Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like we have a final chapter for Better Place, the Israel-based electric car tech startup that raised $786 million plus $50 million in debt, only to then file for bankruptcy in May: it has now been acquired by a group called Sunrise, headed by green-technology entrepreneur Yosef Abramowitz and the Association for the Promotion of the Electric Car in Israel.

According to court filings, Sunrise is paying 18 million Israeli shekels ($5 million) for Better Place’s assets in Israel, and another 25 million shekels ($7 million) for its intellectual property, held by Better Place Switzerland. Sunrise was one of two bidders for the company, the other being a consortium including Success Parking Ltd. and U.S. electric car charging company Car Charging Group Inc.

It’s a whimper of an ending for a company that raised hundreds of millions, and many hopes, for its core business: a system that relied on smartgrid technology to create a network of battery swapping stations and other charging points for users of electric cars.

Speeding up battery charging, which typically can take anywhere from between 4 and 12 hours to charge on electric cars, could significantly spur the convenience factor of these vehicles, and help with consumer adoption. Better Place also had other ideas about how, with the rise of electric cars, power usage overall needed to be better managed.

But it seems that even if the vision was big, business was not. Creating a breakthrough technology that relies on industrial-scale overhauls is capital intensive. And there is the question of critical mass for electric car technology: apparently only 950 cars fitted with Better Place’s replaceable battery technology — the core of the business — were sold since 2012 (it looks like the only carmaker to sign on with Better Place was Renault).

Meanwhile, individual car companies like Tesla working on proprietary solutions are a sign that the space is perhaps still too fragmented and nascent for what Better Place had in mind.

Although the downward spiral from bankruptcy to bidding to eventual sale was swift, the writing was on the wall months before, when founder Shai Agassi was removed as CEO in October 2012.

New owners Sunrise are keeping 50 out of Better Place’s 85 remaining employees, and will operate 15 of its charging stations for a period of at least two years. It may not be complete curtains for all of Better Place’s efforts, depending on how Sunrise chooses to use the IP it purchased as well, but it’s not a great day for the wider ambition to move us away from fossil fuel consumption and towards more sustainable progress.

Like the Pivot Power, 360 Electrical’s products allow you to cram in electrical plugs and adapters that would otherwise not fit in one outlet or power strip. But unlike Quirky’s power strip where the whole body is adjustable, 360 Electrical’s products have sockets that rotate in place.

I’m not sure how the sockets work, but according to 360 Electrical’s website,“internal premium copper-to-copper contacts provide unlimited 360 degree rotation and continuous power even during rotation.”

Here’s a brief demo video uploaded by FIX IT home improvement channel on YouTube:

As you can see in the gallery above, 360 Electrical also has long surge protectors with sockets that swivel outward instead of rotating in place. Rotate your browser and plug in to Amazon to order 360 Electrical’s products; they sell for about $5 (USD) to $34 depending on the product.

[via Fancy]

Information about Motorola’s forthcoming "Moto X" smartphone has been slowly trickling out over the last few months. Here’s our first look at the snazzy new Moto phone, courtesy of Mr. Eric Schmidt.

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During the winter, Sun Valley is known for its skiing. This time of the year, however, it’s quickly becoming a tech hotspot as some of the industry’s top execs gather together at the annual Allen and Co media conference. Among the attendees is Google’s Eric Schmidt, who brought along a mystery Motorola phone and couldn’t resist showing it off. While Schmidt couldn’t “comment on the nature of this phone,” according to Variety’s Rachel Abrams, it certainly didn’t stop him from giving everyone a sneak peek. Multiple images of the device, which appears to feature a carbon fiber-like back and sleek curves, popped up on Twitter from the likes of Gary He and Taylor Wimberly. As it doesn’t match the leaked pictures of the upcoming Droid Ultra or Maxx — but carries an uncanny resemblance to the leaks and FCC diagrams we’ve seen of the X already — we’re guessing this is the legendary smartphone in the flesh; and judging by Schmidt’s willingness to flaunt it, it’s quite likely that we won’t have to wait much longer before we see even more of it. There’s one more shot of the device from the top past the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Microsoft has revealed details of its next Windows Phone 8 update, GDR2, but fans of the platform shouldn’t expect a significant refresh of the OS until early 2014, new leaks suggest. The fast-incoming General Distribution Release 2 has already been detailed, even though the exact timescale of its availability is still a mystery, including tidbits like an FM radio, CardDAV/CalDAV support for Gmail, and greater flexibility for how the camera button is handled, but the bigger Windows Phone “Blue” update now won’t arrive until sometime the new year.

That, so sources talking to The Verge claim, is because various bugfixes have slowed Microsoft’s engineers down. The intention, so the leakers claim, was to be more proactive with firmware releases, but issues around new chipset testing, GDR glitches, and how unlocked, non-carrier devices register on networks have supposedly delayed that intention.

In between “Blue” and now will be a GDR3 update, released sometime before the end of the year. That will apparently include support for 5- and 6-inch Windows Phones, 1080p Full HD screen resolution, and up to quadcore processors.

However, it may also gain some of the features initially intended for “Blue” but, in an attempt to reclaim some of the lost momentum, packaged up into the General Distribution Release 3. That, the sources suggest, could include a screen rotation lock, though the new notification center, refined multitasking, and other leaked changes are still believed to be coming in “Blue”.

In the meantime, there’s GDR2 to look forward to. Microsoft says that will allow certain phones to set a Lens of the user’s choice to open as the default when the camera hardware key is pressed, and some phones – i.e. those with the right chips – will get FM radio support. Xbox Music will see more metadata during playback, and it’ll apparently be easier to select, download, and pin music.

There’s also a Data Sense app, which will track mobile data use (with compatible carriers), while Internet Explorer will benefit from improved HTML5. Skype, too, will be more stable, as will Lync.

Meanwhile, Windows Phone manufacturers continue to push their own software development. Nokia released its HERE mapping apps for other OEMs earlier this week, and is now courting developers to create custom apps for its PureView photography system in the freshly-announced Nokia Lumia 1020. In fact, it’s said, Microsoft has to some extent been deciding the included features of GDR3 and “Blue” according to what demands OEMs like Nokia have made upon it.

Windows Phone 8 “Blue” update delayed to 2014 as limp GDR2 detailed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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