charges

Sunbathers in Japan will have another beach- or pool-friendly keitai (phone) to carry around this summer. Simply known as the Solar Phone SH002, a 10-minute exposure to direct sunlight will yield one minute of talktime or two hours of standby.

Of course, the mileage you get is dependent on factors like the intensity of solar radiation and cloud cover. But you should be able to juice up the battery to 80 percent of its capacity if left outdoors long enough. There's even a Flash animation app that tells you how fast your phone is charging with a growing number … Read more

GM announced its development of a new, more efficient internal combustion engine that will eventually be used to power its lineup of hybrid and extended-range plug-in vehicles.

In the homogenous charge compression ignition engine (HCCI), the air and fuel mixture is compressed to ignite rather than using a spark. When combined with other advanced technologies, the HCCI engine provides up to 15 percent better fuel economy, according to GM. … Read more

Do you need power for your cell phone, MP3 player, digital camera, and other portable gadgets? Our friend Mr. Sun has an endless supply (well, not endless--5 billion years and kaput!). What you need is a way to harness those rays and turn them into energy you can use.

GoldenGadgets has just such a harness: the Portable Hybrid Solar Charger, currently on sale for $19.99--shipping will run you about $5.

What makes it a "hybrid" charger? Simple: It can draw energy from the sun (8-10 hours buys you a full charge--bad news for those of us … Read more

Need extra power for your iPhone or iPod Touch? Hey, who doesn't? Buy.com has the Energizer Energi To Go Battery Charger for $6.99 shipped. I'm going to make this quick, because I guarantee these will sell out.

The Energi To Go can power and recharge any dockable iPod, including 1st-generation and 3G iPhones, Touches, Nanos, and Minis. It relies on a pair of AA batteries, preferably of the lithium ion variety (two of which are included!). You can use regular alkaline batteries in a pinch, but you won't get the same amount of run time.… Read more

It's a common question when projecting the impact of electric vehicles: can today's creaky power grid handle millions of juice-hungry car batteries?

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on Thursday said it has developed a smart charger controller designed specifically for charging cars at off-peak times to get the lowest price and ease strain on the grid.

A raft of plug-in electric cars are scheduled to come out in 2011, which should deliver a jump in fuel efficiency. But if millions of drivers charged their electric cars during peak times, say, at 6 at night, utilities could strain to … Read more

What's more environmentally responsible than an electric vehicle? An EV that's recharged by the sun.

The city of Chicago recently installed the Solar Plug-in Station, a tree-shaped structure topped by solar panels that can recharge up to two electric vehicles at a time. The "solar tree" is manufactured by Chicago-based Carbon Day Automotive and operates as part of the ChargePoint Network. ChargePoint Network is a smart EV-recharging infrastructure operated by Coulumb Technologies.

The treelike structure provides an emissions-free source of electricity to power the already zero-tailpipe-emissions vehicles, offering an answer to the argument that EVs aren't environmentally responsible because the electricity to power the vehicles is generated by "dirty" electrical plants.

The stations also can act as storm water management. Captured runoff water from the roof can be recycled through the structure's gray water filtration systems and be used for irrigation or other purposes.

Without any tax incentives, grants, or subsidies, Carbon Day Automotive's solar plug-in station costs between $40,000-50,000. But enough incentives and grants exist out there to bring the cost down to approximately $15,000-20,000, the company says. … Read more

Nissan has promised to supply its highway-legal electric vehicles to the Phoenix area, as well as the previously announced Tucson area, for public and private fleets by the end of 2010, the Renault-Nissan Alliance plans to announce Thursday.

"This is a deployment well in excess of a couple hundred," said Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan North America.

In anticipation of Nissan's municipal and eventual commercial electric vehicle (EV) launch, the energy technology company Ecotality plans to also announce on Thursday an expansion of its chain of electric charging stations beyond the Tucson Metro area stations it announced in March.… Read more

Got power? Scratch that. Got enough power? Oh, who are we kidding, there's never enough. That's why no self-respecting iPhone owner should travel without an external power pack, a battery that clips on to provide extra juice just when you need it.

There are dozens of such products available, often with price tags in the $30 to 40 range. However, Meritline has an 800mAh external iPhone 3G battery pack for $10.99 shipped. (It normally sells for $35.99.)

The iPhone 3G Power Station plugs into the bottom of your handset to recharge the internal battery or supply … Read more

Lilliputian Systems, a company developing butane-fueled energy storage for consumer electronics, said on Thursday that it has raised $28 million in additional funding.

The company, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also announced that Analog Devices' co-founder Ray Stata has joined its board and that it named Michael Umana chief financial officer.

Since its founding seven years ago, Lilluptian Systems has been quiet about its product development but has revealed a few more details in the past few weeks. Its financial backers, which include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Atlas Ventures, and Rockport Capital, have put … Read more