Murata Manufacturing and Sony have entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding that confirms their intent to negotiate the transfer of the Sony Group's battery business to the Murata Group.

The milestones for Facebook and Amazon are symbolic of the rise of tech companies, whose pace of growth is much faster than the old-school brands Berkshire owns such as the railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe, ice cream outlet Dairy Queen, battery maker Duracell, or insurer Geico.

It is no secret that smartphone component manufacturing is slowing down, so is Samsung aiming for the next booming business, supplying batteries to electric vehicles?

The consumer electronics company says it plans to spend up to US$1.6 billion on an advanced battery factoryan with electric-car maker Tesla Motors.

Following the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus last month, it was discovered that Apple is dual sourcing the A9 chip for the new devices from both TSMC and Samsung, with the chips from the two companies measuring at slightly different sizes due to different processes used in manufacturing the chips.

Lenovo and Acer have both unveiled smartphones with much larger than normal batteries.

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new battery that can be recharged in about a minute and is safer than the lithium ion cells used in everything from smartwatches to passenger jets.

A major gripe about smartwatches is that the battery on most devices lasts only about a day. Looking to address that problem, both Broadcom and Texas Instruments have unveiled new platforms for their chips that are designed to help smartwatches and other small devices sip power instead of chug it.

Although the show is over 40 years old, this year's event, held from January 6 - 9, saw some of the most futuristic products ever, from driverless vehicles to a revolutionary battery which, according to its makers, could let you fully charge a cell phone in minutes.

While LG and Samsung promote their curved handsets with bendable displays, rival Nokia appears to have been silently working on the next stage in flexible technology.

Sony is in talks with suitors including Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision over the sale of its battery business, a Nikkei report said Thursday, as the Japanese firm tries to repair its dented balance sheet.

Mobile World Congress attendees hoping to see the first smartphones with quad-core SnapDragon processors on board had better brace for disappointment. There won't be any, said Qualcomm VP of product management Raj Talluri, unless you count the concepts touted by phone vendors and chip suppliers.

Such technology could be useful in power-sucking data centers and handheld devices with limited batter life, such as smartphone sand tablets, obviously. It could also be used for processors that don't rely on electricity from the grid, according to Intel, scavenging power from light and motion in the environment around them.

We won't call it OMAP 6, but the 20nm chip that is planned as a successor of OMAP 5 should enable true all day computing...

This acquisition expands Skyworks' portfolio with highly complementary analog semiconductor products including battery chargers, DC/DC converters, voltage regulators and LED drivers.

South Korea's Samsung SDI aims to increase total annual revenue to 13 trillion won ($12.1 billion) in 2015, more than double last year's 5.1 trillion won, the company said on Wednesday.

South Korea's LG Chem on April 6 completed what it described as the world's largest battery plant for electric cars and vowed to become a major producer by 2015. The company said the factory in Ochang, south of Seoul, has enough capacity to produce lithium-ion batteries for 100,000 of the green autos a year.

Just as tablets with dual-core processors start to hit shelves, chip makers are now shipping samples of quad-core chips that could make the devices even faster. Nevertheless, quad-core chips could be overkill as use of all cores could drain battery quickly...

Poor battery life is likely the reason that Research In Motion has delayed the launch of its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet until the second quarter of 2011, according to a new report from Kaufman Bros.

RIM allegedly doubted Apple's ability to produce the original iPhone when the first-gen handset was initially announced, then thrown into panic after teardowns of the smartphone revealed the company had managed to produce a full-touch device with market-ready battery life.

According to a Nokia Siemens Networks blog post on Tuesday, iOS 4.2 - released on 22 November - introduced support for Network Controlled Fast Dormancy, which Nokia Siemens has implemented on the network side and Nokia started building into its smartphones earlier this year.

Nokia Siemens Networks revealed Tuesday that the company had conducted tests confirming that the iOS 4.2 update for iPhone supports its Network Controlled Fast Dormancy technology, which minimizes network congestion and improves battery life.

The independent consumer watchdog magazine scored smartphones based on voice quality, ease of use, battery capacity, camera quality and other criteria.

Believe it or not, your phone battery's capacity to hold charge is just part of the problem -- a bigger monster lurks within the telecom operator, and the phone having to stay constantly in touch with it.

Japan's Sanyo Electric will close two of its domestic semiconductor plants by 2012, and move production to another plant along with about 1,000 workers, according to the Nikkei business daily.

Silicon Valley may be an epicenter of the nascent electric car industry, but don't expect the battery revolution to mimic the computer revolution, one of IBM's top energy storage scientists advises.

Intuit and Mophie (maker of the JuicePack battery for iPhone) will introduce the Complete Credit Card Solution, which fits over the iPhone 3G and 3GS like the JuicePack and has a credit-card reader that uses Intuit's 18-month-old GoPayment mobile payment software. It will be available as an iPhone accessory in Apple Stores.

Japan's Sanyo Electric is to sell its loss-making chip unit to ON Semiconductor for about 33 billion yen (US$373 million), turning its focus to environmentally friendly technology.

General Motors said on Wednesday that it would guarantee the battery on its forthcoming Chevy Volt for eight years or 100,000 miles - better than the typical five-year or 100,000-mile warranty it typically offers for the powertrain on its conventional cars.