Microsoft is looking to change the idea of having to charge our smart devices multiple times a day as the company believes that battery technology is usually ignored unlike other components.

The software giant has put forward an idea of making innovations in battery tech so that smartphones and tablets are able to deliver a full week of charge. Microsoft's Senior Researcher in the Mobility & Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research, Ranveer Chandra amazed everyone with the idea at MIT Technology Review's Digital Summit in San Francisco.

Mr. Chandra said that current devices are forcing users to charge these devices every night while some unfortunate users have to charge their smartphones multiple times a day. He says that Microsoft aims to change that as it is looking to change the way how smart devices use power. As smartphones and tablets are becoming more powerful, battery technology has majorly stayed untouched.This has to be tackled.

As told by Chandra,one of the ideas that Microsoft is working on at the summit is the one in which two smaller batteries would be used in a device instead of a single large one. While one battery handles powerful processes such as gaming, the other would power the phone with enough juice to manage the background processes when idle. Such prototypes have been reported to increase battery life by 20 to 50 percent.

Microsoft is also working on a project called E-Loupe which monitors resource-demanding apps, slowing them down when the program predicts that it is appropriate to do so. The research team at Microsoft is also working on tool for developers which will help them predict how much power-hungry their apps are. This can help them optimize their apps accordingly which would enhance battery life on devices.

Even though the 1-week battery backup idea seems quite unlikely for now, LG has already shown tremendous improvement in optimizing battery usage in its devices like LG G2 and G3. Smartphone like the LG G3 was expected to kill battery life due to its huge 5.5-inch Quad HD display. But the Korean company surprised everyone with the battery performance on its flagship smartphone by introducing a new technology called 3A and according to tests at PhoneArena, it has delivered.

The "A" in the name of this technology means "Adaptive" while the number "3" signifies the number of functions in the technology such as adaptive frame rate, adaptive clocking and adaptive timing control. Experts believe that this technology helps LG G3's battery last as long as a device with 1080p display resolution.

How LG has succeeded in this technology is dropping framerate to 30fps whenever the activity on the smartphone's display is none. The adaptive clocking and timing control affect the processor by under-clocking it whenever the full use of the processor is not needed.

We could have seen better results if LG had used such technology in the previous flagship smartphone like LG G2 which features a Full HD display.

Hopefully Microsoft will also be able to come out with such technology soon so that our smartphones can give similar battery performances as mobile phones used to when they weren't "smart".

Everyone’s waiting for timing this year.

Over the last couple of days, the issue of some non-working Moto G smartphones was discovered. Motorola Mobility said it has resolved this issue and apologized for what it called was a “one-off error”. Motorola’s retail partner Flipkart offered a monetary credit and a full refund if a customer wished to replace the faulty handsets.

Motorola (US based smartphone maker) had informed customers over the last two days that some of its best-selling Moto G handsets shipped into India did not have registered and verified International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, which rendered the devices useless. An IMEI is a 15-digit unique code that helps cellular networks to identify valid phones. It is the unique identity number of each device, which is used to track it when stolen or misplaced.

The devices with IMEI numbers beginning from 3533 and that with 16 GB memory versions were most likely facing connectivity issues. This came out when Motorola communicated with some of its customers who were facing problems. "This particular issue is now resolved and the affected Moto G devices have been registered with all network operators. All impacted customers can activate their phones immediately," a Motorola Mobility spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Motorola said that as a goodwill gesture to those affected,the popular e-commerce website Flipkart - the handset maker's exclusive retail partner - has credited Rs 1200 into Flipkart wallets or accounts of impacted customers for any purchase. That apart, Motorola has offered to replace the faulty handset or fully refund customers who did not wish to wait for a replacement.These steps were taken as an apology for the glitch.

The number of complaints received or the number of devices that were replaced or cases in which it refunded customer’s money were not revealed by neither Motorola and Flipkart. India is the most critical geography for Motorola, where the smartphone market continues to be one of the top growing ones and is expected to cross 80 million units by end of the year.

The company's international come back started with the Moto G launch in India last year and it strengthened its position in the consumer's mind with the global launch of Moto E here, which has been sold out since it was put on sale on Flipkart.com. The US-based company had wrapped up operations in India in August 2012, but has chosen the online-only strategy on its come back into the India market since late 2013.

Motorola Mobility, which is in the transition phase of being transferred to Lenovo from Google, said that verification of IMEI numbers with Indian mobile operators was carried out at the back-end. It added that the problem emerged in a single batch due to a 'one off error' and that "measures have been taken internally that can't be disclosed."

Analysts are divided on the impact of this situation on Motorola with some of the view that it may create a chink in the company's online-only strategy with others highlighting that the incident was a small one-off.

"It's good that Motorola acted proactively and offered either to exchange the devices or refund the money which would help them pacify the consumers to certain extent," said Gartner's principal analyst Vishal Tripathi. "But somewhere, this situation will shake consumer's confidence and would impact a bit of brand value".

A Delhi-based industry watcher said that despite having a retail presence only online, the device maker has offline service centers and a call centre for resolving any issue faced by its customers.

"The company has taken responsibility and owned up immediately. Moreover, such a problem occurs very rarely and it's a small issue," the person said.