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Seeking out a better auto battery, Nissan Motor and EnerDel said Thursday that they will team up in support of research into a better conductive material for batteries.

The pact calls for the two companies to co-fund research at the Argonne National Laboratory to develop a new electrolyte made of a slurry liquid. The work is being done specifically for electric and hybrid vehicle batteries.

EnerDel, which makes lithium ion batteries, has agreements to supply Think Global's city car and Fisker Automotive's luxury plug-in electric vehicle, both of which are expected to be available in the next year. … Read more

We've told you about its cool new packaging, and now we can tell you about the phone itself. It's been a long wait for T-Mobile's second Google Android phone, but the MyTouch 3G has finally arrived. We've given it a shakedown, and we like what we see.

The MyTouch improves on its G1 predecessor in a few ways. It offers a sleeker design, more comfortable controls, and all the benefits of the Android "Cupcake" 1.5 update. And even better, we finally get Microsoft Exchange Server support for e-mail. It's still far from … Read more

Good news Android fans: our T-Mobile myTouch 3G arrived today. And before we get knee-deep in reviewing T-Mobile's second Google Android phone, we wanted to show you its nifty packaging. We're not taking about a standard paper box with a plastic tray here. Rather, it comes in a padded zippered case that slips into a paper sleeve.

The case, which is covered in a nylon-like material, is exceptionally cool. Separate compartments securely hold the phone, wall adapter, USB cable, headphones, and user materials. Not only can you use the case for storing the phone's various parts, but … Read more

I didn't want to comment on the Pre's battery lift until I'd tried it out for a full week. Well, the week is up and here goes...

While the battery in my Palm Pre lasts all day with little to moderate usage, it runs down very quickly.

An example would be Independence Day when I took about 40 pictures at our town's parade and then proceeded to upload about a dozen of them via email to Whrrl. In 2 hours I used about 80% of the battery life.

Today I read a very long email while … Read more

Updated at 12:15 p.m. PDT: adding Intel comment and additional discussion about laptop casing.

An analyst said Wednesday that some PC makers are hitting snags as they try to bring out ultra-thin laptops.

"Early production units being built in plastic, with the bottom case being plastic, are cracking," said Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman, in a phone interview, referring to discussions he had with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and and original design manufacturers (ODMs). Typically ODMs don't market under their brand name but supply devices to OEMs, which then slap on their own brand.

Freedman … Read more

Just last week, we got a peek at Nvidia's new line of HD-video-playing processors in downtown Manhattan. One, the Ion, is a GPU that pairs with an Atom processor to give Netbooks gaming and HD-video-playing muscle, coming soon in Netbooks from Lenovo and Samsung.

The other, Tegra, is an all-in-one chip: it has an HD video processor, but it also has an ARM processor, making it an all-in-one computer on a chip that will be put on phone company-branded Netbooks toward the end of the year, according to an Nvidia representative.

But that's not all, it seems: rumors … Read more

Nvidia on Monday confirmed that Samsung will bring out a Netbook based on the graphics chipmaker's Ion chipset, another design that breaks the Netbook mold.

"Ion really transforms these small laptops, like the upcoming Samsung and Lenovo Ideapad S12, into fully capable notebooks," Rene Haas, general manager of notebook products at Nvidia said Monday in a statement.

Ion brings mainstream PC graphics to Netbooks, including 1080p high-definition video support and better gaming, according to Nvidia.

The disclosure of the Samsung Netbook follows the Lenovo IdeaPad S12--due in August--the first Netbook announced from a major PC maker … Read more

Adaptec has announced the immediate availability of a Series 5Z Unified Serial (SATA/SAS) RAID controller family with "Zero Maintenance Cache Protection." It's designed to replace the current generation of RAID controllers that use lithium ion batteries to protect data in cache memory.

This announcement is significant for two reasons. First, its shows the expanding role of NAND flash. Recently, NAND flash has been associated with the second coming of solid state disk (SSD) in enterprise disk arrays. In spite of reliability issues (the more flash memory is written to, the less reliable it becomes over time), … Read more

On Tuesday, T-Mobile USA announced its plan to release a new Google Android smartphone in early summer. Though the carrier didn't go into much detail about the device, it did say that the product would be a follow-up to the T-Mobile G1, so our money's on the HTC Magic/Google Ion, which is currently available through Vodafone in Europe and Rogers Wireless in Canada.

To add fuel to the fire, Engadget Mobile has what appears to be the artwork for the product's sales packaging, and sure enough, the HTC Magic is pictured on the front. But more … Read more