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Battery

cellphones

Mophie iPhone 3G Battery Extender Available For Preorder, Shipping This Month

Mophie's wraparound battery extenders for the first iPhone provided some relief to incessant browsers and movie-watchers, and they're looking to adapt their "Juice Pack" to the even more anemic iPhone 3G. What does this pack offer that the others don't? A mini USB port for syncing and charging and Apple's coveted "Works With iPhone" certification, which Mophie assures us will come through soon (their 1st gen packs had it, so they're probably telling the truth). The extenders should ship by the 30th of October, pending Apple's final decision on the certification, but are available for preorder now at $100. Battery life claims are below. [Mophie] More »

power up

Silver-Zinc Batteries Coming in 2009 With 40% Better Run Time Than Lithium-Ion

Lithium-ion is, by far, the most common form of rechargeable battery found in today's mobile devices. However, a shift towards silver zinc may be looming on the horizon thanks to a new product in development by ZPower, Inc. Ross E. Dueber, president and CEO of the company is scheduled to address attendees at the Batteries 2008 conference in Nice, France starting tomorrow, where he will tout the advantages of his silver-zinc technology scheduled to launch in "a major notebook computer in 2009." Whether we will find out the identity of this "major notebook" in the coming days remains to be seen, but the impending release does offer some hope for consumers frustrated by the battery life of their precious portable gadgets. More »

lightning review

Oncore 6-Bay MacBook and iBook Charger Lightning Review

The Gadget: Oncore's 6-Bay MacBook or iBook battery charger that really only charges three batteries at one time because it's a cluster of charging bays and not six individual chargers. Once the first battery in a single charging bay is full it will switch charging to the other battery which allows for six batteries to be fully charged over time.

More »

batteries

Toshiba 'Super Charge' Laptop Batteries Hit 90% in 10 Minutes, Age Well

Toshiba's Super Charge Ion Batteries (SCiBs) have been floating around in various industrial applications for a while now, prompting some serious envy in the consumer space with their ridiculously fast charge time and remarkable lifespan (5000-6000 charge cycles to a normal lithium ion's 500). A year and about one worn-out laptop battery later, Toshiba is showing a prototype of a SCiB notebook battery at CEATEC, quickly charging a Dynabook in what must be one of the least visually stimulating demos of the show. More »

apple

iPhone Battery Lawsuit Dismissed, Steve Won't Send Luca Brasi

The Apple part of the iPhone battery class-action lawsuit has been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, who looked at the claims brought by Jose Trujillo and deemed them as dumbtastically stoopeed. Not exactly in those words, but I know that's exactly what he meant with his words: More »

power up

EVOLTA, the World's Longest-Lasting AA Alkaline Battery, Coming to the US

We first heard about the Guinness record-holding EVOLTA AA battery back in April, but at the time they were only available in Japan. However, Panasonic is bringing their new product to the States staring this October in AA or AAA four and eight packs (priced at $5 and $9 respectively). I would just stick with rechargeables, but hey—that's just me. More »

graphene

Graphene Could Become World's Best Super Battery

You know graphene, the super material that's strong enough to withstand diamond cutters? Turns out that not only may it replace silicon as the de rigeur component of microchips, it's on track to becoming the next megabattery as well. Engineers at the University of Texas in Austin have found a way to store electrical charge in graphene-based ultracapacitor devices, and their discovery could revolutionize the renewable energy industry. More »

Dream Car?

Update: Dream Car 123 Trades Dignity for Energy Efficiency

Last we left the Dream Car 123, the pyramid-shaped electric car that always gets picked last in kickball games, it was (in the words of Addy) "pootling" along the snowy streets of Illinois at about 45 mph, with a 80-mile range. Today we can report that, while the thing still looks like all sorts of ridiculousness, it's upped the range considerably, has bulletproof glass protecting the driver's compartment—and cut costs to boot! More »

Battery Lies

Sony Switching Battery Life Scoring Method, No Longer Advertising Wildly Misleading Numbers

Sick and tired of never getting even close to the 10 to 12 hours of battery life advertised by PC companies on your laptop? Sony hears you, and is taking pains to improve at least one thing about their power packs. No, not the overheating factor, though they say they've got that somewhat under control now, honest! The company recently told PC Authority that they would be switching to a more realistic measurement for advertising their notebook battery figures. Yay? More »

hp

HP EliteBook 6930p Lasts All Day, Literally

The HP EliteBook 6930p is a nice enough laptop when configured with an LED 14.1-inch screen and SSD. But it's got one big claim to fame if you're willing to fork over the cash for these extras. When bundled with an optional high capacity battery, the runtime reaches 24 hours, or one complete day of use. That's six hours longer than the latest Dell competitor, even though the base configured 2.2 pound Dell is a lot lighter than this 4.7 pound machine from HP. (Both surely weigh in the triple digits come big battery time.) Now just imagine if we actually had some decent battery technology. Oh, the places we could go! More »