Writing to Consumerist, Hannah describes what happened:

"Hi, last night I unplugged my laptop from its charger, carried it downstairs, and placed it on the wood floor of my living room.

I heard a loud popping sound and the room immediately filled with smoke while the laptop hissed and sizzled. It died down, I pushed it with my foot, and it stared hissing again. There is a large scorch mark on my floor.

It goes without saying, I am glad the laptop was not on my couch ...or in an airplane."

Consumerist put Hannah in touch with Dell, and they supplied her with a free upgraded replacement. They are also examining the crispy netbook itself, but have yet to release any details. Generally, when incidents like this occur, the battery is to blame. If Dell is at fault, I would hope that Hannah can get them to spring for repairs to her floor. [Consumerist]

As demonstrated in the video above, the fix shouldn't take more than a minute, or a few minutes, if you're being very careful. It's basically just pushing in a bit on a small metal piece that, when too far out, makes it easy for your battery to slide right off. You'll want to be careful, of course, and especially with your SIM card so close by, but if you've had the unpleasant experience of a falling battery cover, this fix might just be what the (DIY) doctor ordered.

Found another fix for your Droid's battery cover slippage? Tell us about it in the comments.

The downside of these batteries is that they're not rechargeable, but they're still smaller than other standard batteries and will be great for newer, tinier gadgets. [Tech On via Engadget]

It also gets a native PDF reader, previously only found in the Kindle DX. The total battery life for the international version measures at seven days with wireless on (up from four days), and two weeks with wireless off (same as before).

It looks like Amazon just improved the wireless usage, which might have come as a result from switching from using Sprint as the provider to AT&T as a provider? Probably not, seeing as previous Kindle users also get the 85% battery life from a firmware upgrade delivered automatically. PDF support comes over OTA upgrade as well, but no timeframe was announced for either. [Press Release]

The questions were thrown at me by our dear Brian Lam with a disclaimer of "I may have been under narcotic substances when I came up with this idea." But, despite that disclaimer, he's onto something. After all, we've looked at concept models of gadgets intended to be powered in that precise manner, by converting blood glucose into electrical current. There's also been some success in recent bio-battery research with yeast fuel cells. So, why aren't we sating both gadget lust and hunger in the same bite yet?

It turns out that the bio-batteries closest to reality at this time, the yeast cell ones, have a major problem with waste products. That waste is created as those particular batteries involve microbial yeast-based fuel cells that steal "some of the electrons produced when the yeast metabolizes glucose" in order to create a small current. While the entire process works just fine, the yeast cells are at risk unless the waste products are removed. We can't exactly let the waste be dumped into the blood stream, so until there's a some kind of cleaning process, the batteries are trouble as they either they die off or poison your bloodstream while trying to survive.

That trouble aside though, the research is quite encouraging and a huge first step. It may be many years until we can use bio-batteries, but I'll wait patiently with some Häagen-Dazs until the day that fat bottomed girls really make the rockin' world go 'round. [New Scientist]

Photo by Bare Conductive

It varies from netbook to netbook—Toshiba's NB205 hardier withstood Windows 7's power greediness better than HP's Mini 311, but you definitely lose juice quicker. It's somewhat expected, though, with features like the fancier Aero user interface to name one probable cause. Personally, I'll take Windows 7 and the dead battery. [Laptop]

The way you'd use the reNEW charger is simple. You toss your batteries in the top portion and they'll be ready at the bottom once they're fully-charged. Cool idea, but I'm not entirely sure that I'd want to plaster my windows with it.

Updated: Now we've got some official pictures from the original designer rather than the previous "work in progress" shots. [Yanko Design]

According to the manufacturer "it's not bulky either as it just extends a little at the bottom"—yeah right, and Steve Ballmer is just a little intense. The Super Charger is positively ginormous, but if you have a sherpa (or intern) to help you schlep it around, the battery pack can be picked up for $60. It won't void any warranties, but it should. [USB Fever via Crunch Gear]

Designed by Qian Jiang, the concept is actually rather brilliant since it wouldn't require an additional gadget to recharge your batteries and depending on how many recharges it would allow for, it might be a rather good deal too. Since this battery is still a concept, we're a bit skeptical about the claim that it could be fully charged in 20 minutes, but that would be fast enough for most of us. Those of us who haven't got the arm muscles of a noodle that is. [Yanko Design]

The project wants to make this happen by using a lithium-air battery, which...

couple to atmospheric oxygen-essentially harnessing the oxygen in the air as the cathode of the battery. Since oxygen enters the battery on-demand, it offers an essentially unlimited amount of reactant, metered only by the surface area of its electrodes. IBM believes its nanoscale semiconductor fabrication techniques can increase the surface area of the lithium-air battery's electrodes by at least 100 times, enabling them to meet the goals of the project.

If you think the consortium will deliver a fantastic car by the time you need to trade in your current vehicle, you should hold off on getting so excited. IBM says it's going to be another two years to even see if the lithium-air batteries can be used to make the goal happen. [Smarter Technology via Slashdot]

The 2000mAh battery should be good enough to for 1.5-2 charges and the whole thing folds up for easy transport. The basic P-Flip retails for $55 so don't be fooled by the ridiculous "Brookstone exclusive" that goes for $70—it appears to be the same dock. Alternatively, you could always bring along your own cord and make this DIY cardboard dock for nothing. [Dexim via Slashgear via CrunchGear]

On Twitter we noticed that everybody seemed to get back more space from Snow Leopard than the guy before him: "I got back 9GB, wow!" "Hey, I got back 12GB, jeez." "Holy mother, I got back 20 gigs, whoooooa!" So by now, some of you should've gotten back like a terabyte—on your 250GB hard drive. We got back around 6GB, what Apple advertised.

Battery-wise haven't noticed much of a difference compared to Leopard, but if you have, let us know and what kind of machine you're using.

[Giz's Snow Leopard Coverage]

According to the author of the hack, the iPhone 3G took 2 hours and 22 minutes to fully recharge, leaving 50% of the power in the MSI Wind battery. The hack also includes a normal jack to provide with 12v power to any other device.

[Prusadjs]

The benefit of the X-Power 1 is that it's both a backup battery and a charger all in one and you don't have to deal with carrying around an extra gadget. The built-in rechargeable battery backup unit will be charged very time you connect your iPod or iPhone to your computer using the X-Power 1 and you'll get more quality time with your gadget:

• Additional talk time of 4.5 hours on 3G and 9 hours on 2G. Up to 5.4 hours additional on Wi-Fi.
• Standby time of up to 270 hours. Audio Playback up to 20 hours and Video Playback 6 hours.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for extra time with my iPhone and less junk in my bag, but how the hell did that innocent USB cable result this:

[X-Power 1 via GadgetReview]

This DSLR battery clip charges via a special USB source (like Energizer's own portable battery pack, which has a higher voltage than standard USB) and clamps on to "any" digital camera or camcorder battery. The compatibility list is probably high, but we're unsure if any actually means any, so check out the site before buying. The entire Energi To Go line will be available next month. [Gearlog via Oh Gizmo]