem for themselves.

The speakers at their first "D" were just too good: Gates, Jobs, Diller, Larry and Sergey, Meg Whitman, Terry Semel, Mark Cuban. I mean, give me a break. Year two: Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Carly Fiorina, Masa, Henning Kagermann. Year 3: Gates, Jobs, Mel Karmazin, McNealy, Zander, Diller, Jerry Yang and Dave Filo. Year 4: Gates, Al Gore, Howard Stringer, Terry Semel, Vinod Khosla, Bob Iger (Jobs couldn't make it and was sorely missed). So what were Walt and Kara going to do to make their 5th anniversary "D" a special one? They touted the answer on their homepage -- "Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Make Historic Joint Appearance at D5."

Now I have to admit that, as much as I looked forward to seeing Gates and Jobs spar on stage, I thought that perhaps Walt and Kara had gone a bit too far calling the Gates/Jobs smackdown a "historic joint appearance." The cardinal rule of showmanship is to under-promise and over-deliver. It is hard to imagine that calling a chat "historic" could be viewed as under-promising, and harder still to imagine that after advertising a talk as "historic," one could possibly over-deliver. But I was wrong.

The "historic" joint appearance of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs wasn't just historic, it was, in fact, awe inspiring. I envisioned a half-hearted quarrel, punctuated by clever but cynical jabs at one another. What I got was a history lesson taught by the principal protagonists of the story. As I sat and listened to Gates and Jobs recount their 30 year journey to bring the best possible personal computers to the world, it struck me that no two living humans have had a bigger impact on my quality of life than they (case in point, I am typing this blog post on my MacBook on Microsoft Word).

It would be hard to replicate the energy and mood of the room with simple words. It may even be hard to replicate with video. Nonetheless, I strongly urge you to watch the videos of the conversation over at Kara and Walt's great new "news and opinion site" called AllThingsD.com. In the videos you will see a pair of mature, thoughtful moguls. Bill Gates was erudite, statesmanly, and utterly charming. Steve Jobs remained the consummate performer, yet managed a bit more humility than is his norm. They traded fours like an old married couple. And their recounting of the history of the personal computer industry had the cadence of an on-again off-again romance. In the end, Jobs had the turn of phrase that brought us to our feet -- a snipped right out of a love letter -- "There's that one line in the Beatles song, 'You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead,' and that's definitely true here."

Great conferences are all about great theater. And I have never seen better theater than Jobs and Gates on stage together, modestly recounting how they changed all of our lives, in incalculable ways, forever. Hats off to Walt and Kara for orchestrating this once in a lifetime event. When can I register for D6?