Here’s an interesting idea: what if the part of the cell phone charger that you plug into the wall doubled as a rechargeable extended battery pack? That’s actually coming in November with the $50 PowerPak from Technocel.
Whoever manipulated the above image to make this humongous iPhone battery pack look relatively manageable ought to be given a raise. Conversely, whoever wrote “It is not bulky either as it just extends a little at the bottom” in the product description ought to immediately undergo a workplace evaluation. If it happens to be the same person who handled both the photo and the product description, then God help us all.
Wow, this is impressive. An enterprising young man from a faraway land (the Czech Republic!) took an ordinary battery from an MSI Wind netbook and added a USB charging port to it. He can charge his iPhone twice over and the battery still works like normal in his MSI Wind. They should add USB charging ports to all batteries!
Some German researchers have conjured up a kind of battery that’s less than a millimeter thin and is made by the reactive layers onto each other like a silk screen. But the most surprising bit is that they’re planning on making them on a commercial scale within six months.
Usually we hear about this stuff and then it disappears for a couple years. Not this time, hopefully.
Nasa (NASA?) has selected Saft, a French company, to develop its next-generation batteries, batteries that will power tomorrow’s rovers, landers, and all sorts of space-related goodies. The batteries will be of the Lithium-ion type, like the kind inside your cellphone (but not the new MacBook Pro—that’s a Lithium-ion polymer.)
Short Version: Wii owners sick of replacing controller batteries every couple weeks will find Tekno Creations’ $35 InCharge contact-less charging system to be a good investment.
Short Version: Simple to operate and offering the ability to pop out the rechargeable AAA batteries for use in other devices, the Pocket Booster pulls double duty as life support for your phone and battery charger for items like remote controls and Bluetooth mice.
Boston-Power announced earlier today that their line of Sonata Li-ion batteries for 18 HP notebooks (about 70 percent of HP’s lineup) are now available directly from HP. The Sonata batteries were the first to be Nordic Ecolabeled, which essentially means they pollute less by being high capacity, longer lasting and having the “smallest amounts of detrimental heavy metals.” They boast a three lifespan and HP is backing that up by providing a three-year warranty, which is the only one in the market to do so. It’s available now for the following models for $150.
Make sure to say “I love you, honey” after hanging up on your wife today. You know why? Because if what happened to a man in China happens to you, you’ll be as dead as Colin Quinn’s career. The man was killed last week—I guess news trickles slowly out of China—when his cellphone exploded, breaking an artery in his neck. Ouch.
There’s a lot of money going out the door for the auto makers (well, maybe) and more so for the finance business, so I think it’s wise for some of the less bubble-orientated sectors to point out now just how little they need to establish or reinvigorate themselves. Public radio could use a boost, space programs are comparatively cheap, and now a consortium of battery makers is asking for a paltry $1bn to help get the ball rolling on US-based next-generation battery manufacturing.
After all, in five years, what use will having an American auto business be if they have to buy all their most important parts from China? There are four dozen next-gen battery manufactories being built there right now, and zero here in the States. The group of companies, including the likes of 3M, hopes to avoid total Asian dominance of a field upon which the existence of perhaps an entire industry is staked.