Those eggs you might have had for breakfast? They’re not just food — they may be the key to longer-running batteries in your devices. Scientists at MIT and Tsinghua University have developed a nanoparticle battery electrode whose egg-like design is built to last. Their invention, which houses a shape-changing aluminum “yolk” in a titanium dioxide cell, can go through charging cycles without degrading like the graphite electrodes in conventional power packs. That could improve not only the overall longevity of the battery, but also its capacity and maximum power. You’d have gadgets that not only hold out for longer between charges, but don’t need to be replaced quite so often under heavy use. This is still a lab experiment, but it’s closer to practical reality than you think. The manufacturing technique is simple, and these materials are relatively easy to find. The yolks already hold up well under stress, for that matter. Even with super-fast charging (which typically shortens a battery’s lifespan), a test unit had just over half its capacity after 500 cycles. So long as the team does get its tech into a shipping product, you could see a wave of hardware that reduces many of your energy-related woes, such as range anxiety in electric cars or phone batteries that die before you’re ready to upgrade. [Image credit: Christine Daniloff/MIT] Filed under: Science Comments Source: MIT News Tags: aluminum, battery, biomimicry, lithium-ion, lithiumion, mit, nanoparticles, science, TsinghuaUniversity
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Nano-sized ‘yolks’ should lead to longer-lasting batteries
We’ve heard a lot lately about the release and reception of Windows 10; however, the Windows family includes more than just the most-seen desktop OS. Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft’s Gabe Aul has revealed that the company plans to release a new technical preview of Windows Server 2016 later this month. Responding to questions on Twitter, the company’s Corporate Vice President and face of the Windows Insider program also said that Windows 10 RSAT [Remote Server Administration Tools] will be launched in August. Unlike the preview builds of Windows 10, previews of the latest edition of Windows Server have been slower to creep out of Redmond. Sysadmins will be keen to get their hands on the latest builds to see just what direction Microsoft is taking with its server software after the decision to delay the launch. We don’t know anything about what the third technical preview of Windows Server 2016 might include, but it is likely to be little more than a collection of bug fixes and tweaks. It’s a little late in the game to expect any major changes to be made. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
Cellular service appears to be down across every major provider throughout Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky with Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville being the hardest hit. According to the website Down Detector , more than 10, 000 AT&T, 1, 000 Verizon, 7, 000 T-Mobile and 300 Sprint customers are without internet or phone access. None of the affected companies have disclosed the specific reason for the outage yet, though they all have already issued vague statements about how they’re working on the issue. Update : Verizon is reporting the issue is resolved as of 8PM ET, however we haven’t seen an update from the others yet. Verizon issued the following statement after fielding numerous complaints on its Twitter account: A connectivity issue is causing a service interruption in our market. Our engineers are aware of this issue and are working with our vendor partners to resolve this issue quickly. At present we do not have an estimated time of resolution. As did T-Mobile: @baegail Customers across all carriers are affected in your region. Engineers are on it and working to restore your services asap! *MMH – T-Mobile USA (@TMobileHelp) August 4, 2015 Sprint followed the same pattern in its statement: We are aware of the impacts to service in which customers may be unable to access voice and some data services. This appears to be an issue caused by a local exchange provider and our network team is working with the provider to restore service to impacted customers as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience. As did AT&T: Some customers across parts of the Southeast are experiencing wireline and wireless service issues. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to restore service. We apologize for this inconvenience. According to Re/code , a Sprint rep has hinted that the issue originated at a local exchange provider that works with the affected companies. “We are aware of the impacts to service in which customers across multiple carriers may be unable to access voice and some data services, ” the rep said. “This appears to be an issue caused by a local exchange provider and our network team is working with the provider to restore service to impacted customers as quickly as possible.” Filed under: Internet , Mobile , Verizon , Sprint , AT&T , T-Mobile Comments Via: Gizmodo Source: WATE 6 
An anonymous reader writes: Korean users are among the most bandwidth-hungry smartphone users. During the MPTCP WG meeting at IETF’93, SungHoon Seo announced that KT had deployed since mid June a commercial service that allows smartphone users to reach 1 Gbps. This is not yet 5G, but the first large scale commercial deployment of Multipath TCP by a mobile operator to combine fast LTE and fast WiFi to reach up to 1 Gbps. This service is offered on the Samsung Galaxy S6 whose Linux kernel includes the open-source Multipath TCP implementation and SOCKSv5 proxies managed by the network operator. Several thousands of users are already actively using this optional service. Read more of this story at Slashdot.