In the most surprising way, I've found your newsletter. You've changed my perspective from being a pessimist to a optimist in the tech industry. Please keep up your good work and I look forward to your upcoming articles!
It’s early years in the Battery War. If Samsung’s battery is superior (2027), why is it pursuing a better battery with a silicone anode and a technology to mitigate thermal runway? This battery is designed and manufactured by an American company. As you know, the greater the energy density in an Li-ion battery, the greater the risk of fire. Sixty seconds after an Li-ion battery experiences a short circuit (EV crash, over-charging batter pack, etc.), the fire reaches 1,000F and starts spraying/spewing molten substrate. In a bad auto accident, is a driver capable of getting out of an EV in less than 60 seconds? NYFD responded to 163 Li-ion battery fires in 2023. There were 142 battery fires on commercial airline flights in 2023. How long before the insurance lobby pressures the government to raise Li-ion battery standards?
If the Chinese are in the lead in the Battery War, why are two of the largest Chinese smart-phone manufacturers in the product-fit, the last stage, for this battery? If Chinese batteries are superior, why did a large, California-based OEM of VR headsets sign a contract with this company for its battery pack?
This company is in talks with a major OEM of EVs. The EV battery is scheduled to begin production in 2025. If this battery didn’t provide a significant and safe first-mover advantage, why are all of these discussions and contracts cloaked by NDAs (read: the clients will announce this at product releases?
The point being, the Battery War is early years. Given the battery manufacturing facilities a Samsung and other major battery manufacturers have, to say nothing of these countries’ work ethic, redesigning existing battery manufacturing lines, the ramp-to-scale is suitably fast.
Even Elon Musk has stated: “The silicone anode is the way forward for lithium-ion batteries.”
This battery, already in use by the US Army for two-way radios, will make it practical to bring AI to smart phones and run true 5G (as we know, smart-phone OEMs purposely engineer their product not to run on 5G, for obvious reasons).
Qualcomm was an early investor in this company (full disclosure: so was I). Last year, Christiano Anon stated: “Mobility isn’t going away. Soon AI will come to smart phones, and the only cost will be the battery.”
The identification of a reliable and easily obtainable biomarker for any nuro disease is a very key step in developing a drug as the biomarker indicates or identifies one cause of the disease and can be measured. This allows one to trace the course of the disease and identify the impact of a drug on the patient by measuring the level of the biomarker. If there is no biomarker, then docs could only ask clients to do physical procedures and judge if they were doing them better or worse than previously. This is a very poor and unclear measure. While I can not speak for als, I can assure you that even today, this is how Parkinson patients are evaluated.The lack of effective drugs for both als and PD in part stems from the lack of biomarkers. Progress has been made in this area but clienical trails today still rely heavily on
Re: Anduril, I make one observation. A warship/bomber/tank is a monument to human failure, its funding stolen from the poor. Just as the candidacy of Bobby is a test of character for the US, so too is the ongoing acceptance - again non-discussion is failure - of Militarism as our species cancer. Once people have waypoints, this will be resolved.
In the most surprising way, I've found your newsletter. You've changed my perspective from being a pessimist to a optimist in the tech industry. Please keep up your good work and I look forward to your upcoming articles!
That makes me very happy to hear, Huy!
This newsletter is so informative and written with much care. Thanks for sharing.
It’s early years in the Battery War. If Samsung’s battery is superior (2027), why is it pursuing a better battery with a silicone anode and a technology to mitigate thermal runway? This battery is designed and manufactured by an American company. As you know, the greater the energy density in an Li-ion battery, the greater the risk of fire. Sixty seconds after an Li-ion battery experiences a short circuit (EV crash, over-charging batter pack, etc.), the fire reaches 1,000F and starts spraying/spewing molten substrate. In a bad auto accident, is a driver capable of getting out of an EV in less than 60 seconds? NYFD responded to 163 Li-ion battery fires in 2023. There were 142 battery fires on commercial airline flights in 2023. How long before the insurance lobby pressures the government to raise Li-ion battery standards?
If the Chinese are in the lead in the Battery War, why are two of the largest Chinese smart-phone manufacturers in the product-fit, the last stage, for this battery? If Chinese batteries are superior, why did a large, California-based OEM of VR headsets sign a contract with this company for its battery pack?
This company is in talks with a major OEM of EVs. The EV battery is scheduled to begin production in 2025. If this battery didn’t provide a significant and safe first-mover advantage, why are all of these discussions and contracts cloaked by NDAs (read: the clients will announce this at product releases?
The point being, the Battery War is early years. Given the battery manufacturing facilities a Samsung and other major battery manufacturers have, to say nothing of these countries’ work ethic, redesigning existing battery manufacturing lines, the ramp-to-scale is suitably fast.
Even Elon Musk has stated: “The silicone anode is the way forward for lithium-ion batteries.”
This battery, already in use by the US Army for two-way radios, will make it practical to bring AI to smart phones and run true 5G (as we know, smart-phone OEMs purposely engineer their product not to run on 5G, for obvious reasons).
Qualcomm was an early investor in this company (full disclosure: so was I). Last year, Christiano Anon stated: “Mobility isn’t going away. Soon AI will come to smart phones, and the only cost will be the battery.”
Again, it’s early days in the Battery War.
This makes you optimistic.? Autonomous weapons? “a 5 million square foot state-of-the-art facility to produce autonomous weapons systems.”
The identification of a reliable and easily obtainable biomarker for any nuro disease is a very key step in developing a drug as the biomarker indicates or identifies one cause of the disease and can be measured. This allows one to trace the course of the disease and identify the impact of a drug on the patient by measuring the level of the biomarker. If there is no biomarker, then docs could only ask clients to do physical procedures and judge if they were doing them better or worse than previously. This is a very poor and unclear measure. While I can not speak for als, I can assure you that even today, this is how Parkinson patients are evaluated.The lack of effective drugs for both als and PD in part stems from the lack of biomarkers. Progress has been made in this area but clienical trails today still rely heavily on
non biomarker procedures to measure impact.
Re: Anduril, I make one observation. A warship/bomber/tank is a monument to human failure, its funding stolen from the poor. Just as the candidacy of Bobby is a test of character for the US, so too is the ongoing acceptance - again non-discussion is failure - of Militarism as our species cancer. Once people have waypoints, this will be resolved.
On a brighter note about Alzheimer's - it behooves anyone with a serious interest in this most hideous way to die, to take a look at prevention, not Big Pharma 'biomarkers'. Dodging a 40% risk is the whole game. https://news.exeter.ac.uk/research/taking-vitamin-d-could-help-prevent-dementia-study-finds/
Since we were outdoor animals for 99% of our existence, do yourself a favor and buy 10K IU of D daily (it only lasts in the blood for 24 hours).
I hope that occasional caveats are not too boring... :-) - Dwight