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This is a classic case of a submission title taking liberties with the meaning of the article it links. This submission's title: "New lithium-ion battery 2000

by lutusp 14y ago

This is a classic case of a submission title taking liberties with the meaning of the article it links. This submission's title: "New lithium-ion battery 2000 times more powerful, recharges 1000 times faster" The actual title: "New lithium-ion battery design that’s 2,000 times more powerful, recharges 1,000 times faster" The missing word is "design", a word that is crucial to the meaning of the article. The article discusses a design for a battery, not a battery. How important is that? Here's the last sentence in the linked article: "For this to occur, though, the University of Illinois will first have to prove that their technology scales to larger battery sizes, and that the production process isn’t prohibitively expensive for commercial production." It's a design, not a battery. The solution to this problem, as I have pointed out many times before, is to copy the article's title, do not invent your own.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago
> So far, the researchers have used this tech to create a button-sized microbattery, and you can see in the graph below how well their battery compares to a conventional Sony CR1620 button cell. That sounds like a battery to me. The new design has actually been built and tested. The quote you pulled out refers to scaling it up to things like lasers and F1 cars. A button-sized battery sounds fine for a lot of electronics today. Just not an F1 car.
- criley 14y ago
  It sounds like they've developed a prototype, which is further than a design but also not a production model.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    Agreed. But it is a functional battery more than it is "only a design"
    - lutusp 14y ago
      Fair enough. Is a prototype flying car a design or a product? Can I get one -- not the design, the product?
      - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
        Neither... it is a prototype. Somewhere between just a design and a product is a wide variety of other states. A single, physical item that actually functions as designed may not be a product yet (or ever) but it is leaps and bounds beyond "just a design." If "prototype" and "design" mean the same thing then a lot of people get that wrong everyday.
- Someone 14y ago
  Building one in the lab likely does not give you the ability to build a million of them at a decent price in a factory. Yield probably is low, and the current process will likely be way too labour intensive.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    True. But lutusp was shitting all over the submitter for dropping the almighty "design" word from the title and then claimed this is not an article about a battery but only about a design for one. That claim is wrong. It is more than a design... it is an actual battery. Maybe there is only one unit that exists. But that is still one more than a design. And if the tech proves sound but too labor intensive, your next thing to tackle is to make it easier to build. Isn't that how bleeding-edge innovation works?
    - alecdibble 14y ago
      Bleeding edge innovation usually occurs when researchers and engineers make progress using known or easily-modifiable processes. Most "breakthroughs" are dead-ends because process or scaling weren't considered in the initial research. True technological innovation needs not just engineering feasibility but also economic feasibility. I'm not trying to say that the research that "dead ends" is pointless. Progress is progress. All I am trying to say is that it doesn't mean economic viability is right around the corner. Often, researchers are well aware of scaling or manufacturing hurdles when they embark on the experiments. For the sake of academic careers and exposure, the research will get hyped regardless of the viability of implementing the research.
    - lutusp 14y ago
      > But lutusp was shitting all over the submitter for dropping the almighty "design" word from the title and then claimed this is not an article about a battery but only about a design for one. Yes, but guess what? That's true -- it's not a marketable product, it's a laboratory curiosity. That difference mustn't be dismissed. There are any number of research developments that never become products for reasons other than their theoretical properties. > Isn't that how bleeding-edge innovation works? Not exactly. If if were, a solar panel that converted a higher percentage of the sun's energy into electricity would beat a panel that produced more power per dollar. But in reality, it's the other way around.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > That sounds like a battery to me. Not when the public thinks a battery is something you can buy for a reasonable price. This reminds me of the solar panel business, where the driving market issue is not cell efficiency, it's cell cost per watt. A panel that produces more watts per dollar will usually beat a panel that's more efficient at capturing the sun's energy.
jacquesm 14y ago
If HN would not force you to reduce titles to < 80 characters then likely the original title would have been used. The original is 95 characters. "design that’s " and two comma's in the numbers get dropped and we're down to exactly 78. Dropping words from a title in order to fit the 80 char limit is a bit of an art if you don't want to change the meaning, and making a new title is frowned upon because then you care not using the original title. Effectively you can't post an article with a title > 80 characters and not break the rules.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  "New lithium-ion battery design 2000x more powerful, recharges 1000x faster" fits with out altering the meaning at all.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    I didn't say you couldn't do better, I just pointed out the likely source of the problem. GGP says > copy the article's title, do not invent your own. Unfortunately you can't always do that. Dropping words is one technique to shorten the title, rewriting it is another, both techniques are employed.
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      We agree on the topic. Indeed it is tricky to strike the right balance when trying to edit something down to fit and keep the meaning. I probably do this dozens of times a week trying to get the full intent of a thought down to 140 chars. :)
      - caw 14y ago
        Could always opt for the scientific notation. "New Li+ battery design - 2,000x more powerful, recharges 1,000x faster" Now you just have to know that Li is Lithium and the + is for an ion.
        14y ago
derpenxyne 14y ago
For some part I agree with you but it's difficult to make the cut down to 80 characters for titles.
mark-r 14y ago
The original title wasn't the greatest either, probably engineered to be link-bait. Nobody cares how fast you can get power out of the thing, they care how much total energy it holds - and the article is clear that it is comparable or slightly worse than current technology.
- VLM 14y ago
  Low internal resistance can make life very exciting in case of short circuit. Maybe a decade ago there was a fad of sticking a bare, unbiased LED across a button cell and relying on the internal resistance of the cell to current limit the LED. Then you superglue a magnet on it and toss it and you've got a LED throwie. If you tried that with a super low internal resistance battery like this, the effect would be vaguely similar to sticking the LED across a power outlet (boom).

by lutusp 14y ago

jack-r-abbit 14y ago

> So far, the researchers have used this tech to create a button-sized microbattery, and you can see in the graph below how well their battery compares to a conventional Sony CR1620 button cell. That sounds like a battery to me. The new design has actually been built and tested. The quote you pulled out refers to scaling it up to things like lasers and F1 cars. A button-sized battery sounds fine for a lot of electronics today. Just not an F1 car.

criley 14y ago
It sounds like they've developed a prototype, which is further than a design but also not a production model.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  Agreed. But it is a functional battery more than it is "only a design"
  - lutusp 14y ago
    Fair enough. Is a prototype flying car a design or a product? Can I get one -- not the design, the product?
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      Neither... it is a prototype. Somewhere between just a design and a product is a wide variety of other states. A single, physical item that actually functions as designed may not be a product yet (or ever) but it is leaps and bounds beyond "just a design." If "prototype" and "design" mean the same thing then a lot of people get that wrong everyday.
Someone 14y ago
Building one in the lab likely does not give you the ability to build a million of them at a decent price in a factory. Yield probably is low, and the current process will likely be way too labour intensive.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  True. But lutusp was shitting all over the submitter for dropping the almighty "design" word from the title and then claimed this is not an article about a battery but only about a design for one. That claim is wrong. It is more than a design... it is an actual battery. Maybe there is only one unit that exists. But that is still one more than a design. And if the tech proves sound but too labor intensive, your next thing to tackle is to make it easier to build. Isn't that how bleeding-edge innovation works?
  - alecdibble 14y ago
    Bleeding edge innovation usually occurs when researchers and engineers make progress using known or easily-modifiable processes. Most "breakthroughs" are dead-ends because process or scaling weren't considered in the initial research. True technological innovation needs not just engineering feasibility but also economic feasibility. I'm not trying to say that the research that "dead ends" is pointless. Progress is progress. All I am trying to say is that it doesn't mean economic viability is right around the corner. Often, researchers are well aware of scaling or manufacturing hurdles when they embark on the experiments. For the sake of academic careers and exposure, the research will get hyped regardless of the viability of implementing the research.
  - lutusp 14y ago
    > But lutusp was shitting all over the submitter for dropping the almighty "design" word from the title and then claimed this is not an article about a battery but only about a design for one. Yes, but guess what? That's true -- it's not a marketable product, it's a laboratory curiosity. That difference mustn't be dismissed. There are any number of research developments that never become products for reasons other than their theoretical properties. > Isn't that how bleeding-edge innovation works? Not exactly. If if were, a solar panel that converted a higher percentage of the sun's energy into electricity would beat a panel that produced more power per dollar. But in reality, it's the other way around.
lutusp 14y ago
> That sounds like a battery to me. Not when the public thinks a battery is something you can buy for a reasonable price. This reminds me of the solar panel business, where the driving market issue is not cell efficiency, it's cell cost per watt. A panel that produces more watts per dollar will usually beat a panel that's more efficient at capturing the sun's energy.

jacquesm 14y ago

If HN would not force you to reduce titles to < 80 characters then likely the original title would have been used. The original is 95 characters. "design that’s " and two comma's in the numbers get dropped and we're down to exactly 78. Dropping words from a title in order to fit the 80 char limit is a bit of an art if you don't want to change the meaning, and making a new title is frowned upon because then you care not using the original title. Effectively you can't post an article with a title > 80 characters and not break the rules.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago
"New lithium-ion battery design 2000x more powerful, recharges 1000x faster" fits with out altering the meaning at all.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  I didn't say you couldn't do better, I just pointed out the likely source of the problem. GGP says > copy the article's title, do not invent your own. Unfortunately you can't always do that. Dropping words is one technique to shorten the title, rewriting it is another, both techniques are employed.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    We agree on the topic. Indeed it is tricky to strike the right balance when trying to edit something down to fit and keep the meaning. I probably do this dozens of times a week trying to get the full intent of a thought down to 140 chars. :)
    - caw 14y ago
      Could always opt for the scientific notation. "New Li+ battery design - 2,000x more powerful, recharges 1,000x faster" Now you just have to know that Li is Lithium and the + is for an ion.
      - 14y ago

derpenxyne 14y ago

For some part I agree with you but it's difficult to make the cut down to 80 characters for titles.

mark-r 14y ago

The original title wasn't the greatest either, probably engineered to be link-bait. Nobody cares how fast you can get power out of the thing, they care how much total energy it holds - and the article is clear that it is comparable or slightly worse than current technology.

VLM 14y ago
Low internal resistance can make life very exciting in case of short circuit. Maybe a decade ago there was a fad of sticking a bare, unbiased LED across a button cell and relying on the internal resistance of the cell to current limit the LED. Then you superglue a magnet on it and toss it and you've got a LED throwie. If you tried that with a super low internal resistance battery like this, the effect would be vaguely similar to sticking the LED across a power outlet (boom).