One of the many unknowns about Toyota’s partnership with Tesla was whether it would result in a jointly produced car.
That won’t be known for many months yet, but Toyota has already taken a first step: It’s building Tesla’s battery into a test car so it can compare the Silicon Valley startup’s technology to its own lithium-ion pack.
Toyota is building an electric vehicle with a Tesla battery pack.
The Japanese company’s in-house lithium-ion pack uses fewer, larger-format cells than the 6,831 commodity cells (essentially like mobile-phone batteries) that Tesla uses in the battery pack fitted to its 2011 Tesla Roadster 2.5.
Toyota’s cells are specifically designed for automotive use, but the company may feel it’s a bit behind the curve in lithium-ion adoption. The all-new 2010 Toyota Prius was meant to have a lithium-ion pack, rather than the carryover nickel-metal-hydride technology it’s used since 1997.
But Toyota bet on the wrong battery chemistry, meaning it had to start from scratch. And now it clearly wants to see whether the very different Tesla Motors approach could be used in a lower-cost, higher-volume vehicle.
Most analysts have concluded that the Tesla approach is simply too complex to be cost-effective when scaled up for mass production. The basic message: It’s fine for low volumes of $109,000 Roadsters, but too costly for Corollas.
As Autoblog Green notes, test vehicles like the one Toyota is now building–known as ‘mules’ for their sometimes unpredictable behavior–may never be seen by the public.
Instead, they may spend a short, hard life being pounded around a test track or running for hours on dynamometers to give test engineers all the data they can wring out, before the hapless car is finally dismantled or crushed.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Toyota Building a Car to Test Tesla’s Battery
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 11:20 PM 3 comments
Labels: battery chemistry, car, Corollas, dynamometers, engineers, Japanese company, lithium-ion, nickel-metal-hydride, Tesla Motors, Toyota
Thursday, July 8, 2010
LG unveils two Android smartphones
While one of the Android phones is called `Optimus One with Google’, the second handset is called Optimus Chic. Both smartphones, Optimus One and Optimus Chic, will be launched with Android 2.2 also known as 'Froyo'.
Optimus smartphones will reportedly boast of HD video playback/recording. One of these smartphones will be based on Texas Instrument's OMAP3630 processor.
According to the company, “LG Optimus Chic caters to fashion aficionados with its tasteful design incorporating soft and smooth lines. The handset's sleek curves set a new standard for smartphone design, challenging the perception that advanced Android devices need to appeal to a hardcore tech crowd to gain widespread acceptance.”
The company, however, did not specify whether Optimus One is a 'Google experience' phone, which means a device that receives over-the-air firmware updates from Google itself.
The company said that that it will introduce approximately 10 new Optimus `smart devices' in the second half of 2010, ranging from entry to premium level. LG is also expected to launch a Windows Phone 7 mobile OS based smartphone by the end of this year.
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 10:37 AM 1 comments
Monday, July 5, 2010
Nokia says no to Google Android
"It's my aim to ensure Nokia stays as the market and intellectual leader in creating the digital world," Anssi Vanjoki wrote in a blog on Nokia's website.
"Symbian and MeeGo are the best software for our smartest devices. As such, we have no plans to use any other software," he said, adding "there are no plans to introduce an Android device from Nokia".
He added, "There is no denying, that as a challenger now, we have a fight on our hands. The first battle is to bring you products and services you will want to own and use."
The world's top cellphone maker warned in mid-June second-quarter sales and profits at its key phones unit would be weaker than expected as it struggles to compete against Apple's iPhone. Nokia also said 2010 profit margin at the phone business would be weaker.
Vanjoki noted it would be a tough task to make Nokia the leader in smartphones again, but added the company has all the assets "to produce killer smartphones and market-changing mobile computers".
"Symbian and MeeGo are the best software for our smartest devices. As such, we have no plans to use any other software," he said, adding "there are no plans to introduce an Android device from Nokia.”
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 9:11 AM 1 comments
Labels: Android, cellphone, Linux MeeGo, MeeGo, Nokia, smartphones, Symbian
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Hewlett-Packard and Dell Avoid Big PC Party
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 12:03 AM 0 comments
Labels: Asustek, Computex, Dell, H.P, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Nvidia’s mobile
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Cancer Therapy Goes Viral: Progress Is Made Tackling Tumors with Viruses
A new generation of oncolytic viruses are entering late-stage clinical trials, repurposing smallpox and herpesvirus to take on tough tumors.
In a two-pronged attack, these viruses specifically target tumor cells while delivering a cargo of immune-boosting genes. In contrast, viruses that cause cancer, such as the human papillomavirus that is responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, disrupt a cell's genome, thereby triggering out-of-control growth.
When the engineered viruses recognize and infect cancer cells, they replicate and sometimes destroy their hosts. Several of the viruses also release the gene for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) an immune system protein. The GM-CSF attracts a swarm of white blood cells and other immune system operatives that mount a further attack on the tumor.
The vaccinia virus has been developed by the biotechnology company Jennerex—named after Edward Jenner, who in the 18th century discovered that a cowpox virus could inoculate against smallpox. It showed effectiveness against liver cancer in a phase II clinical trial and will move into a phase III trial later this year, David Kirn, an oncologist and the company's president and chief executive officer, said at a recent meeting of the American Society for Gene & Cell Therapy in Washington, D.C. In the phase II study, 18 of 24 patients survived at least 12 months; with standard treatment, only about half of patients survive one year. The company also tested the virus in a 23-person, early-stage trial against colorectal, lung, ovarian and skin cancers.
The virus cannot infect noncancerous cells, Kirn explained, because researchers deleted its thymidine kinase gene, which it needs to replicate in the body. However, some 80 percent of solid tumors churn out extra thymidine kinase, which is thought to prevent cancer cell death. The result is a "viral factory" inside cancer cells, Kirn said. "Within 24 hours we see really impressive replication and spread within tumors." Replication of vaccinia is the first step to kil
Researchers have been experimenting with oncolytic viruses for decades, but early attempts were quite cautious and the early viruses showed limited effectiveness, says Michael Lairmore, associate director of basic sciences at The Ohio State University ComprehensiveCancer Center. The targeted viruses "have the potential to add a new tool to our arsenal," he says, because they home in on cancer cells more aggressively.
Both Lairmore and Gerritsen cautioned, however, that oncolytic viruses will still need to be paired with chemo or radiation therapies to achieve the best results. "The response rates we're seeing [in early human trials] are very similar to what we see with all new cancer drugs," Gerritsen says. Of patients who have received only the virus, without other treatment, "about 5 to 10 percent of patients respond really well," he added. "So it's only when we combine oncolytic viruses with standard treatment that we can expect to see some very good effects."
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 7:22 AM 2 comments
Labels: American Society, cancer, clinical, herpesvirus, new generation, Ohio State University, papillomavirus, smallpox, treatment, tumor, viruses, white blood cells
Monday, June 14, 2010
Avoid Noisy Communications.. Silent Sound Technology as an solution.
You are in a movie theater or noisy restaurant or a bus etc where there is lot of noise around is big issue while talking on a mobile phone. But in the future this problem is eliminated with ”silent sounds”, a new technology unveiled at the CeBIT fair that transforms lip movements into a computer-generated voice for the listener at the other end of the phone.
The device, developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), uses electromyography, monitoring tiny muscular movements that occur when we speak and converting them into electrical pulses that can then be turned into speech, without a sound uttered.
‘Silent Sound’ technology aims to notice every movement of the lips and transform them into sounds, which could help people who lose voices to speak, and allow people to make silent calls without bothering others. Rather than making any sounds, your handset would decipher the movements your mouth makes by measuring muscle activity, then convert this into speech that the person on the other end of the call can hear. So, basically, it reads your lips.
“We currently use electrodes which are glued to the skin. In the future, such electrodes might for example by incorporate into cell phones,” said Michael Wand, from the KIT.
The technology opens up a host of applications, from helping people who have lost their voice due to illness or accident to telling a trusted friend your PIN number over the phone without anyone eavesdropping — assuming no lip-readers are around.
The technology can also turn you into an instant polyglot. Because the electrical pulses are universal, they can be immediately transformed into the language of the user’s choice.
“Native speakers can silently utter a sentence in their language, and the receivers hear the translated sentence in their language. It appears as if the native speaker produced speech in a foreign language,” said Wand.
The translation technology works for languages like English, French and German, but for languages like Chinese, where different tones can hold many different meanings, poses a problem, he added.
Noisy people in your office? Not any more. “We are also working on technology to be used in an office environment,” the KIT scientist told AFP.
The engineers have got the device working to 99 percent efficiency, so the mechanical voice at the other end of the phone gets one word in 100 wrong, explained Wand.
“But we’re working to overcome the remaining technical difficulties. In five, maybe ten years, this will be useable, everyday technology,” he said.
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 8:05 AM 2 comments
Labels: cell phones, electrodes, everyday technology, foreign language, future, mobile phone, movie, silent sound technology, technology, theater
Friday, July 17, 2009
Can Cars be powered by urine
Today i read am article that describes that scientists from Ohio University found a way to produce hydrogen energy from urine.
According to Discovery News, the scientists used a nickel-based electrode to make cheap hydrogen from urine.
When the research team led by professor Gerardine Botte stuck the electrode into a pool of urine, and applied an electrical current, hydrogen gas was released, which was used in fuel cells.
The prototype is about three inches by three inches, and is capable of generating 500 milliwatts of power.
Scientists hope to create the commercial versions of the technology.
How good it will be that we are carrying our own fuel? lets see if it happens in future may be there and much more to explore, as this is just a small step.
So don't waste your urine better save it may be it will cost in future(just kidding) or really it may happen.
Posted by rohitkoul.wce@gmail at 12:06 PM 6 comments
Labels: cars, Discovery News, fuel, professor, scientists, urine