From cleaning our homes to analysing the soil composition of distant planets, robotics has allowed our society to reach farther than ever before.

Although Afghanistan is currently in the throes of a regime change with the Taliban rising to power in August, observers are hoping that the country could become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, as one mining analyst described.

As technology continues to creep into our everyday lives, we are becoming more dependent on batteries to power our devices. It is no surprise, then, that science is looking to improve the lifespan of batteries - and they may be close to making a truly great technological leap as a result.

Whether you are powering a remote control for the TV or an electrically powered car until recently, you would have been using one type of battery – lithium-ion. But the position of lithium-ion batteries as the dominant force in the realm of portable power generation is about to change

The price of electric cars is already starting to fall, which is a significant factor in making them much more competitive than Hydrogen fuel cells, both in terms of the sale price and the operating costs.

The first question most car drivers would have upon reading that headline would be: what is a Hydrogen fuel cell? By now, most people have heard of the new range of vehicles powered by electric batteries making their way into the car dealerships. And in the coming years, as all the major players in the automobile industry get involved, the understanding of electrically powered cars will only grow.

The state of California has been suffering from periodic electricity shortfalls for quite a while now. The state’s management has decided that a considerable upgrade in its battery provision’s storage capability is necessary to overcome these difficulties. This will also help towards the state’s climate change targets of becoming energy neutral.

A battery that has been developed in Japan by Sanyo.Corp that is nearly completed built from plastic. This revolutionary product has been undergoing testing in recent months, running a drone submarine made by Kawasaki’s heavy industry department. The trials have proved positive, with the submarine managing to double the battery’s previous run time from eight to sixteen hours.

In recent times both science and the general public have become aware of the many uses of graphene and the many different properties it possesses. It has indeed been labelled a wonder substance, not only is it very conductive of both thermal and electrical energy it is also extraordinarily pliable and even unusually light and flexible. The most attractive feature of this material is that it is sustainable and green in its consumption.

In Singapore, the authorities are following a very tech-led approach to dealing with the spread of coronavirus. Although, as with so many high technologically based tracking apps; this application is not without its critics.

The demand and pace at which the electricity system in the United Kingdom is changing have dramatically altered significantly in light of the ongoing Covid situation. The UK now is a world leader in how much energy is generated by wind power from turbines, formerly on land but now increasing at sea. Using fossil fuels to make energy is dramatically less than in previous years.

With an ever-growing call for the end of diesel- and petrol-powered cars, perhaps the time has come for us to ask ourselves some pointed questions about the potential successors to the internal combustion engine.

The worldwide pandemic caused by the Covid-19 has given us all very few reasons to feel positive. Still, the technology industry, particularly in the field of wearable tech, has risen to meet the crisis head on.

A significant benefit of technology has been its ability to bring us closer to one another. But since the outbreak of Covid-19 those at the cutting edge of technology have been putting their heads together to think of ways of keeping us apart.

The Lithium-Ion battery powers nearly every new electrical gadget that is produced in this day and age; it has impressive capabilities to power tech. This wonder battery powers everything from mobile phones to laptops and a host of domestically used items. As well as these uses in the industrial world, the Ion battery has many uses, from everyday objects to the more exotic guidance systems for helicopters and submarines. It is considered such an important invention that the Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded to the three scientists who developed it. The big issue with the Ion battery is though it has an unhealthy dependence on cobalt.

The new standard for what is to come will be, “Whatever can be associated, will be associated.” But what is the point of such vast numbers of associated gadgets conversing with one another? There are numerous models for what these interactions may resemble or what the possible worth maybe.

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) has moved from the realms of science and technology through the business world. It is now a subject that is talked about by the general public – even if they are not quite sure what the IoT is or what it might mean for the future. It is a concept that will undoubtedly have a significant effect on how we will live and on how we will do business.

In the first part of this article, we outlined the unexpected, deep economic distress that the Covid-19 pandemic has wrought on the world economy. Stressful as this has been to the world financial system, there are more than a few grounds for optimism. If one looks at world trade, however, stressed at the moment, it does look remarkably robust.

In this current, Covid-19 inspired, world crisis, a great many nations are feeling compelled to close non-vital parts of the economy and request individuals to stay at home; measures aimed at checking the spread of the Covid-19. This continuing situation is turning into a financial and social emergency that requires a strong and appropriate governmental reaction.

The wristwatch had shown consumers the potential of technology that could be seamlessly incorporated into clothing and everyday life. It took the development of advanced miniaturisation before more than a few limited functions could be incorporated into a wearable device. Then, with the birth of digital computing on a mass scale, wearable tech came into its own.

The story of wearable technology is a surprisingly long one and has always been an exciting fusion of art and science, form and function, that has improved the lives of people for centuries in a number of ways. It is a term that has recently become associated with modern devices like smartwatches, smart glasses and VR technology, but just about anything that humans can wear to enhance their understanding of themselves and their environment counts.

There is strong evidence that the humble battery will come of age in the next few years. For all the talk about sustainable solar and wind-generated energy, the planet’s weather is still an unpredictable entity – and of course, the sun does have the annoying habit of disappearing every day.

CES 2020 has been and gone, and both revealed and foretold many exciting new developments in consumer technology; a good number of which are reliant on battery technology. The biggest announcements of the year indicate some of the trends we can expect to see taking hold of the tech industry in 2020 and beyond.

Since their invention, lithium-ion batteries have been deemed the energy of the future. From powerful smartphones to increasingly more energy-efficient electric vehicles, just about everything these days is powered by a combination of lithium, nickel, copper and other, increasingly scarce, minerals. But it seems that, in our rush to escape the use of carbon fuels, we have replaced one scarce resource for another, with Tesla reporting that they believe global shortages of these vital battery components are on the way.

As demand and requirement for lithium-ion cells and batteries continue to rise, it’s no surprise that industry has expanded and evolved to match those highly specific needs. The result is the megafactory – a term coined by Benchmark Minerals as a way to describe the facilities that produce vast amounts of battery cells to meet that demand. These factories are not an isolated few by any means; with more than 91 factories in the pipeline ready to produce vast quantities of these mineral-based power sources, that demand and capacity is only going to rise.

For many of us, listing off the great scientific names of history is an easy enough task: Einstein, Newton, Graham-Bell, all household names, even in non-scientific households. But beside these titans of invention, there are some equally important if decidedly lesser-known scientific minds. These unsung heroes go broadly unrecognised despite their huge contributions to science and to how we live today. One such person is John Bannister Goodenough – a scientist relatively unknown outside his field and yet whose work can be found in the pocket of the majority of people on the planet. John B. Goodenough and his pioneering work in lithium-ion batteries made the modern world as we know it possible.

In the last ten years, the demand for wearable technology – from the early days of Google’s innovative glasses through to the modern fitness tracker – has only increased and evolved. The majority of households now have at least one piece of battery-powered, wearable tech on their body at all times – not to mention everything else that currently relies on ever more powerful batteries to function wirelessly, from smartphones to handheld hoovers.