Bad news, folks. After a fire earlier this month at an LG Chem plant (South Korea's second largest battery maker), Dell, HP and Asustek are all admitting noticeable supply shortages for portable power. While they scramble to secure other battery manufacturing, know that Dell has already raised their battery prices (the exact percentage, we're not sure). What's this mean for you? If you were considering picking up an extra laptop battery, we'd do it now. Because there's a good chance that prices could get worse before they get better. [yahoonews]

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