The Retail of Eneloopy, Sanyo’s battery-checking mutt, Will be Available in Asia soon
With Sanyo's Eneloopy mascot mutt giving Panasonic's Evolta mascot robot a run for its money ,it's a dog-eat-bot race. But whereas the latter risked battery life and limb to show off Panasonic's AA cells' endurance in a harrowing climb up the Grand Canyon, the Eneloopy doggie prefers to play cute and "nosey" with your AA- and AAA-sized rechargeables.
Full charged? It'll blink green. For partially juiced-up cells, this battery-checking mutt will show an orange nose. It is undoubted that , if there's no light, your battery's playing dead .Battery flatlining? Press a switch on the chest, and Eneloopy's LED button nose will light up in red.
Sanyo's kept to the dog theme with a "Bone" that you insert into a side slot to help along the extraction. It's bitsy enough for butter-fingered digits to lose this faster than you can say "fetch!" And one whiff from your curious pet pooch means it'll never be retrieved. Fortunately, there's a backup Bone in the package.
Evolta isn't for sale, while the Snoopy-like Eneloopy is. If you favotare collecting kawaii, kitschy memorabilia, this doggie in the window comes with a premium sticker--S$25 inclusive two AA rechargeable Ni-MH batteries bundled in. Look for it in Singapore stores this end-December.
New businesses of Sony
Sony is trying to do new businesses such as 3-D, online software services and car batteries to revive growth as the company heads for its first back-to-back annual losses in half a century. In April, Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer reorganized the company’s main electronics operations into two divisions, headed by Yoshioka, 57, and Kazuo Hirai, 48.
Sanyo Electric Co. entering the car battery market has surpassed Sony that recalled more than 9 million laptop batteries in 2006. Osaka-based Sanyo, the world’s largest maker of rechargeable batteries, is boosting production capacity with the company estimating global sales of hybrid cars using lithium-ion cells will grow to 2 million units by 2015 and 7.48 million units by 2020.
Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd. said in January, "It is estimated that global lithium-ion battery sales will grow to 2 trillion yen in 2020 from 840 billion yen in 2008, fueled by demand for batteries used in electric cars and hybrid vehicles".
Yoshioka said the effect of the recent appreciation of the yen against the dollar will likely be “very small” for Sony, projecting an exchange rate of 90 yen to the dollar for the fiscal second half to March 2010. The dollar dropped to a 14-year low against the yen today.
Compared with a 0.6 percent decline by the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average,Sony fell 1.9 percent to close at 2,370 yen in Tokyo trading.
Energy Density Of Lithium-Ion Battery is Improved by New Storage Material
High-performance energy storage technologies for mobile phone batteries,laptops, and the automotive industry providing long battery times -- these visions of the future are being brought one step nearer by scientists from Graz University of Technology.
A new method that utilises silicon for lithium-ion batteries has been developed by researchers at the Institute for Chemistry and Technology of Materials. Its storage capacity is as ten times as the graphite substrate that has been used up to now, and this new development makes considerable improvements for users.
The new findings, coming to light in the "NanoPoliBat" EU project, have been recently submitted to the patent office by researchers together with their co-operation partner Varta Microbattery.
Modern electronic devices need more energy and even the automotive industry is hankering after increasingly powerful energy storage systems. It has been inadequate for the technological development of battery research for some time now. "A real revolution is needed for the development of the next generation.New storage materials for lithium-ion batteries are urgently needed," explains battery researcher Stefan Koller, familiar with the topic from his doctoral thesis. Together with colleagues from science and industry, he has managed to develop such a substrate material for electrochemical reactions at a low price.
In the newly developed process, researchers utilise a silicon-containing gel and apply it to the graphite substrate material.With this method the graphite works as a buffer to cushion the big changes in volume of the silicon during the uptake and transfer of lithium ions.
Silicon has a lithium-ion storage capacity of some ten times higher than the up-to-now commercially used graphite. The new material can thus store more than double the quantity of lithium ions without changes to the battery lifetime.
Koller says,this way is much cheaper than the previous ones where silicon is separated in the gas phase. The challenge lies in the poor storage density of materials in the counter electrode in the whole battery, something that we have been doing intensive research on.
Finding Customers for Car Batteries
World brand Corp.Sony is in talks to find customers for rechargeable car batteries, an industry that the Japanese electronics maker is going to help the company revive earnings.
Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka told reporters in Tokyo today,"Sony is in talks to provide lithium-ion car batteries for“several companies”, without identifing the potential customers. Yoshioka on Nov. 19 said Sony plans to spend 100 billion yen ($1.15 billion) researching and developing rechargeable batteries, including for electric cars.
The Tokyo-based maker of Bravia televisions last week identified 3-D electronics, car batteries, and network services as three new businesses which will be likely to spur Sony’s growth. Demand for rechargeable car batteries is projected to surge as automakers including Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Co. increase production of gasoline-electric hybrid models and electric.
In addtion,Yoshioka told reporters today that about 50 percent of the televisions Sony sells in the year ending March 2013 will display 3-D images. The company planning to start selling 3-D TVs and PlayStation game consoles next year said last week 3-D electronics will generate more than 1 trillion yen in the 12 months ending March 2013.
Panasonic’s Buy Of Sanyo with Conditions was Cleared
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission one day ago cleared Panasonic Corp.'s (6752.TO) $9 billion acquisition of Sanyo Electric Co. (6764.TO)with the requirement that the companies should divest Sanyo's portable nickel metal hydride battery business as a condition of government approval.
The FTC said the divestiture was necessary to preserve competition in the market for NiMH rechargeable batteries used to power two-way radios and other products.
Sanyo and Panasonic are the world's two largest producers of NiMH batteries.
The companies will sell Sanyo's NiMH business to FDK Corporation, a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd.
"Our country 's police and fire departments mainly depend on portable nickel metal hydride batteries to power the two-way radios they use every day as part of their public safety missions," said Richard Feinstein, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition. "The consent order announced today protects consumers by preserving competition in the market for these critical batteries."