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Automakers have endorsed a connector to charge electric vehicles in as little as 15 to 20 minutes, a technology which promises to make public charging stations more compelling.

German and U.S. automakers Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche, and Volkswagen yesterday issued a statement saying they will support the same charging interface.

Called the Combined Charging System, the standard can charge electric vehicle batteries with alternating current from a home outlet, direct current from a home outlet, or "ultra-fast" direct current from public stations. The system will be demonstrated next week at the International Electric Vehicle … Read more

To tackle the recent Flashback malware for OS X, Apple issued an update for Java that closes the exploited vulnerability in its runtime. Apple also issued a couple of additional tools and tweaks to tackle other potential problems in Java. The first of these is Apple's updated "MRT" (malware removal tool) utility that will scan for and remove the malware from affected systems. The second is a change to how OS X handles Java, in which the system will now keep the Java plug-in disabled until it is needed.

The idea here is to only allow the … Read more

A study has found that cars with very high gas mileage are less polluting than electric vehicles charged up in coal-heavy regions.

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report today called "State of Charge" that finds that on average plug-in cars are less polluting than gasoline-powered vehicles in the U.S. But the greenhouse gases emitted from electric vehicles depends on the sources of electricity.

The study centers on a heated discussion in auto circles. Automakers have sometimes referred to electric vehicles as "zero emissions," which is misleading because most plug-in drivers charge their cars … Read more

The Kickstarter project called JuiceTank that promises to combine a mobile phone charger and a case in one tidy package will be ready sooner than originally estimated, according to its creators.

Today, Detached -- the company behind the JuiceTank -- said it was "in the final stages of development" and that the tooling segment of production was ahead of schedule.

The peculiar hybrid, which was unveiled last month on idea incubator Kickstarter, differs from the bevy of cases with built-in charging features. Instead of including a built-in battery to augment runtime, it has an integrated wall plug that lets you plug your iPhone 4/4S directly into an outlet, eliminating the need to use a USB-based charger. … Read more

To a computer company like IBM, plug-in electric vehicles just look like more nodes on the network.

IBM tomorrow is expected to announce a demonstration project with Honda and California utility Pacific Gas & Electric to charge a fleet of Honda Fit EVs without disrupting the grid.

The smart-charging project will also test smartphone and Web-based apps for consumers, giving them an estimate of charge time and location of charging stations.

The power grid as a whole has the capacity to accommodate millions of plug-in vehicles, say experts. But if there's a concentration of electric cars charging at once, … Read more

We already know quite a bit about Fisker's follow-up to the Karma electric sports sedan. We know that it's called the Atlantic, that it's smaller than the Karma, and that it should be significantly less expensive--rumors put the MSRP at about $40,000 after a $7,500 federal tax credit. Heck, we even know what it looks like thanks to a batch of leaked photos.

However, there's a great deal that we don't know. There have been no power, range, or economy ratings leaked to go along with the photos. We don't have dimensions, … Read more

Opera ports its WebGL hardware acceleration from Opera Mobile to the Android version of Opera Mini 7, which first debuted last month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Opera Mini 7 for Android (download) improves the lightweight browser's compressed browsing feature called Turbo with hardware acceleration, and expands the Speed Dial landing page beyond nine Web sites.

It does not include the new home screen that is coming to Opera Mini 7 for feature phones, which will bring interactive social-networking to people who have those lower-powered phones.

Phillip Gronvold, Opera's product manager for mobile, told CNET before … Read more

Like most software updates, the latest Safari update (version 5.1.4) causes changes to the system's configuration that will undoubtedly result in problems for some people's setups. Typically, even if no outstanding issues crop up in the software after an update, some people may find certain Web sites will not work or load correctly, and plug-ins might show odd behavior when displaying content.

If you have updated Safari on your Mac and are experiencing problems after updating, then here are some things to try that may fix them.

It's not surprising that Adobe's Acrobat and Reader are the top PDF tools, since Adobe invented PDFs, but if there's a factor driving the market for third-party PDF tools (other than cost, since Reader is free) it's the time it takes Adobe's big programs to load. What if Acrobat or Reader could load as fast as the lightweights? That's where PDF SpeedUp enters the race. It makes Acrobat and Reader load faster by disabling plug-ins, updates, splash screens, and other startup slowdowns. You can allow the plug-ins and features you want or enable them … Read more