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Office Hours: Find that command

Help and How-to for Microsoft Office Word 2007

Can’t find a favorite command in the Ribbon? Learn how to locate it and add it to the Quick Access Toolbar, so it’s one click away.

Lithium-ion Phosphate Batteries Baked in a Microwave Could Lead To Cheaper Prices

Wired: Gadget Lab

A group at the University of Texas has come up with an inventive way to create better and possibly cheaper batteries: By bonding its ingredients in a microwave.

Professor Arumugam Manthiram of UT Austin has created lithium iron phosphate compounds that take less time to create than its current method. Currently, lithium iron batteries use higher temperatures to create than other types, which leads to higher costs and less capable batteries for everything from laptops to electric cars.

Lithium-ion phosphate batteries are safer and ‘deliver large bursts of power’ than the lithium cobalt oxide that is used in most laptops. If they get cheaper, we could have the more improved performance we’ve been waiting for years. 

(The search for longer-lasting, cheaper batteries is often considered the modern holy grail of electronics. Wall Street Journal Columnist Walt Mossberg has often said that he’d drop everything to invest in stock of the creator of the perfect battery.)

Image: 40-nanometer-wide rod-shaped particles of the lithium-ion phosphate batteries. Courtesy of Arumugam Manthiram, University of Texas at Austi.

The Austin group mixed the needed ingredients into one mix, and then
placed it in a microwave for five minutes, heating it to 300 °C. For
perspective, the current lithium-ion phosphate creation process is long
(hours) and hot (at 700-degrees). This pushes its overall costs beyond
those of the inferior lithium cobalt oxide, to say nothing of the
environmental problems it provides.

But why are these better than others? Lithium-ion phosphate batteries,
once produced, are considered among the most energy efficient types
because of their ‘energy-to-weight ratios, and their slower charge loss
rate.’

While companies like A123 Systems have started to develop this type of
battery separately, Prof. Manthiram’s method is different enough that
companies have already contacted him about implementing it and striking a deal.

Source: Technologyreview.com, EDNeurope

An Xbox 360 Controller Crammed into a PS3 Dual Shock Controller’s Body [Mods]

Gizmodo

A clever modder on the Ben Heck forums managed to cram an Xbox 360 controller into the shell of a PS3 Dual Shock controller. What resulted is an unholy union of the two consoles, bringing a…

Asus Announces Two More Atom-powered Subnotebooks

Wired: Gadget Lab

Asus knows its subnotebooks are fashionable, and the company’s preparing to offer two new models of its popular Eee PC lineup.

Set for a 2008 release, the two new models, Ultimate and Pro Fashion,
will feature dual-core Intel Atom processors and expanded storage
capacities.  Asus president Jerry Shen told Digitimes that one of the
models (it’s unclear which) will have a four-to-five hour battery life
and include a 10.1-inch, 32GB solid state driven and a widescreen LED
backlit panel. This model, estimated to cost between $700 and $900, is expected to arrive September.

The Ultimate and Pro Fashion will be Asus’s fourth and fifth
subnotebook models featuring Inte’s power-efficient Atom processors designed specially for smaller devices.
The Eee PC 901 introduced in June 2008 was Asus’s first notebook to use this
chip.

Asustek preps launch of Ultimate and Pro Fashion Eee PCs; prices to hit US$700 or more [Digitimes] (Thanks, Dylan!)

(Photo credit: Axel Buhrman/Flickr )

   
   

Apple Now Telling Developers How Many People Download Their App [IPhone Apps]

Gizmodo

We reported in our massive feature on the SDK and App Store’s shortcomings that Apple didn’t even tell devs how many times their app is downloaded. I guess they realized devs might wanna know, ’cause…

Judge Rules Early Termination Fees Are Illegal and Violate California Law [ETF Fees]

Gizmodo

A California Supreme Court judge has just ruled that early termination fees from cellphone companies violates California state law and are illegal. What’s this mean to you? Sprint Nextel has been…

I Don’t Think The World is Ready For Aromatherapy Earphones [Design]

Gizmodo

Hey, I love pleasing scents as much the next person, but I don’t think people are quite ready for an MP3 player that pumps odors through your earbuds. Nonetheless, a group of designers has come up…

Portugal Orders 500,000 Low-cost Intel Laptops, OLPC ‘Delighted’

Wired: Gadget Lab

The Portuguese government is confident that Intel’s low-cost laptop
initiative will improve education — enough to place an order for
500,000 of the chipmaker’s Classmate PC notebooks.

With the move, Intel has nearly matched One Laptop Per Child’s (OLPC)
overall total of 622,000 laptops sold to date. Nonprofit OLPC’s goal
since 2005 has been to produce a $100 notebook to provide poorer
countries with education; its current offering, the XO, costs about
$188.

Though it would appear Intel has "won" against OLPC, OLPC President
Chuck Kane stressed that competition is irrelevant to his
organization’s mission.

"I want to make it clear here we’re not competing; we are
complementing," Kane said in a phone interview. "When these actions
take place then our mission is further advanced…. Our mission is to
get laptops in the hands of children; it doesn’t necessarily have to be
our laptop."

He added that Intel’s move does not spell out trouble for OLPC, because "The world is big enough for us combined — and more."

However, computer industry analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies
Associates thought differently. He said that the downfall of OLPC is
that it fails to recognize it must operate with a sharp business model in
order to succeed in its idealistic goals.

"[OLPC] is not really clear on what it takes to produce massive
quantities of these things, deliver them and then support them in the
field," Kay said in a phone interview.

He explained that Intel has the advantage in this regard, because in
selling 500,000 low-cost notebooks to Portugal, the company is creating
a market for such devices. Thus, more Original Equipment Manufacturers
will want to work with and provide for Intel, a company that
understands how to operate a business, as opposed to OLPC, Kay said.

"Intel has very long range view of how they develop a market, and
that’s what they’re doing," Kay said. "It’s competitive; this is how
competitive companies operate, they have a goal…. They adjust to
realities of the situation; they bring in partners; they come up with
marketing strategy and campaigns."

However, OLPC’s president said his organization is satisfied that a new
market has emerged as a result of its efforts. He said he’d like to
keep seeing Intel and other manufacturers continue producing low-cost
laptops, because it only furthers the organization’s cause of providing
computers to as many children as possible.

"What I’d like to see happen is an ecosystem develop here — similar to
what’s happened with iPods," Kane said. "When Apple came out with that
product, there were a lot of companies that surrounded the appliances
of that product….We will be absolutely delighted to see people push
innovation, because
that’s only going to translate to other parts of the world having that
opportunity that they would’ve never had before."

Portugal to sell 500,000 of Intel’s Classmate PCs [AP News]

(Photo credit: graysky/Flickr)

   
   

Apple Releases New iTunes Update, iPhone 2.1 beta

Wired: Gadget Lab

Vague as usual, Apple on Wednesday night released its iTunes 7.7.1
update, which "includes fixes to improve stability and performance."
The company also released the second beta version of its upcoming
iPhone-software update to developers.

Apple’s vagueness prompted TidBITS to sift through Apple support forums
to gather an idea of just what the iTunes update fixed. Users reported
the following issues seem to have been fixed:

- A bug related to the CD being unable to eject with iTunes running

- Corrupted characters in iTunes track names,

- Long waits for iTunes to recognize connected iPods

- Slow iPhone backups

- Problems syncing iPhone with Outlook for Windows users

Meanwhile, Apple also released its second version of the iPhone 2.1
beta for developers. Naturally, little details are known about the upcoming
iPhone-software update aside from bug fixes. Some have speculated the
update would introduce turn-by-turn GPS and copying and pasting
capabilities, but some are beginning to have doubts: The indications of
those features were already evident in the code of the current firmware
version, according to MacRumors. Now, MacRumors has turned its attention to references to a new iPod touch model instead.

Five iTunes 7.7.1 Bug Fixes Detailed [TidBITS]

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