Texas Instruments brings fast charging, extended life to Li-ion batteries

Yesterday Texas Instruments introduced a couple of new chipsets (fuel gauge an charger ICs) designed to improve the charging speed and life expectancy of single-cell Li-ion batteries. The technology, called MaxLife, is expected to provide an improvement of up to 30 percent in battery service life and faster charging times . Cell impedance is carefully monitored by the fuel gauge chip while the charger IC uses a model of battery degradation to charge the cell in the most optimal way. Both chips are connected via an I2C bus to form an autonomous battery management system which, according to the company, is safer and more thermally efficient than existing solutions. The two chipsets (2.5A and 4.5A) are now available along with a development kit, so it’s only a matter of time until this technology lands into handsets and other devices that use single-cell Li-ion batteries. Check out the details after the break. Filed under: Cellphones , Misc , Mobile Comments

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Texas Instruments brings fast charging, extended life to Li-ion batteries

At long last, TI releases graphing calculator for the iPad

A TI-Nspire’s functionality, replicated on an iPad. TI/TechPoweredMath Texas Instruments has brought its graphing calculator functionality to a more modern platform, according to TechPoweredMath . TI-Nspire for iPad mimics the functionality of the color TI-Nspire calculator and has cloud integration for teachers to share files with students. TI’s graphing calculators have been stuck staunchly in the past as much as possible.  Color screens were  a recent development for its most popular line of devices, and developers have had to build games with only a handful of kilobytes of code . As smartphones and tablets rise in popularity, it makes increasing sense to fold the graphing calculator functionality into devices that students are likely carrying around with them anyway. This is not to say graphing calculator apps haven’t existed for some time—they have, for both smartphones and tablets, and many are free. But until now, TI has refused to cross over. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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At long last, TI releases graphing calculator for the iPad