batteries

On paper, a smartphone will beat a regular phone in every single area except for one -- battery life. At least there are a few things you can do to improve your Samsung Galaxy S3's staying power and extend your fun time with your cherished new mobile.

That big, bright, show-off screen and beefy processor will have your brawny gadget wheezing like a weightlifter running the steeplechase in no time. If you play games, stream videos, or fiddle with apps on your daily commute, don't be surprised to soon witness the dispiriting sight of the battery indicator flashing … Read more

Brainiacs at Rice University today debuted a spray-on lithium ion battery that they say could be applied to nearly any surface. You read that right -- a paintable battery.

The paint contains layers, each representing a necessary component of a conventional battery -- current collectors made in part from purified single-wall carbon nanotubes, a cathode, an anode, and a polymer separator -- as described in a report published today in Nature authored by Rice graduate student Neelam Singh and her team. Spraying the painted battery is a multilayer process, but when you're done, you have a covered surface that stores energy and discharges it when needed -- that is, a battery. … Read more

A few weeks back, I wrote about how Mophie was coming out with the Juice Pack Pro, a rugged version of its extended-battery case for the iPhone 4/4S. Now iBattz has unveiled the Mojo Armor, its spin on a ultraprotective extended-battery case.

Compared with theJuice Pack Pro's integrated 2,500 mAh battery (that more than doubles the battery life of your iPhone), the iBattz includes two swappable 1700 mAh battery modules, which brings its total up to 3400 mAh. iBattz says it's, "shock, drop, dust, splash and child-proof." It comes in black, gray, or purple. … Read more

Apple's new top of the line MacBook Pro with its Retina Display packs a battery that's 23 percent larger than what can be found in the usual 15-inch MacBook Pro, and Apple seems to have passed that extra cost down to owners when the time comes to replace it.

Computerworld today notes that the price of replacing the massive battery -- which makes up more than a third of the computer's innards -- runs $199. That's up $70, or 54 percent compared to the $129 Apple currently charges to swap it out on the non-Retina 15-inch … Read more

Tired of the same old battery life drain game? A team of engineers from UC Berkeley's Algorithms, Machines, and People Laboratory has developed an app called Carat that "provides a great deal of information about how energy is being used on your phone," according to the official description.

So how does Carat work? The app runs in the background and monitors the energy consumption of various apps and processes on your smartphone, then sends that information to a data analytics Spark application running on Amazon Web Services. Usual suspects include data-hungry apps, an outdated operating system, Wi-Fi, and GPS. … Read more

Dear Apple,

You have more than $100 billion sitting in your coffers. I know you're returning some of that money to shareholders, but you will still have tens of billions of dollars leftover for R&D.

I have a proposal for how you should spend some of that money: please invest it into new and radical battery technology. Let me explain why.

My friends and I decided to visit Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth, last Sunday. We fought Emperor Zerg and chilled with Mickey Mouse, all the while taking hundreds of photos and recording dozens of videos … Read more

Think of Mophie's new Juice Pack Pro as an Otterbox case that's packing a 2,500 mAh battery that more than doubles the battery life of your iPhone 4 or 4S.

Mophie would probably argue that the Juice Pack Pro is actually tougher than an Otterbox case. It's touting its first ruggedized battery pack case as exceeding military specification MIL-STD 810G, which is pretty tough.

That said, the case is water-resistant but not totally waterproof (it can't go underwater). It has a built-in screen protector and comes with a rotating belt clip. According to Mophie, that … Read more

Think of all the things you can do with a tea candle. You can light a jack-o-lantern, set some mood lighting, or keep food warm. Soon, you'll be able to use one to recharge your iPhone or other small electronic device.

The tPOD1 stands for "thermoelectric power on demand." It's a Kickstarter project from Tellurex that aims to turn tea candles into a handy source of electricity for those times when you're off the grid or the power goes out. … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest post. See Noam Kedem's bio at the bottom.

The smartphone market revolves around one question: how do you fit all-day access to all of a consumer's favorite applications and services comfortably into one hand? (The tablet market? Two hands.) The rest is commentary.

No smartphone manufacturer has managed to answer the question fully, because they all face a fundamental dilemma. The electronics that enable faster performance, higher-speed data, better video and gaming, a more vivid and detailed screen, are moving at the speed of Moore's Law. The lithium ion (Li-ion) pouch … Read more