For 4.5 years I used a 15" macbook pro from mid-2008. It had changeable batteries so twice I went to Apple and convinced them to give me a new one for free. The three batteries I used in that machine were very different. The first one was a champ. It would last for six hours at its peak. It degraded slowly and predictably over time. It was reliable. But then, after two blissful years, it started throwing out Service Battery alerts.
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Bosch recently released an $450 charging solution for EVs, but if you want to go wireless, it’s going to cost you a lot more. The company has formed an exclusive partnership with Evatran for the distribution and installation of its wireless chargers for the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. Each Plugless Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging System (now that’s a tongue-twister) costs $2,998 for the Volt and $3,098 for the Leaf, not including taxes and installation fees. It’s comprised of a wall-mounted control panel that provides electricity to the parking pad, which transmits power to your vehicle. You’ve got to admit it’s convenient when all you have to do to juice up is park on top of the pad, but would you actually shell out that much cash in the name of convenience when plugging a (cheaper) charger in is no Herculean task?
Via: Plugin Cars, Autoblog
Source: Bosch
Wireless charging sounds mighty convenient if you regularly deal with a jungle of wires, doesn’t it? Samsung’s wireless charging kit for the S 4 is one option now that it’s available in the US. It uses the Qi wireless charging standard, so if you already have a Qi charger, all you’ll need to do is grab the backplate for $39.99. Otherwise, you can also snag the charging pad for $49.99. Hit the source for more info if you’re convinced this is what you’ve been waiting for your whole S 4-using life. The components don’t seem to be in stock right now — we couldn’t add them to our cart — but even if you get lucky, you might want to hold off on clicking that Buy Now button until you’ve seen its alternatives.
Filed under: Peripherals, Mobile, Samsung
Via: Droid Life
Source: Samsung (1), (2)
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.
With a gasoline-powered car, refueling is as simple as pulling into a gas station and waiting a few minutes for the gas take to be refilled. Things are a bit trickier with electric vehicles, however, which require charging stations rather than gas stations. Tesla has been rolling out it SuperCharger network over many months, having added six in California back in October, for example. At tonight’s D11 conference, Musk made an announcement early: Tesla‘s SuperCharger network will be tripled.
The announcement was slated to be made tomorrow, but Musk decided to let it out early following encouragement from those around him. When asked about concerns of range and charging station availability, Musk originally responded: “We’re planning to announce something about that tomorrow.” Such an answer simply prodded curiosity ten-fold, however, and he soon elaborated on Tesla’s planned announcement.
“We have something cool called the Supercharger. Ok, I might as well let the cat out of the bag. So the Supercharger technology we developed because regular charging is slow and not effective for long-distance travel. But when people buy a car they’re buying a sense of freedom that they can go wherever they want and not feel fettered.” Following this, he made the big announcement: “There’s going to be a dramatic acceleration of the SuperCharging network. It’ll be tripled. We’ll put the map live tomorrow.”
According to Musk, the increase in SuperCharging stations will allow Tesla car owners to “drive from LA to New York” using only that SuperCharger network, no doubt good news to both current owners and those who have hesitated in purchasing the vehicle over concerns about charging station availability. “We’ll be both increasing the density and the scope of the network.” Those who drive the Tesla cars won’t have trouble finding a SuperCharger station, either, because the company’s software gets auto updates, which will bring with them the new maps. When a charge is needed, the driver will be directed to the SuperCharger station closest to wherever they happen to be located.
Talk about range and charging brought up banter about the New York Times review of the Model S earlier this year, which drew a great deal of criticism from Musk, who claimed that it had been intentionally done in such a way to make the vehicle look bad. “If we didn’t speak out against it, that article would have lived forever, and people would have gotten the wrong impression of the car. Ultimately the NYT public editor agreed the article was wrong but didn’t think it was intentional, but I don’t think there’s any way it was not intentional.”
The topic was then quickly switched away from Tesla to SpaceX.
SOURCE: AllThingsD
Tesla’s Elon Musk says SuperCharging network will be tripled is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Electric vehicles still have a few obstacles that prevent them from going fully mainstream. These typically center on the price of the vehicle itself (though this is changing), and its range. One other barrier has also been the price of home-based chargers. Now, Bosch is offering a level 2 (quicker than the usually cheaper, and slower level 1) home charging system for just $450. For that price you get 16 amp charging and a 12 foot cord. There are two other options that increase the amperage to 30, with a choice of 18 or 25 foot cables — costing $593 and $749 respectively. These don’t include any additional networking features and so on, but for this price, and reduced reliance on external charging networks, it’d be worth clearing out the garage for.
Filed under: Peripherals, Transportation
Source: Bosch
Sick of carrying around a ton of different cables and adapters for charging all your gadgets? This handy accessory lets you plug in five different types of connectors using one compact card.
Kikkerland’s USB 5-in-1 adapter offers Mini USB, Micro USB, 30-pin iPod/iPhone, Nokia and standard USB connections. When not in use, they all snap neatly into a flat card for easy travel, so you can throw it into your bag without wires getting all tangled. The card itself measures 6.46″ (L) x 4.4(W) x 0.75″ (D).
The only thing missing from this thing is an Apple Lightning connector, but if you happen to use something like the Mophie Helium battery case for your iPhone, that has a Micro USB connector, so you’re in luck.
It’s available from Kikkerland for just $15(USD).
Ever gone for a long bike ride in unfamiliar territory? Probably used your phone’s GPS to help navigate, right? Convenient. However, that also makes running out of juice more than just a small annoyance. Siva Cycle’s Atom might just solve that, and a host of other battery issues for the tech-bound biker. More »
Forget your SOG, your Leatherman, your Gerber, your Victorinox, even your Wenger. You can fill them with every known tool and accessory under the sun, but they’ll never come close to being as useful as this USB charging multitool is in this day of mobile electronics. More »
The researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed new microbatteries that are extremely small in size, but pack a huge amount of power. Not only do they pack a huge punch, but they recharge “1,000 times faster than competing technologies”, according to the research team. The team wanted to find a solution to the dilemma that afflicts current power sources, where power sources can either have a lot of power, or have a lot of energy, not both at the same time.
William P. King, Bliss Professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois, and the leader of the research team, says,
“If you want high energy you can’t get high power, if you want high power its very difficult to get high energy. But for very interesting applications, especially modern applications, you really need both. That’s what our batteries are starting to do. We’re really pushing into an area in the energy storage design space that is not currently available with technologies today.”
The microbatteries feature an internal three-dimensional microstructure. Batteries have two main components: the plus side (cathode) and the minus side (anode). Using the fast-charging cathode design developed by Professor Paul Braun and his research group, King’s group developed a matching anode design and integrated the two together at the microscale to create microbatteries with extreme performance. The batteries are so powerful, they can recharge 1,000x faster than other batteries, broadcast radio signals 30x farther, and drive innovations for devices that are 30x smaller.
The new batteries are said to “out-power the best supercapacitors” and would drive new innovation in technology. The team believes that a cell phone powered by these microbatteries would be able to jump-start a dead car battery, and still have enough energy to recharge a phone “in the blink of an eye”. The research team is now planning on integrating these microbatteries with other devices, and are also trying to figure out a way to manufacture these at a low cost. Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor for the University of Illinois, says,
“Imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors, and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available.”
[via University of Illinois]
New microbatteries can jump-start your car battery and still charge your phone is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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