batteries

Gateway is recalling 14,000 lithium-ion notebook batteries, the company said Tuesday.

The announcement comes after four reports of Gateway notebooks overheating over the last few years. One of the incidents caused "minor property damage," according to Gateway. The batteries in question are used in two models of its notebooks, the 400VTX and 450ROG, sold in the U.S. between May and August 2003.

"The root cause of this battery failure became apparent as the batteries aged and performed repetitive recharging cycles. After an in-depth analysis of the four reported incidents, Gateway took proactive measures to launch … Read more

Here's a good rule of thumb: when a product is recalled for, say, bursting into flames, take the time to get the replacement.

A Toshiba laptop containing a recalled Sony battery caught fire and burned a desk in Great Britain last month, Toshiba said today. The laptop maker asked Sony to investigate the incident, and a short circuit in the battery pack was deemed the culprit. Toshiba says it will reach out to customers to ensure they are aware of the potential danger of continuing use of recalled batteries. A list of 28 models of affected laptop will be … Read more

According to Apple, you can ditch your fears over the rumor that the iPhone has 45 minutes of talk time. The company announced Monday that the much-anticipated handset will ship with much better battery life than was expected when it was first announced in January. The iPhone will finally be released, as you probably already know, on Friday June 29.

The numbers from Apple? The company had initially anticipated that the iPhone battery would allow five hours of talk time (though rumors around the blogosphere suggested it was actually much less than that), but now Apple is boasting that it'… Read more

A team of scientists from MIT has come up with a way to light a 60-watt lightbulb. The trick is that the bulb is located about seven feet from the power source and no wires connect the two.

Wireless electricity, or "WiTricity" as MIT likes to call it, could one day allow consumers to carry notebooks or cell phones without batteries. It could also make it easy for contractors to remodel homes. Someday. To make it happen, the waves would need to be targeted and tracking mechanisms would need to exist to link the power source and the … Read more

When GM unveiled the Chevy Volt at this year's Detroit auto show, it admitted that the electric-powered required a technological breakthrough in battery development for the concept to become a reality. Skeptics suggested that the unveiling was little more than pie in the sky or PR hoopla intended to paint the General in more a more non-electric-car-killing light.

This week, however, GM has gone some way to dispelling that skepticism by awarding contracts to two firms with credentials in the lithium ion battery and automotive industries to come up with a solution to the Volt's power requirements. Compact … Read more

A group of MIT students have retrofitted a Porsche 914 with batteries in an effort to show that electric cars could be viable in the near future.

The students, led by senior Emmanuel Sin, removed the gas engine from the car and replaced it with an electric motor. The motor runs on 12 lithium-ion batteries from Valence Technologies, one of a group of companies trying to bring lithium-ion batteries to cars. Lithium-ion batteries can hold more energy than lead acid batteries, but they can be dangerous. Remember those exploding notebooks?

The students hope to conduct a number of tests and … Read more

Some of us at Crave have never been huge fans of the so-called ultramobile PC (UMPC), but maybe that's because we have an aversion to gadgets with acronyms that sound like universities. Plus, there just seem to be so many reasons not to want them. But a new offering from Korean computer maker Raon claims to have dispensed with one of those black marks: battery power.

It's been christened the "Everun" because its batteries can last from 7 to 12 hours, according to the company, depending on whether it's running a standard or enhanced pack. … Read more

What if someone claimed to have invented a wireless mouse that never needed batteries or a recharger? Yeah, we'd say they were nuts too. But Gizoo is offering one that does just that and even makes the claim in its name: the Battery-Free Wireless Mouse.

How? It draws its energy from the electricity in a companion pad that, unlike the mouse itself, does need a power cord that connects to the computer's USB port, according to Coolest-Gadgets. It may not sound all that useful at first--after all, you're still tethered by the pad's cord--but we've … Read more

Unplugging your phone after it's done charging could save a bundle of electricity, which is why Nokia is launching a new feature encouraging users to do just that.

The Finnish cell-phone maker announced Thursday that three of its mass-market phones--the Nokia 1200, 1208 and 1650--will alert users when the handset is done charging and suggest it be unplugged. The feature will eventually be rolled out to all of Nokia's products.

The move to be more energy-conscious is part of a larger agreement mobile phone manufacturers made in September 2006.