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Brother shakes up expectations with vibration-charged low-power batteries
Lithium-ion battery technology keeps improving by (theoretical) leaps and bounds, but what good's that to you when you're faced with a dead TV remote? Brother Industries has a plan, and it doesn't involve ink for once -- the Japanese printer company's developed a set of prototype batteries you simply shake to charge. AA and AAA models are already in the works, though you shouldn't expect to slot them into cameras or R/C cars, as the miniature electromagnetic induction generators inside are designed for infrequently used gadgets and provide as little as 10mW (or as much as 180mW) when shook. Of course, when it comes to TV remotes there's an even lazier way for couch potatoes to squeeze the juice, but we have to imagine standard-sized cells have a slightly better chance at market.
Brother Industries shows off eyeglass-mountable retina scanning display
While it's yet to be seen if eyeglass-mountable displays will become as commonly used as, say, Bluetooth headsets anytime soon, Brother Industries at least looks to be making some steady progress at shrinking 'em down to a reasonable size, and it's got a few other tricks up its sleeve to boot. That latter bit comes from its use of a retina-scanning system as opposed to a simple LCD mounted in front of your eye, which effectively uses your retina as a screen to make it appear like images are actually floating in space in front of you. What's more, while the eyepiece currently needs to be wired to a rather sizable contraption in order to pump out those free-floating images, the company says it expects to be able to switch to a wireless system and shrink things down to a decidedly more wearable size by 2010.[Thanks, Tom]
