My HP Netbook

I bought this from Best Buy the other day.

It is an HP Min 1000 - 1030 NR - $349.99

10.1" screen. Weighs about 2.4 lbs. No disk drive - just a 16 Gb solid state drive. No DVD or CD either. But it has a camera. The keyboard is about 85% and fits me just fine.

I am typing this blog entry on it in fact.

I tried several before I selected this one. It isn't the latest model from HP but I liked it best.

Everyone here is laughing at me because I keep going smaller. My main laptop is just a 12" screen.

But it is so convenient to carry around. I get about 3 hours on the battery.

It works great for web and email and stuff like that. I put an extra gig of memory in it but it is still a little slow but not that bad.

Just a great little Netbook.

MIT Battery - Gerbrand Ceder

On the March 12, 2009 Yahoo Tech News I read the article: New Lithium Battery Could Take Seconds to Charge (PC Magazine).

The article originates on MIT's site: Re-engineered battery material could lead to rapid recharging of many devices where I found the image.

In my searching though I found an even earlier MIT article from 2006: MIT powers up new battery for hybrid cars. This article has more information about how the new battery actually works.

Gerbrand Ceder is the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT and the lead researcher.

The big thing about this battery is that it can be recharged very rapidly, as much as 1000 times faster than recharging a conventional Lithium battery. Interestingly in the 2006 article the battery is reportedly capable of 10 times faster charging. So I guess in three years the researchers improved the performance by two orders of magnitude. Pretty good I'd say.

However, there is no need to wait for one of these things because Ceder is quoted as saying the battery might "... make it to the marketplace within two to three years."

In thinking about it I wish we didn't have so many different batteries. I wish we didn't have so many chargers, too. And I wish we didn't have to pretty nearly have a power strip for every power outlet.

I did wonder when I read the article though if this would not lead to a pretty good increase in productivity because I think there are a whole lot of folks spending a whole lot of time charging batteries if we are any indication.

On a completely different subject ninety-two years ago today my dad was born.