Author: Amarnath Natarajan

For those who worried about the battery life of your expensive EV, Envia has revealed a new cell that boasts a record breaking energy density of 400Wh/kg (most currently offer between 100 and 150). It’s estimated that when commercialized, this could bring the cost of a 300-mile range EV down to as little as $20,000. The performance gains come from a special manganese-rich cathode and silicon-carbon nano-composite anode combination. The battery maker is also partly owned by GM, which unsurprisingly means we’re likely to see these very cells in its EVs in the future. For more info read the press release.

Samsung is about to launch “premium HD video content” to Media Hub after pairing up Qualcomm’s StudioAccess and ARM’s TrustZone DRM systems. The first device that will benefit from the rollout is the Galaxy Note thanks to its enormous 1280 x 800 HD display.

Sony’s odd, dual-screened, folding Tablet P is finally getting a “4G” version for the US market with courtesy of AT&T. In this case, those 4G speeds are being “delivered” by an HSPA+ radio, a fact that carrier managed to bury in the PR. The Honeycomb device will be bringing its unique set of 5.5-inch screens to Ma Bell starting March 4th for the rather steep price of $400 with a two year contract. If you don’t want to sign your soul over you can pick one up unsubsidized for $550, which is still quite a bit less than the cost of importing one of its 500 UK siblings. Read the Press Release for more information.

Motorola Mobility says about 100 Xoom tablet computers that it refurbished for sale on Woot.com may not have been properly wiped of the previous owners’ data.

This week, Yahoo has added a new “Apps” tab to its search page, giving users a new portal into both the Android Market and iTunes App Store. Allows users to filter Apps by both price and category.

WebOS Internals have taken the newly open source Enyo 1.0 app framework and created a nice little Preware install package that anyone can install. At this point adding Enyo will grant you can access to few extra apps formatted for phones available in the App Catalog.

Humble Bundle for Android, includes the games Anomaly: Warzone Earth, Osmos, and EDGE. These 3 are available for any price you choose, but you will also get World of Goo thrown in if you pay more than average price. You can choose how you had like your contribution split between developers and charity; you will even get the access the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of the game as added bonus. Dont forget to look at the video.

Crackberry leaked the upcoming RIMs Blackberry phone codenamed London. It is found in a leaked Waterloo slidedeck, it sports a curvaceous and onyx exterior – a departure from the angular metallic P9981-esque dummy-unit first spied back in November. Is Blackberry is building for the next-generation of Blackberry phones that are due out later this year. The word London is actually slated for UK while two other models Laguna and Lisbon are in development for the US market targeting AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon.

We all know that, Samsung Galaxy Note is coming to AT&T, but now we have a date of the device hitting the market February 19th. You can pre-order the smartphone by February 5th with a promised delivery of the device by February 17th. The device will be available for $300 with a two-year contract. Dont forget to look at the video and for more details read the press release. Click here for the full specifications.

Clearwire unveils it $99 Clear Hub Express and $129 Clear Spot Voyager Hotspots. The Clear Hub Express, is a router mobile hotspot combo which is destined for home or office duty. The second one is Clear Spot Voyager, it will hawk WiMax to eight devices for up to six hours of continuous use off its internal rechargeable battery. Those are identical specs to last years model, the Clear Spot 4G Apollo, a sans-screen and in a thinner package. They are available from Clearwire, and can be kitted with unlimited 4G plans that start at $35 per month. For more details read the press release.

In a new blog post, the outfit announced the Motorola RAZR Developer Edition, a fully unlockable version of the device destined for Europe. The announcement didnt come with a release date, but pointed towards a current pre-order page for the CM7 hungry. For U.S Motorola mentions that a similar Developer device will be available in the US through MOTODEV, the firms developer network.

The WiFi Xyboard 8.2 and 10.1 are officially on sale at Motorolas website, with free two-day shipping thrown in a good measure. The Motorola 8.2 comes with a 16 and 32GB flavors for $400 and $500 respectively, while the same 16GB and 32 GB for Motorola 10.1 sets you back a $100 more each.

LikeBelt: is a concept device that inserts an NFC chip into a belt-buckle. Instead of tapping your mobile devices on a check-in tag, you get the belt buckle to close enough to do the same. How close you have to get and where most peoples belt where situated. The Quagmire-style moments required to ensure a connection arent the sort of thing you do in front of your parents. The creators provide instructions on how to build your own. Dont forget to look at the video.

The ZTE tablet runs in Honeycomb, and the 7-incher from Sprint costs $100 on contract. The advertising material leaked over Android Police, reveals the previous unseen slate will arrive in next month Feb 5th through online an on contract by $100 and off by $349, and the product will hit the market on March 11th. The 1.2GHz dual-core slate got a 5MP camera on the back, paired with a front facing 2MP camera and got a 16GB of storage and can be expanded through a microSD card. It got a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 3G connectivity, 4000mAh battery, and Android 3.2 Honeycomb.

The Kinect hack mangoes to move Ice Cream Sandwich out of its 4.65-inch confines and onto the big wall. The inventive and involved mod, borne from hacker Recursive Penguins desire to demo in development apps at business meetings, allows for gestures made on projected interface to be deciphered by MS famous add-on, results in real-time responses. While the particular pico-friendly looks simple, its actually big daunting: ASOP ROMs, TUIO protocol and multi-touch software. Dont forget to look at the videos.

Sony continues the addition of Walkman series. The E-Series includes a 1.4-inch color LCD display, and 30 hours of music playback per package. It is 9.1mm thinner and 37g lighter than its predecessor. The NW-E060 model (9,000 yen, $116), the NW-E060K (11,000yen, $142) got a plug-in speaker. Both of them offers noise cancellation features and promise to cut surrounding noise by around 98 percent, with train, flight, and indoor models able to absorb most audio irritations.

The XDA developers user verygreen came across the pleas of an user obsessed with attaching an external USB keyboard to an eReader, he did what good hacker would create and workable solution. Using a loaned Nook Simple Touch, this self-styled Make-A-Hack was able to patch Barnes & Nobles existing kernel, which already supports the USB host mode, and send commands over ADB to enable connection. It is not a fool proof workaround, as only low-power devices will function without additional juice even so, at a cost to greyscale devices battery life. This may not excite you much, but its certainly made for one very satisfied forum dweller out there in net. Dont forget to look at the video. Hit on the source link to download.

An image appeared at Xperia Blog that purports to be of the ST25i Kumquat, if you have been paying attention is the cheapest of the three phones due in April listed on the leaked road-map from a few days ago. The design language matches the Nozomi and the Xperia S we seen at CES, but on-screen icons are really bigger, pointing us in the direction of this having cheaper display. Dont let that Sony Ericsson logo fool you either, the company is aiming versions both branding, at least for this set of releases.