battery

Airline passengers were recently warned by U.S. transportation officials to be extra careful while transporting batteries for laptop computers, cellphones and other gadgets in the wake of fires aboard aircrafts.

The Washington Post reported the safety advisory was released due to concerns about the potential for battery-related fires. The Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 60,000 pilots at 40 airlines, also issued a safety alert to its members advising them how to combat battery fires.

If you're worried about your laptop overheating, I suggest you get an inexpensive portable laptop desk, $29, or a simple bed tray for use at home (snuggling with your laptop is one of the worst things you can do to it!) If you are worried about it getting too hot while traveling make sure you put it to sleep or turn it off before you put it in its bag.

While we live in an age dominated by electronic devices that can be charged via USB or their own "plug into the wall" chargers there are still plenty of people and gadgets that require good old fashioned batteries. Sanyo has actually created a line of rechargeable NiMH batteries that will be sold all charged up and ready to go - an unthinkable option in the past. Other NiMH rechargeables have to be charged before they can be used, which makes for that terrible lag time between opening your new gadgets and using your new gadgets. The even better news is these puppies can reportedly be used 1,000 times without any memory effects.

A pack of two AA Eneloop batteries will cost $10, and will be on shelves November 14. Looks like Japan is the first market, but stay tuned.

If you're in the mood for a geeky project, you can purchase a kit that includes all the electronic parts necessary to build your own MintyBoost: a small and simple (but very powerful) USB charger for your iPod (or other MP3 player), camera, cell phone, and any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge.

This project is suitable for beginners, some soldering tools are necessary but even if you've never soldered before it should be pretty easy. When you're done, the charger circuitry and 2 AA batteries fit into an Altoids gum tin, and will run your iPod for hours. You can use rechargable batteries too. What's this all about? read more

It's that time of the year again - National Battery Day! Okay, so maybe I am the only person that knew that, but still we owe batteries a little praise for keeping us on the go with our gadgets. The battery has revolutionized our life, so today is the day to celebrate this vital invention. Batteries come in a variety of shapes, sizes and power capacities and are used for many gadgets including cell phones, cameras, laptops and iPods. Can you imagine how different our lives would be without them?
Want to get to know your battery better? Check out the following links:

• Maximize Your Laptop Battery
• Extending Laptop Battery Life
• Extend Your iPod, Cell and Portable Battery to 100 Hours
• Charge Your Cell Phone The Chic Way

It's called a Geekpod 101 and it will change your life. It's a "Super Long Life Lithium iPod Battery" that will keep most cell phones, portable playing devices and iPods charged for up to 100 hours! That's right, not 6 hours, not 10 hours, 100 hours!





It costs $69.99, but it will charge almost every gadget in your collection. For a list of all the gadgets this charger works for, just read more