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The USPS has announced that it’ll refuse to ship any gear containing lithium ion batteries overseas. The postal service believes combusting power packs have caused two fatal cargo plane crashes since 2006 — hence the ban, which takes effect from May 16th
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USPS goes postal on lithium ion batteries, refuses to ship smartphones overseas
If there’s a pain that Engadget writers know all too well, it’s running out of battery life for a smartphone when we need it most. Say, at a major trade show .
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Brookstone fuel cell USB charger to keep phones powered for two weeks, Engadget editors happy
Not all iPads are made equal, even if they’re all packaged and branded identically. There’s a major new mutation within the 2nd generation tablet and it brings significantly better battery life. Specifically, the fourth and latest production model of the iPad 2 (known as iPad2,4) has not only a lower price tag ($399) but also a new 32nm processor, which is significantly smaller and more efficient than those in previous iPad 2s (which had 45nm chips and an older transistor design)
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Buying an iPad 2? Here’s the rarer, more efficient specimen you need to (somehow) track down
Google fellow, founder of Project X and self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun became the latest to publicly rock a Project Glass prototype (after company co-founder Sergey Brin ) on a recent episode of Charlie Rose , and managed to show off a whole new side of the project in the process. While the 19-minute interview was mostly unremarkable product-wise with a focus on higher education and his Udacity project, we did get to see him take a picture of the host (about a minute in) by tapping it, then posting it on Google+ by nodding twice.
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Project Glass makes a TV appearance on Charlie Rose, flashes its rear for the cameras
If you’re shooting with the Nikon D800, D800E, or D7000 digital SLRs, or the Nikon 1 V1 compact system camera, you’ll want to take a careful look at all of your EN-EL15 battery packs. These packs were included in the camera bundles, and =sold separately as Nikon model number 27011
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Nikon recalls some SLR / mirrorless batteries for fire risk
Tired of hunting through your camera bag for where you put the spare camera batteries? Pockets full of flash cards? Does the lost socks fairy seem to have branched out into abducting strobe gels as well? If so, the folks at Think Tank Photo have a new line of products aimed at helping you reduce your photo gear clutter.
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Fight the clutter with new Think Tank Photo accessories
You’ve probably heard that the sun is strong enough to power our planet many times over, but without a practical method of harnessing that energy, there’s no way to take full advantage. An incredibly thin and light solar cell could go a long way to accomplishing that on a smaller scale, however, making the latest device from researchers from the University of Austria and the University of Tokyo a fairly significant discovery. Scientists were able to create an ultra-thin solar cell that measures just 1.9 micrometers thick — roughly one-tenth the size of the next device
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Researchers create incredibly thin solar cells flexible enough to wrap around a human hair
Let’s pretend you went ahead and purchased a shiny new Motorola RAZR this past November. Now, just for the sake of argument, let’s say Motorola — only months later — released a new version of that handset with a battery that had some pundits asking, ‘where has this phone been my whole life?’ Yeah, that happened. But if you’ve managed to overlook Moto’s past transgression, and are willing to sink another $110 into your handset, you too can experience the battery that just won’t quit.
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Conversion kit lets you push your RAZR to the Maxx for $110
Still holding out on Nokia to squash any lingering battery bugs lurking inside your Lumia 800′s beautiful shell? For some of you, today’s your lucky day, as Espoo’s just released a fresh batch of bits, which bring “significant improvements in battery performance and power management.” We’ve seen version 1600.2487.8107 make the rounds once before , but previously when it was a Vodafone-branded variant — which you may recall WPCentral discovered was responsible for an impressive 3x improvement (!) in battery life
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Nokia’s Lumia 800 firmware update juices handsets, banishes battery issues
Fisker Automotive hasn’t exactly had the smoothest of launches for its all-electric Karma sedan, and it’s now been dealt yet another small setback. As Wired Autopia reports, Fisker now plans to replace the battery packs on nearly all of the Karmas that have rolled off the assembly line — apparently due to the same issue that caused the car to break down during Consumer Reports ‘ test of the car
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Fisker plans to replace the battery packs on 640 Karma sedans
While the main thing that would make Raspberry Pi’s diminutive $25 / $35 Linux setups better would be if we could get our hands on them faster , the team behind it is already working on improvements like this prototype camera seen above.
If you found yourself longing for the minor tweaks Samsung made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany earlier this year, you may be in luck: Apple’s filed for a preliminary injunction against the slate stateside.
Let’s face it, whether you’re down at the laundromat or feeding the meter on a busy street, you can never find enough quarters when you need’em. Know what effectively sidesteps that lack of foresight? NFC , that’s what
We here at Engadget tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there individually, we’ve gathered up an exhaustive listing of every phone and / or tablet getting the stamp of approval over the last week. Enjoy! Continue reading FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012 FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 23:52:00 EDT
Ready for your latest tour through the dense and meandering wording of patent applications ? Well, dig in, because it’s Microsoft’s turn to confuse lawyers the world over with this latest USPTO doc, submitted in November of 2010. The filing describes a computer-based program that would, essentially, analyze a primary device’s installed applications, cross-reference it with a different device and then either migrate that software batch or suggest similar apps to download on a secondary unit
Having spent a little time with it, we’re impressed with how much capability the engineers managed to pack into the Canon SX150 , at such an affordable price. As you’d expect given the bargain-basement ~$179 street, it’s not without its limitations, but considering what you get, it’s pretty amazing: A capable, well-built 14-megapixel digital camera with an optically stabilized 12x zoom lens and a good assortment of features
There’s been hints of it coming as early as February , but we now have a smoking gun at the FCC: the Galaxy S III is coming to T-Mobile. A Samsung SGH-T999 has popped up at the agency sporting newly added 1,700MHz AWS support that’s the telltale sign of a T-Mobile device, along with the T999 name itself (the T989 is the network’s Galaxy S II ). It also totes 850MHz and 1,900MHz WCDMA bands being used for HSPA+ data rather than just voice, a clue that the phone is ready for refarmed GSM spectrum
Sony must stay on top of Android updates for its tablets to remain relevant to consumers. (Credit: Sony) One must wonder why Sony cannot get out of the habit of playing a fragmented and behind-the-curve Android release schedule for its devices.
(Credit: CNET) Everyone who uses Instagram , EyeEm , or other photo-sharing apps knows how easy it can be to add effects to photos and make them look even better than the original.
It’s safe to say that anticipation is high for the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview , which will become available in the first week of June.
