Hasta La Gadget!

No one expressly said that the Apple Peel 520 would change your life, but if you play your cards right, that’s not entirely out of the question. The mysterious doodad — which wraps around your iPod touch and holds an extended battery and SIM card — has caused quite the stir since being revealed late last month, and now it has undergone a full review overseas. Put simply, the device does work as advertised, turning one’s iPod touch into a device fully capable of making / receiving calls as well as texts. ‘Course, you’ll need to jailbreak your device first, and you’ll have to deal with a static (read: impossible to adjust) call volume, quirky SMS delivery and blanked messages for missed calls, but hey — a small price to pay for the upgrade, right? Hit the source link for the full skinny and a video to boot.

Apple Peel 520 gets reviewed: turns your iPod touch into an iPhone, but quirks exist originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s just slipped something into its iMac update press release that we didn’t want to go unnoticed: a battery charger. Apple’s AA battery-powered lineup now includes the wireless keyboard, the Magic Mouse (which seriously burns through the juice) and the Magic Trackpad, and for $29 you can score a dedicated charger for all that gear. The Apple Battery Charger comes with six long-lived NiMH rechargeable batteries which apparently have a lifetime of up to 10 years.

Update: We just had a chance to get a quick hands-on with the little guy, and well, it’s a battery charger. Apple tells us the charger has the lowest vampire power draw of any charger on the market — the idea is for users to keep two batteries in each of their peripherals and two in the charger, so they can quickly swap out as the cells run out. Interestingly, the batteries are some of the only Apple products in recent memory that don’t have an Apple logo on them — they’re just plain silver with “Rechargeable” printed on them. The charger itself has slightly nicer charging contacts than the usual spring-and-flap arrangement, and it features the same removable flippy-prong AC plug as Apple’s laptop and iPad power adapters, so you can theoretically swap it for a longer power cord if you like.

Apple Battery Charger gets official: a battery charger, only you know, better (update: hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dippin’ in a Tesla is an expensive proposition, as we’re sure you’re well aware, but the US Department of Energy seems certain the cost of electric vehicles — or at least their all-important rechargeable batteries — will come down to reasonable levels. The government estimates a stack of cells good for 100 miles will drop to $10,000 by the end of 2015, and that 40-mile batteries for PHEVs will sink to $4,000 in the same timeframe — both around one-third of what the containers presently cost. On the physical front, portly packages of Li-ion presently weigh 333kg (about 734 pounds) per 100 miles of range, but are expected to slim down to 222kg (489 pounds) by 2015, and shed weight precipitously in following years. Like any weather forecast, the figures are subject to the prevailing wind, but it’s looking like average Americans may one day have use for all those free charging stations. Find the full report at our source link.

DoE forecasts far cheaper, lighter, longer-lasting EV batteries by 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Line up 24 cars in a desert, wind 1,000 feet of welding cable through them and throw one-hit-wonder Gary Numan into the mix and the result is a cool, fun video that turns all the cars into one big musical instrument.

Syyn Labs, a Los Angeles-based arts and technology collective, worked with Zoo Film to create the video as a commercial for DieHard, a maker of car batteries.

Over three days in the desert, a team of six engineers worked on 24 cars and removed the batteries from each. Instead, they connected them all together to a central computer and a keyboard. The horns inside the cars were removed and instead an MP3 player was used to tune it. The entire set-up was hooked to one DieHard battery.

As Numan hit each key on his keyboard, the software turned on the lights and sound for the corresponding car,  says Brent Bushnell, who works at the Labs. Since the stock car horns in each car couldn’t be tuned, the group inserted their own horns into each car. The horns were tuned using MP3 players. When Numan pressed a key, a signal was sent to a controlling computer which called on a relay to activate the horns and lights simultaneously.

“Everything in the car, the keyboard and the computer was powered using a single DieHard battery,” says Eric Gradman, one of the engineers who worked on the project. “Overall, we consumed just about 31.3 amphours.”

The Labs’ previous project was a Rube Goldberg machine whose action perfectly meshes with a song from pop band OK Go.

And if you are wondering what song the cars are blaring, it is Numan’s 1979 hit ‘Cars.’

Video: Syyn Labs

Oh, sure — Shelby’s practically nonexistent Aero EV can recharge in around 10 minutes, but if you’re hoping to find a similarly quick vehicle that’s even close to your price range, you’ve probably come up empty so far. Thankfully, Renault has a mind to change that with the new DeZir. Slated to take the stage at this year’s Paris Motor Show, the lascivious concept rolls with a mid-mounted electric engine capable of screaming a solid 100 miles before petering out. The good news here, though, is that the outfit’s Quick Drop technology enables the battery packs to regain 80 percent of their charge in just 20 minutes using a 400V three-phase current, though a standard household plug will require a good night’s rest (read: eight hours) to rejuvenate it fully. ‘Course, only time will tell if this beaut will ever hit the production line, but we’d go ahead and brace yourself for it to look far tamer should that green light ever get lit.

Continue reading Renault DeZir recharges while you stare, not while you wait

Renault DeZir recharges while you stare, not while you wait originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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