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From Engadget: UCLA creates transparent solar cell, dreams of current generating windows

UCLA creates transparent solar cell, dreams of current generating windows

Transparent photovoltaics have yet to grace the face of your smartphone, but don’t give up hope — UCLA researchers are working on a new see-through solar cell that’s showing potential. Using a new type of polymer solar cell, the team has been able to build a device that converts infrared light into electrical current. Current prototypes boast 4 percent energy conversion efficiency at 66 percent transparency — not crystal clear, but certainly clean enough to peer through. According to a study in ACS Nano, the technology could be used in “building-integrated photovoltaics or integrated photovoltaic chargers for portable electronics.” Translation? It could one day be used to build solar windows or better sun collecting smartphones. Don’t get too excited though, the technology still has a ways to go before any of these dreams come to fruition. Still, feel free to head past the break for the team’s official press release, or skip to the source to take in the full academic study.

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: For the First Time, X-Ray Video Looks Inside Live Working Batteries

Watching Batteries at Work Senior staff scientist Mike Toney and postdoc Johanna Nelson inspect the transmission X-ray microscope at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a powerful device that takes nano-scale images of chemical reactions in batteries while they are running. Matt Beardsley/SLAC

Powerful X-ray images are showing for the first time what happens inside a working battery as it discharges power, and it could lead to improvements for a new type of battery that promises better storage capacity at a lower cost.

Electric cars and other technologies use lithium-ion batteries, which are useful in part because of their high energy density. Cheaper lithium-sulfur batteries could have even higher densities, but they stop working after only a few charge-discharge cycles. Researchers at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are watching them work to determine how they could be improved.

SLAC postdoc Johanna Nelson used X-ray diffraction and transmission X-ray microscopy to capture nanoscale images of the battery’s components, a lithium anode and a sulfur-carbon cathode surrounded by an electrolyte. They captured images of sulfur particles before, during and after battery discharge, and found some unexpected results.

Previous research on these types of batteries showed the sulfur and lithium form certain compounds when they react, trapping the sulfur permanently in new compounds. Formation of these compounds, called polysulfides, can kill a battery in just 10 charge-discharge cycles – not nearly good enough for almost any tech, let alone something like an electric car. But this new research shows it may not be as bad as expected. Very few of these polysulfides actually went into the electrolyte, far less than other research had shown. This means it might not be too difficult to trap them at the cathode, preventing any from leaking into the electrolyte and harming the battery.

“If [scientists] really want to know what’s going on inside the battery, they can’t just use standard analysis. They need a technology that tells the whole story,” Nelson tells Stanford News.

The research appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

 

 

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now

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From Engadget: Wi-Fi Media lets your Nexus 7 play movies on any screen via HTC’s Media Link HD

WiFi Media lets your Nexus 7 play movies on any screen via HTC's Media Link HD handson video

We’re rather big fans of the Nexus 7 here at Engadget HQ — it’s just hard not to like a $200 tablet with a Tegra 3 SoC and 7-inch glass-bonded IPS display running pure Jelly Bean. Of the few missing features, there’s one we’re bemoaning more than the lack of rear camera, and that’s the absence of any kind of HDMI or MHL video output. So far, watching movies with the Nexus 7’s been relegated to using a Nexus Q and streaming content from Google Play or YouTube.

Enter Wi-Fi Media, an app available for free on Google Play that lets most Android devices like the Nexus 7 play movies, music and stills on any screen via any Cavium PureVu-compatible streamer, such as HTC’s $90 Media Link HD. We tested Wi-Fi Media with our Nexus 7 and Media Link HD and found it to work pretty much as advertised except for some caveats. First the app doesn’t mirror your screen — you’re limited to playing content stored on the tablet or on the network via DLNA, which means no YouTube, Netflix or games. Second, the app doesn’t handle some common file types — like AVI, for example.

While it supports watching movies, listening to music and looking at pictures, keep in mind that Wi-Fi Media is not a particularly polished app. In addition to playing local and remote DLNA content, you’re able to login to Facebook and Picasa and stream images directly from these accounts, but that’s pretty much it in terms of functionality. There’s also no way to configure the Media Link HD, so you’ll need a sanctioned HTC handset to setup the multimedia streamer before using it with a Nexus 7. Want to know more? Peek at our screenshot gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.

Update: Since there’s some confusion in the comments, we’d like to clarify that the Media Link HD is not a DLNA device. It normally only works with select HTC phones like the One X, One S and EVO 4G LTE. WiFi-Media’s primary purpose is connect with a Media Link HD — it also just happens to support DLNA.

[Thanks, Matt]

Continue reading Wi-Fi Media lets your Nexus 7 play movies on any screen via HTC’s Media Link HD (hands-on video)

 

from Engadget