battery

M2E Power, a company formed last year to charge electronic gadgets with human motion, has reported back that its system actually works.

Next year it expects to release a charger that can harvest enough motion from walking to replenish cell phones or other small gadgets, like GPS devices.

It says that six hours of cumulative motion can add 30 to 60 minutes of talk time to a cell phone.

The idea is to place the charger inside a purse or backpack and let it charge in the background, said Regan Rowe, director of business development at the company. When fully … Read more

The last time I flew out of San Francisco, my laptop battery conked out as we passed Salt Lake City. Considering how I was stuck in cattle class with no chance to recharge the unit, I closed the computer in disgust and proceeded to slip into a deep sleep.

If my laptop drops dead one more time because the battery's out of juice, I may go postal. I know. There are worse things in life. But how lame is lithium ion? I'm sure that my frustration's not unique. Many (most?) of you have surely engaged in the … Read more

Disposable lithium batteries--a market seemingly cornered by Energizer's Ultimate Lithium batteries--are great if you need enduring power. They're not great for the environment and they're too slow to use in a camera flash, but they last much longer than alkalines and significantly longer than rechargeables. At $3 apiece (based on the street price of a 4 pack), they're also someone sticker shocking. So we shouldn't be surprised that Energizer has decided to sell the Energizer Advanced Lithium version with a kindler, gentler price of about $2 each.

The company only cites the performance of the … Read more

Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is examining three reports of overheating iPod Nanos sparking fires, Reuters reported.

The government agency said Apple had reported two other cases in which people had suffered minor burns.

The trade ministry said iPod Nanos with known overheating incidents were sold in Japan between September 2005 and September 2006.

Faulty batteries may be the cause of the incidents, the agency said.

Batteries have been traced to a host of issues with laptops and other mobile devices. Apple was one of several companies that had to recall notebooks in 2006 after problems led … Read more

Boston-area battery upstart A123 Systems on Friday said that it plans to go public and raise $175 million.

The company, which is not profitable, on Friday filed papers in which it said it intends to raise as much as $175 million, based on the registration filing fee. The money will be used to expand it manufacturing and research facilities as well as pay back about $2.5 million in debt.

A123 Systems was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seven years ago to commercialize lithium-ion batteries for a range of applications.

The batteries, which the company says last … Read more

Thanks to the iPhone 3G's purportedly sorry battery life, we think the must-have accessories for the iPhone 3G are arguably (1) an extra charging cable, and (2) a battery extender. We've mentioned the Kensington Mini Battery Extender before, but I personally find it adds a little too much length to the iPhone 3G.

MStation, which released the Mophie juice pack battery extender for the first-generation iPhone last December, has just announced its second version of the Mophie just for the iPhone 3G.

Dubbed the Mophie juice pack 3G, this portable charging dock even comes "precharged" right … Read more

The whole Freeiphoneswap.com process (see part 1) got me worrying and thinking about fraud. And, with frustrations about the iPhone's battery common among bloggers and friends alike, you know there is a lawsuit looming out there as some plaintiff-side law firm will want to take Apple to task for allegedly misrepresenting the iPhone's battery life (both the first generation and 3G). Whether these would-be rentseekers have a claim a jury would buy will be seen.

But thinking about it, Apple says this about the iPhone's battery life:

Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G Up … Read more

One of our favorite new netbook laptops is the 10-inch MSI Wind, which has decent specs and performance, but is saddled with a terrible 3-cell battery--we got about two hours max from it. MSI blamed supply chain problems for preventing the initial run of the Wind from shipping with the more common 6-cell battery found in systems like the Asus Eee PC 901.

Now we hear that the 6-cell version is on the way, already popping up for pre-order in several online stores. There's a catch, though; the new battery jacks up the cost by $50, bringing the total … Read more

Our CNET Labs team has unveiled their battery performance results for music and video playback on the iPhone 3G. We've completed talk time testing and we'll be doing another round of audio and video tests with 3G disabled--but at least we have another piece of the puzzle to add to our review.

To give the test results some context, we also retested the first-generation iPhone, and simultaneously tested a comparable 3G multimedia phone, the Samsung Instinct. Apple's public tech specs claim the iPhone 3G is capable of up to 7 hours of video playback and 24 hours … Read more