Of course, this might make a bit more sense plugged into a countertop socket, but at $25 you better be sure. I'm content with the USB cable/plug that came with the phone. You? [WallDock via The Gadgeteer via OhGizmo]

Plus, when the car adapter is attached to the main unit, you can charge up to two USB devices at once. It's a pretty versatile device for $35 (without iPhone/iPod charge and sync cable), but if you are looking for something that offers even more portability, Duracell has been coming out with a lot of battery-powered portables lately that should fit the bill.

Oxnard, CA – October 29, 2009 – Scosche Industries (www.scosche.com), an award-winning innovator of iPod and iPhone accessories, announces the availability of the powerFUZE™ - home and car USB charging system. The powerFUZE is both "Made for iPod" and "Works with iPhone" certified and allows users to carry just one charger for all their USB based devices when traveling.

The powerFUZE's unique design can be configured in several different ways to provide many charging solutions. The main body is a home charger that features a USB charging port as well as an AC/DC converter port (in-car style port). The AC/DC converter port allows users to plug their favorite car accessories into any wall outlet. The product also includes an ultra low profile USB car charger that nests neatly in the AC/DC converter port. With the car charger installed in the main body, the unit becomes a dual USB home charger capable of charging 2 devices at once. The USB car charger also fits flush in any vehicles 12-volt power socket, allowing users to charge any USB powered device in the car. Each of the USB ports features 1 Amp output to ensure the fastest charging possible.

"Customer convenience is key factor in all of Scosche's product designs," said Kas Alves, executive vice president of Scosche Industries. "With the powerFUZE our customers can replace multiple chargers with one that works both at home and on the road."

Customers can choose between the $ 34.99 powerFUZE; the powerFUZE PRO, which ships with an iPod/iPhone sync cable for $44.99; or purchase the standalone powerPLUG Ultra low profile USB car charger or powerPLUG Pro version that includes the iPod/ iPhone charge and sync cable for $19.99 and $29.99 respectively. They are available now on Scosche.com and at select retail locations throughout the US.

[Schosche]

The first 3,000 run will cost 29800 Yen ($328), and you get five cartridges for 3150 Yen ($34), which makes it cost ineffective if you're talking about practical charging. But if you really need power on the go and you don't have time to charge up traditionally, this is the future—so long as you're part of the first 3,000 that they'll test this out on before going on a wider release. [Toshiba Japan via Engadget]

Just head over to the Palm store and enter in PALMPRE at checkout. [Palm]

Wireless charging is still in its infancy, but the idea is great: you have a lil' mat or platform onto which you can toss your gadgets and let them charge. No tangled wires and fumbling around. There's a catch, of course, in that most of these chargers will require a special case or add-on to be hugging your device. This makes something like the Powermat one pricey charging station if you want to charge each of your gadgets. But hey, we'll overlook that because we like their commercial. [Dvice and YouTube — Thanks, GitEmSteveDave for the video link!]

The upside is that it's $40, and you don't always have to charge two devices simultaneously. The advantage to using this over a specialized charger, like an iPhone battery pack, is that you can also take advantage of Callpod's various tips for their Chargepod adapter. It should fit almost all devices out there now.

The Fueltank Uno will be available at Best Buy starting Sept 27. Callpod's mobile password app, Keeper, is also being pushed out to Vodafone customers as well. Basically, it's a desktop password management that can also sync to your cellphone so you can take your passwords with you. You can get that now for $15. The phone part is free. [Callpod]

It can charge two iPod/iPhones simultaneously while also charging a Blackberry and a bluetooth headset for instance. In fact, using the two iPod connectors and two of your own iPod cords, you could even charge four iPod/iPhones at the same time.

It's good to see they've thrown in Micro USB, too. That's a nice bit of future-proofing given that most cell phone makers (in Europe at least) will soon be using it universally. You can pick one up in white, black or pink for $90. That isn't exactly cheap, but the Refresh definitely looks like a pretty slick piece of kit. [Bluelounge via Yanko Design]

To juice up, you connect your USB-charging device to the included Lithium Ion booster pack, which acts as a reservoir drawing power from the panels.

Sanyo claims a full charge to the booster in good sunlight will take 3 days with one panel (¥9,000; about $100) and half that on the two-panel version (¥14,000; about $150). Available only in Japan for the moment. [Sanyo Japan via Akihabara News and PC World]

The charger uses the same technology found inside self-winding wristwatches. With every footfall, you give a little more juice to the internal battery, which in turn will power a phone, or MP3 player, or whatever. The flexible design means no major bunions, should you actually stick this concept into your running shoe someday. [Coroflot via DVICE]

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]

It sounds a little sci-fi at first, but it's not: RFID tags are powered by electrical signals converted from electromagnetic waves emitted by a nearby sensor machine, which is exactly how this system is said to work. The thing is, the amount of electricity involved here is tiny, and Nokia's system won't even have a base station—it'll draw from ambient electromagnetic waves, meaning Wi-Fi, cell towers and TV antennae. Nokia hopes to harvest about 50 milliwatts—not quite enough to sustain a phone, but enough to mitigate drain, and slowly charge a handset that's been switched off.

Current prototypes only gather about 5 milliwatts, which is essentially useless, and scientists and industry experts just don't see the technology maturing to the point that Nokia wants it to, at least in the near future. But the company's researchers are standing strong:

I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years.

If you believe them, this is pretty exciting: maybe not as a primary charging mechanism, but as a battery extender. [Technology Review—Image from Technology Review]

The first new entries, two form-fitting, rubberized AP Charger battery packs for the iPhone, had me thinking of Incase Power Slider.

They're not as eye-catching as the Incase, but they're not as expensive, either. It's $50 for the AP1000 and $80 for the beefier, longer-lasting AP1500. Weigh your options, battery pack wants and desires accordingly. Also, in the case of the AP1500, Energizer promises to double the battery life of a typical iPhone charge. Updated: As some commenters have noted, and I'm inclined to agree with, that branding front and center is fugly at best. Definitely not subtle.

In the aforementioned solar power category comes the SP1000 and SP2000, for $50 and $100, respectively. Boasting 500 charges each, these solar cells include a set of tips so that you can charge all manner of GPS devices, MP3 players and cellphones out in the wilds of suburbia. Or camping in the woods too, if that's your thing. More tips are available online, should the included six not meet your needs. The SP line even charges via indoor light sources, although not as quickly as the advertised 6-hour charge time in direct sunlight.

In all, there will be about 10 new additions to this line of battery packs and chargers coming in June, Energizer tells us, courtesy a new partnership with XPAL Power. Not much else to say on XPAL save a brief mention in our glorious Gadget Deals of the Day series.

The Micro Auto Charger has a 1-amp USB port that promises to charge gadgets super quick. Other than that, there's not much else to say about the thing, except that it charges pretty much anything you can shake a USB cable at. Belkin also released the dual-port Dual Auto Charger, which adds an extra 500 mA USB port, but it's fat and ugly and has one port too many.

You can get the Micro Auto Charger for $15 alone, or if you want an iPod/iPhone cable packaged in, it's $20. The Dual Auto Charger comes complete with iPod/iPhone cable for $30.

Charge Your iPod and iPhone in Your Car with Belkin's New Micro Auto Charger and Dual Auto Charger

* Keep your iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry®, or other USB charging device, charged while in the car
* Micro Auto Charger's design adds no extra bulk as it sits nearly flush with your dashboard

(Compton, CA) – April 20, 2009 – Belkin's new Micro Auto Charger and Dual Auto Charger charge your iPod or iPhone battery in your car, making it convenient to power up a dead phone or iPod.

Micro Auto Charger is packaged in a compact design and adds no extra bulk to your dashboard. Sitting nearly flush with your dashboard, the Micro Auto Charger still allows room on its lip for you to easily detach it from your dashboard. It also charges at 1 amp-ideal for iPhone devices and certain GPS systems in that it will charge at the device's fullest power.

With its two USB ports, the Dual Auto Charger lets you charge your iPod through one port while charging your cell phone in the other, simultaneously. One quick-charge port powers at 1 amp for your iPhone, and the second port charges at 500 milliamps, which will support iPod devices and cell phones such as BlackBerry phones.

AVAILABILITY

* Dual Auto Charger – Currently available
* Micro Auto Charger – Available in early May 2009

Micro Auto Charger with Charge Sync Cable for iPod and iPhone (F8Z446) - $19.99

* Quick-charge port for fastest possible charge
* Sits nearly flush with car dashboard
* Charge Sync Cable for iPhone and iPod, 3 ft.

Micro Auto Charger (F8Z445) - $14.99

* Quick-charge port for fastest possible charge
* Sits nearly flush with car dashboard

Dual Auto Charger (F8Z280) - $29.99

* Charge-and-sync cable for iPhone and iPod, 3 ft.
* Works with Motorola®, BlackBerry, and any mobile phone using a mini-USB connection
* Features 2 USB ports (one port at 1A and one port at 500mA)
* Quick-charge port for fastest possible charge

Neat freaks will rejoice at this retractability, because god forbid they stick their chargers in the glove box or something. The Recoil uses a magnetic docking mechanism to pull the cable back in place while not in use, but that's about where the feature set ends. No FM transmitter, no adapters for other gadgets. And at $30, its priced higher than other, generic retractable iPhone chargers out there. [Scosche]

The iPod Plug

While it in some ways seems like an example of a proprietary technology done right (it's solid, supports lots of connection types and has become basically ubiquitous), Old 30-Pin has quite a bit to feel bad about. Consider this: It single-handedly obliterated the non-iPod accessory market. Almost every MP3 player dock, FM transmitter or interfacing device supports this port exclusively—or with some feeble aux plug (cable not included) in the rear. And why shouldn't they? There are more 30-pin-jack iPods out there than there are all other MP3 players combined.

But it means Apple is stuck. An abrupt switch would be a disaster for third parties and customers alike (consider the outcry when the iPhone 3G wasn't compatible with some older 30-pin accessories) and it's not clear what they could switch to. Micro-USB probably doesn't have enough pins for all the various functions the port should serve, and switching to a solution that would, say, force users to connect both a power plug and and audio cable to a dock would seem like a step backwards. But hey, just because it's currently practical and ubiquitous doesn't mean it isn't evil. It's because of you, iPod jack, that my Sansa has about as many docking prospects as the average Giz writer.

Sprint and Verizon's Secret Shame: CDMA

To the end user, CDMA and GSM don't seem very different—Sprint, a CDMA carrier, offers the same services as AT&T, a GSM carrier—except when it comes to how they handle phones.

GSM phones are identified by the SIM card that they carry, which can be moved between phones at the user's will. Not so with America's other wireless standard. Effectively, a CDMA phone is like a GSM phone with the SIM card welded to its socket. Your CDMA phone is permanently locked to your carrier, and your mobile connection is permanently bound to your handset—unless your carrier is kind enough to authorize a transfer to another phone.

The presumably intentional effect is that there's no market for 3rd party hardware in CDMA, which is fine for carriers, shitty for customers. Worst of all, there's no good reason for this. CDMA SIM cards exist. They're called R-UIM cards, but US carriers are in no rush to implement them.

The Battle of the Redundant Audio Formats

There was a time when it wasn't clear which stupid format would reign supreme, Microsoft's WMA or Apple's AAC. [Note: Yes, Apple didn't invent AAC. However, they are the only reason any of us have heard of it.] While each technically brought improved sound quality, they were both bastards born of the same greedy combination: the desire for DRM and the unwillingness to pay MP3 encoder/decoder royalties. Your AACs wouldn't play on your Zen; your WMAs wouldn't work on your iPod; your ATRAC3s wouldn't work on anything. These formats only grew popular because people accidentally used them to rip their music, and later, because they were an unavoidable part of the digital music purchasing process.

With wider format support in new players, the slow death of the all-you-can-download rental WMA stores and Apple's new "our bad!" attitude towards audio DRM, it seems like we're taking a healthy step back to good ole' em-pee-threes. And while iPods will never play WMA, iTunes does convert 'em. And it's nice to see more Microsoft products supporting AAC, which Apple still won't shake off.

A Unique Phone Charger for Every Phone

Even—or rather, especially—when phone plugs were only for electricity, every goddamn manufacturer had their own exclusive, silly connector for dumping current into batteries. Today, little has changed, and as virtually anyone who owns a cellphone knows, this sucks. A lost charger means your phone is out of commission, and because of carrier subsidies, a new charger sometimes costs more than the phone itself did.

And that's how we arrive at the reason for this stupid situation: Unique chargers=$$$ for cellphones makers. This would explain why the first substantive call for standardization came so recently, and why Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Apple and pretty much everyone else still, in 2008, enforce phone-charger monogamy. And if you think phones are a pain, try finding a replacement charger for your Bluetooth headset. Good luck.

A Raw File By Any Other Name...

R-A-W. If you care about digital photography, these three letters form the most beautiful sound in the English language. Raw images, supported by almost every new DSLR and an increasing number of point-and-shoots, are made up of the 'raw' image data, pulled directly from your camera's sensor, letting you change all kinds of parameters—white balance, exposure and noise reduction, to name a few—instead of letting the camera pick them automatically during the shooting. And you can make infinite changes and tweaks long after the photo has been taken.

It would seem that by now importing raw files should be as easy as transferring JPEGs. Well, it's not. The problem is that almost every camera maker has insisted on using their own slightly different version, meaning that you either have to use your camera's supplied raw conversion software (almost always a steaming pile) or invest in a wide-support program like Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom—and make sure it has the right compatibility. Come on guys, Adobe gave you a perfectly fine, royalty-free raw format back in 2004. Use it.

So Many Memory Cards

For years, everyone had their own memory card format: Sony products used Memory Sticks, Olympus used xD, Fujifilm used SmartMedia and so on... they all thought they had the heir to the 35mm/CD/Zip Drive throne. It was adorable! Now, it's not. While we were all busy stockpiling one soon-to-be-obsolete memory cards and multi-compatible (bit never totally compatible) readers, most of the electronics industry was aligning itself with a winner.

Two, actually—or maybe three. SD cards (backed by Panasonic) are cheap, compact and capacious and only getting better, with MicroSD as its tiny phone version. Meanwhile, beefier, more durable Compact Flash cards suit the serious photogs. The rest of you: You all do the exact same thing! Please die.

For Our Earphones Only: Non-Standard Headset Jacks

When a little metal trim kept the original iPhone from accepting regular old 3.5mm headphones, a lot of people almost blew a gasket, and rightfully so. It seemed hopeless: Even a phone that was more iPod than handset couldn't resist the allure of proprietary earphones.

Phones have always been terrible for this. The same varied, awkward orifices that charged your old phone probably served as its headset connector too, leaving you stuck with the flimsy, tinny OEM earbuds or an easy-to-lose adapter to deal with. For a while though, it seemed like companies were starting to catch the drift, as standard 3.5mm headphone/mic jacks became more and commonplace in music phones. But a Nokia or two is little comfort; HTC's newest Android phone, a multimedia powerhouse, only has a USB port. Apple's new Shuffle—a friggin' iPod-only works with the supplied earphones or special replacements. Grief ensues.

Sony's Entire Oeuvre

The story of Sony is like an exaggerated summary of the history of proprietary goofs. Sony entering a new market=Sony introducing a new, frustratingly exclusive format, plug, codec or device standard. With audio, it was MiniDiscs and ATRAC; on the PSP, you got UMD; for cameras and other portable devices, the Memory Stick. In video, there was Betamax, Laserdisc, HDV, and now Blu-ray. Yeah, this last one is sorta successful, but only because Sony decided to fight like there was no tomorrow to beat its rival format. [Blam: I'm not apologizing for the past, but Sony's promised to better about open formats going forward.] It worked this time, but God only knows what Sony labs have in store for us, and our shrinking wallets, next.

Did we leave out any nasty ones, like Nintendo's many accessories, or an Apple USB port that doesn't take all USB products? If you have a good one, throw it into a comment below.

The main driving force behind the Commission's campaign is the reduction of e-waste, which is sensible. After all, a proprietary charger generally dies with its chargee, which seems like a waste. Surprisingly, cellphone manufacturers appear to be relatively eager to comply. The GSM Association announced today that 17 manufacturers, including Nokia, Motorola and Samsung have agreed on miniMicro-USB as the standard—following a (to date hollow) precedent set by others nearly two years ago.

Micro-USB in cellphones as been trending up anyway, and seems like a sensible choice. Accordingly, it's not really surprising to see companies like Samsung and Motorola agree to a standard that they already sometimes use, or for others to switch to a standard that, while it cuts lucrative charger sales, makes things simpler and cheaper in the long run. The real challenge for the commission will be to convince companies like Apple to join in—not they they'll necessarily have a choice. UPDATE: AFP says the standard in mini USB, but the GSMA press release confirms that it's micro-usb. [AFP]

This vine-shaped cellphone charging cable from Microworks is one application of this idea. It's only a design concept at the moment, but I can picture something more elaborate—like a faux houseplant that is actually a gadget hub, with multiple branches that extend out and double as charging cables. It certainly would be a lot better than having cables slithering out of every socket like some sort of robotic Medusa. [Microworks via Spoon and Tamago via Dwell]