Battery

Toshiba SCiB Super Charge Ion Battery announced

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Toshiba introduces a rechargable battery that can recharge to 90% in less than 5 min.

Toshiba Corporation today announced the commercial launch of the SCiB the Super Charge ion Battery a breakthrough rechargeable battery primarily targeting the industrial systems market.

The battery offers a long-life cycle of over 10 years, even under conditions of constant rapid charging. Read more

Posted on Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:35:18 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Betavoltaic Battery Teases Us with 30 Year Life Span

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Research funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory could lead to batteries for our laptops that run for 30 years without needing to be recharged. The battery uses what is called betavoltaic power cells constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotope as their energy source.

As the name implies, the radioisotope is radioactive and as it decays beta particles are emitted that transform into electricity capable of running a device like a laptop for years. Since the batteries don’t use fission/fusion or a chemical process to produce energy there is no radioactive or hazardous waste. Read more

Posted on Wed, 3 Oct 2007 12:33:13 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Duracell Launches Mobile Battery Charger

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Duracell introduced a new charger today designed to give users of portable devices a convenient method of recharging on the go. The Mobile charger allows users to recharge AA or AAA rechargeable NiMH batteries by plugging the charger into the wall outlet or a car lighter.

The mobile charger also sports a USB port allowing users to recharge any portable device that uses USB charging from iPods and other MP3 players to cell phones. The Mobile Charger is packaged with pre-charged Duracell Rechargeable batteries. Read more

Posted on Wed, 3 Oct 2007 11:33:29 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Nokia Battery Case to cost Matsushita up to $172 mln

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said on Friday that Nokia's replacement of mobile phone batteries made by the Japanese electronics maker is likely to cost it 10-20 billion yen ($86-$172 million). Read more

Posted on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:32:13 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sweet Sony Sugar Battery

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Sony showed a battery that is powered with sugar.

The Sony sugar battery generates power using glucose. Enzymes breaking up the sugar and besides electricity, water and carbohydrates are freed.
Currently a single cell offers 50mW. Sony demonstrated a sugar battery powering a Sony Walkman. Read more

Posted on Fri, 24 Aug 2007 04:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Scientists Develop Bendable Battery

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Researchers have developed a battery that is flexible like paper allowing it to be bent, twisted and trimmed with scissors to fit any shape needed. The battery is only a prototype at this point and was developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

"We would like to scale this up to the point where you can imagine printing batteries like a newspaper. That would be the ultimate," Robert Linhardt a professor at the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at RPI said in a telephone interview. Read more

Posted on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:39:23 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Nokia issues Battery Recall for Matsushita made BL-5C

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Nokia today announced a battery recall for the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006.

Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the Nokia-branded BL-5C batteries could potentially experience overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge.

About 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006 are affected by this recall.
Nokia registered 100 incidents of overheating reported globally. Read more

Posted on Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

$20 iPhone Battery Replacement Kit

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The iPhone battery topic is a hot one. You actually cannot replace the battery easily. You would have to send it in to Apple for a fee.

If your iPhone battery fails outside the warranty, Apple charges $79 + $6.95 for shipping to replace it.

In Asia a iPhone battery replacement kit surfaced now for only $20. The kit contains an iPhone battery (1400mAh, 3.7V), tools and an instruction manual. Read more

Posted on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

3M says settles Battery Patent dispute with Sony

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - 3M Co. said it settled a lithium-ion battery cathode patent dispute filed in March against Sony Corp. and other companies in U.S. district court in Minnesota. Read more

Posted on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:32:56 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

iPhone Patch will fix Battery Bug

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Apple is supposedly reading a software update for the iPhone that fixes the battery bug.

Lots of iPhone customers encounter an issue with the iPhone where the battery indicator never shows the battery fully charged. Apple says the battery is charged, but the user interface does not correctly display it. Read more

Posted on Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:19:06 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Panasonic D-Snap SV-SD850N sports 80 hour Battery Life

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Panasonic announces a new version of their SD card music players in Japan.

The Panasonic D-Snap SV-SD850N is supposed to give you 80 hours of playtime on a single battery charge. That is quite impressive.
On a quick 3 min. charge the SV-SD850N gives you 3.5 hours of playback time.

Panasonic also integrated a noise canceling feature into the SV-SD850N. Read more

Posted on Fri, 6 Apr 2007 05:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Philips Cellphone Supports AAA Battery Use

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Philips has a new cell phone called the Xenium NRG that promises to extend our talk time by use of the ubiquitous and readily available AAA battery. Philips says that by slipping one AAA into the phone you can extend talk time up to three hours.

AAA batteries are not the primary power source for the Xenium (sounds more like an Intel CPU than a cell phone) but rather the primary power is a standard rechargeable cell we typically see in phones. The AAA slot is for backup in case you go dead while out and about since AAA batteries are available in just about every store around. Read more

Posted on Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Give your Sweetheart 2 Extra Hours of Phone Battery Life for Valentine's Day

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Valentine's Day is in 2 weeks. Better get your online orders in to not break a sweat.
Is your loved one on the cell phone all the time and is draining the battery every other day? Then consider the Turbo Charge gadget for mobile phones. It gives 2 hours of talk-time with a single AA battery.

The Turbo Charge is only 3 inches long and can either give 2 hours of talk time or 40 hours of standby time. It also supports "Trickle" charging of a cell phone which takes about 1 1/2 hours.

The Turbo Charge sells for an affordable $19.95 on The Sharper Image.
Read more

Posted on Fri, 2 Feb 2007 12:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Thanko Battery Heated Gloves and Socks

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Finally a non-USB stupid gadget. Thanko offers in Japan heated gloves and socks that are powered by batteries.

As you can see in the photo you need to wear a rather large battery pack on your forearm with the gloves making the whole contraption rather clumsy. Read more

Posted on Mon, 11 Dec 2006 09:37:55 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

WizardOne MH-C9000 Battery Charger and Analyzer

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Maha Energy, the maker of Powerex batteries and chargers announces a new gadget for the battery enthusiast.

The MH-C9000 WizardOne Battery Charger & Analyzer is capable of charging, conditioning, analyzing, cycling, forming and discharging one to four AA or AAA batteries.
A LCD display shows all parameters of the batteries in the charger.

This battery charger can break-in your batteries. What this means is you input the capacity of the battery and the MH-C9000 performs a “forming” charge designed to properly break-in new batteries. Read more

Posted on Tue, 7 Nov 2006 11:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sanyo Solar Eneloop Battery Charger

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Sanyo continuous its GAIA way of being environmentally friendly and announces a solar powered charger for its cool Eneloop batteries.

Sanyo announced the innovative pre-charged rechargeable batteries about one year ago.
The new solar charger does not just look very stylish it charges up to four AA Eneloop batteries and has a USB port to power other portable devices. Read more

Posted on Tue, 31 Oct 2006 07:35:59 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sony Adjusts Dramatically Profit Forecasts because of Battery Recalls

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Reuters just runs a report that Sony slashed its annual profit forecast by 62% because of heavy costs for recalls of its laptop PC batteries.

Sony also recalls notebook batteries for its own VIAO notebooks. Was already wondering, why Sony's own use of batteries would have no issues. (Subscription). Read more

Posted on Thu, 19 Oct 2006 02:43:47 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sony Working on Battery Replacement Program

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Sony is currently working on a recall program with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for the plethora of batteries they sold to PC manufacturers like Dell, Apple, IBM, Lenovo and Toshiba.

While Dell is getting the bulk of the bad press after numerous reports of their laptops exploding, which we reported on before. It seems the culprit for the battery fueled bonfires we have been seeing are microscopic particles of metal inside the recalled cells according to Computer Weekly. Read more

Posted on Fri, 29 Sep 2006 13:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

USBCELL - AA Battery with USB Port

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USBCELL by Moixa offers AA rechargeable batteries that have a USB port integrated.

You can directly recharge the batteries via USB. Pretty cool!

The USBCELL is 90%+ charged after 5 hours via USB.
USBCELL also has designs for AAA, 9V and mobile phone batteries with USB ports. Especially the AAA battery design looks interesting as the diameter of a AAA battery is smaller than a USB port. The company developed some kind of fold-out USB port design. Read more

Posted on Wed, 20 Sep 2006 02:38:27 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Dell Notebook Battery Recall How-To Guide is Online

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Dell is recalling 4.1 million notebook batteries. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says that this is the largest computer-related recall in the agency's history.

You are advised to stop using affected batteries immediately. The reports of exploding Dell notebooks started to appear in June.

Dell has now launched the Dell Battery Program site to provide you with the necessary information to find out if your Dell notebook batteries are affected by this major recall. This recall affects Dell notebooks shipped in the US and other countries.

Potentially affected Dell Notebook models:
Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90 XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710

Problem batteries have been shipped between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006. If affected they need to have one of the following prints on the backside: The words "DELL" and "Made in Japan" or "Made in China" or "Battery cell made in Japan, Assembled in China". Read more

Posted on Tue, 15 Aug 2006 02:18:56 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Estee Lauder Perfectionist Power - Battery Powered Wrinkle Pads

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Estee Lauder offers a battery powered correcting patch to remove deeper eye lines and wrinkles named Perfectionist Power.

A quote from the product page reads: "In just 5 days, the look of lines and wrinkles is reduced by 45%". If it has a battery it must work like any other gadget, should it not?
Apparently the 30 microampere electric current draws moisture from the lower stratum corneum. Read more