Tesla has announced the opening of a new Supercharger for Model S owners in Europe. The latest Supercharger location to open in Europe is the first amiable in Switzerland. The new Supercharger location has opened an electric corridor for Tesla owners between Zurich and Geneva. Tesla says that it will be opening up more Supercharger […]
Spending days traveling, going camping over the weekend, or spending several hours in a waiting room all have something in common: high odds of your smartphone or tablet’s battery dying before you’re ready to bid your gadget farewell. Portable chargers mitigate this issue by providing an on-the-go charging option, and new to the category is […]
There have been some interesting movie tie-ins with tech products over the years. One of the most interesting tie-ins that I have seen has just turned up for the new Thor movie that is in theaters right now. This tech product is a battery charger that looks like Thor’s trusty hammer Mjolnir. The hammer battery […]
Hammacher Schlemmer sells some very strange products and some very cool products. The company has announced a new product that is both strange and cool called the Thermodynamic Cell Phone Charger. The device is a little pot designed for your campfire that is able to produce electricity. The way the product works is you fill […]
Sony is releasing a hand-cranked battery charger/emergency radio (ICF-B88/ICF-B08) on July 20. It will be extremely helpful as an emergency energy supply or as part of outdoor gear.
“ICF-B88″ is particularly useful – able to be charged up not only with the handle but with a USB AC adapter – either the accompanying USB cable or a USB AC adapter (sold separately) is necessary. It can also be charged with solar light.
It’s drip-proof (JIS IPX4) so that you can feel at ease while using it in areas with water exposure or outside in wet conditions.
Price: Open
Size: (ICF-B88) 132×79×58mm, (ICF-B08) 132×77×58mm
Weight: (ICF-B88) 338g, (ICF-B08) 329g
Color: (ICF-B88) Silver, (ICF-B08) Orange, White
Accessories: microUSB cable, plug adapter for charging a mobile phone, hand strap, emergency whistle, portable pouch
You might think the only way malware could ever get onto your phone is if you installed an app or some piece of software that was infested with malicious code, but it turns out that modified wall chargers can be used to hack phones as well. Researchers say they’ve built a custom iPhone wall charger that can install malware when connected to a device.
During the annual Black Hat security conference later in July, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology will be showing off a prototype wall charger that they say is capable of installing malware onto iOS devices when plugged into the wall and connected to a device at the same time, which they found the results to be quite “alarming.”
The researchers aren’t saying much about the charger yet, as they reveal most of their findings next month, but they say that the charger is built around an open-source single-board computer known as a Texas Instruments BeagleBoard that costs around $45. Essentially, the researchers wanted to show just how easy and cheap it can be to cause a lot of virtual destruction in an innocent package.
However, it’s noted that a BeagleBoard is too big to fit inside an Apple 5W charger, so it’s unclear how exactly the research team has disguised the board. Perhaps they hid it in a docking station or an external battery pack. However, the team says that other hackers will most likely take their findings and advance the work to fit the necessary components into the tiny iPhone charger.
The Georgia Tech researchers say that this kind of hack could break into an iPhone running the latest firmware in less than a minute. However, this isn’t the first hack to utilize the iPhone’s Lighting/3-pin port. Most commonly, jailbreak software uses the connector to remove many of Apple’s restrictions from iOS, allowing users to install custom apps and themes that Apple would otherwise ban.
VIA: Forbes
iPhone vulnerable to hacking with malware-infested charger is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
This year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair has named its three winners, picking 18-year-old Eesha Khare for her invention of a supercapacitor that could soon charge a cellphone battery in 20-30 seconds. This little piece of technology has landed Khare a runner-up prize of $50,000 USD in scholarship funds which she’ll use to attend Harvard University and continue her research. This technology will not only be able to be utilized by the relatively small capacity batteries of smartphones, but of future electric cars, as well.
According to Khare, she’s been contacted by Google with interest of some type or another – she’s not being too open at the moment with the specific details. As Google is primarily a services group at the moment, they’re pushing in with hardware with such devices as the Chromebook Pixel and collaborating with groups like ASUS for the Nexus 7. It could be that this interest shows additional faith in their own ability to create without 3rd-party manufacturers.
Imagine if Google introduced the first smartphone with a battery able to be charged in less than a minute? Certainly such an impact on the mobile industry would want to be accessed by whichever group had first dibs.
You’ll find that Khare’s project: “Design and Synthesis of Hydrogenated TiO2-Polyaniline Nanorods for Flexible High-Performance Supercapacitors”, also won more than a few categories at this year’s event. Have a peek at the full winners list to see category after category dominated by Khare.
Khare is currently preparing to evolve the technology and continue research into the future, and has not yet announced any plan to sell her work to any group. As the technology she’s working with right this minute already works to hold 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, it wouldn’t be surprising for her to continue to show up in the news as a sort of Tony Stark-like name as she continues to kick the technology universe to its knees: a conventional rechargeable battery lasts for around 1,000 cycles.
This technology Khare is working on has been used to power an LED thus far, and is flexible – it’ll be able to be used in fabric and in bendable displays in the future as well. Khare’s solution is also solid-state, this meaning great things for the future in environmentally-friendly states – no worries about battery juice spilling all over your hands and face any more!
BELOW: B-Roll footage of the event, specifically surrounding Khare and her presentation of her battery technology.
Student creates 30-second cellphone battery charge, tapped by Google is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Buffalo released a USB battery charger “BSMPBAC02″ series that is capable of charging up to 4 different devices at the same time with built-in 4 USB terminals. Maximum output is 4.2A.
It’s compatible with GALAXY Tab, iPad, iPhone, all smartphone models from all the smartphone manufacturers, game device or digital cameras that are able to charge from a PC USB terminal.
Price is 4,914 yen.
Colors: black, white
Size: 51 × 28.5 × 89mm
Weight: 105g
Nokia’s Asha 501 may be catching the attention this morning for its slick design and $99 price, but the new DC-18 charger isn’t going to let a smartphone get all the style kudos. It may only be an external power pack, but the Universal Portable USB Charger DC-18 manages to look better than most such bricks we’ve seen, though its 1,720 mAh capacity probably means you’ll only get a single recharge out of it.
The small capacity is down to the relatively small size, with the DC-18 measuring in at just 57 x 57 x 14.9 mm and 65g. Up front there’s a battery status indicator, which lights up with the current charge level when you pull out the retractable microUSB cable.
Pulling the cable free turns the DC-18 on, while tucking it back into place turns it off. That does leave the microUSB plug itself protruding, which seems like a recipe for getting it caught on your bag or the lining of your coat pocket, however.
Nokia will offer the DC-18 in four colors – a Lumia and Asha 501 matching cyan, magenta, white, and yellow – though the company is yet to confirm pricing. We’re guessing it’ll be relatively affordable, however, since the DC-16 (which actually has a larger, 2,200 mAh battery) portable charger comes in at around $40.
Nokia DC-18 external charger is like a Live Tile for power-ups is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
My neighborhood is right off of a highway that has nice broad shoulders. That means on any given day you’re bound to see anywhere from 5 to 30 or more bicyclists pedaling up and down the hilly, but smooth highway. Many of those bicyclists I see have smartphones attached to the handlebars or to their arms in wearable cases.
There are a huge number of available applications for smartphone users who also like to ride bikes. The apps can do things such as track their ride history, route, and even keep up with their cycling cadence and performance. Many of these people end up running bicycling specific applications as well as listening to music at the same time. What that means is battery life for a mobile device is greatly impacted.
A new project has turned up on Kickstarter called the Siva Cycle Atom that is a small power generator that you connect to any bicycle to keep your gadgets charged on a long bike ride. The project is currently seeking $85,000 and has raised over $52,000 with 28 days to go. The Atom uses what the developers call top-of-the-line magnetic rotors, powerful lithium-ion batteries, and will be built in the United States.
The device allows the power generating unit to directly charge your smartphone or other gadget and it comes with a removable battery pack as well. The designers constructed the Atom to output USB compatible 5 V at up to 500mA. The removable battery pack holds 1300 mAh of power. The device generates different amounts of electricity depending on how quickly you ride. At 3 mph, the power output is 0.75 Watts. At 10 mph, the device puts out 3 W of power and at 15 mph the power output is 4.5 W, which is the maximum output. If you want one of the Atom devices, a pledge of $95 will get you a unit by November of 2013.
Siva Cycle Atom generates power to keep bicyclists charged up is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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