charging

Rather than fiddle with cables, Nissan EV drivers will have the option to park over a wireless charger.

Nissan is working on a system in which drivers park over an induction charging mat that creates a wireless connection to an electric vehicle's on-board charger. Using a dashboard display to navigate, drivers back up so the charging map is under the rear wheels. Sensors stop the car at the appropriate spot and the charging is started by operating a touch-screen display on a charge point.

The automaker released a demonstration video of induction charging with the Leaf last month in … Read more

To many of you, one USB car charger is just as good as the next, but if you've ever tried to plug your shiny new iPad or massive screened smartphone into a cheapy charger, odds are you quickly learned how wrong you were.

Not all powered USB ports are created equally. Most USB car chargers output about 0.5A of charging power, which is a massive jump over the original "low load" USB standard of just 0.1A. However, tablets require a bit more juice still than these powered ports can supply. In the case of the … Read more

For laptops or any portable device, perhaps obviously one of the more important features is battery life, and how to get the most time out of the device without needing to plug it in.

Apple ships its laptops with an advertised 5 to 7 hours of battery life, but depending on how you use your system you may find the battery life to be well below that. For instance, my 2009 MacBook Pro gets about 5 to 6 hours of battery life instead of the advertised 7 to 8 hours. This is remarkable battery performance given the battery's age … Read more

As a traveling journalist who stays on the move with a MacBook Pro, iPhone, digital camera, and iPad 2, I was eager to get ahold of the Aviiq Portable Charging Station to see if it might offer a compact mobile power source capable of dismissing my worries about whether my devices are juiced and ready to roll.

The idea behind the Charging Station is simple: Give buyers a place to tuck away all of their USB-charged devices and cords while they charge. You can keep all of your high-tech eggs in one basket while they juice up, if you like to mix your food and drink metaphors.

The resulting kit is about the size of a hardcover book. The tri-fold design includes multiple pockets inside for everything from MP3 players to cell phones. An internal four-port USB power station plugs into a wall outlet and charges up the devices tucked into the Charging Station. … Read more

One of the main arguments against electric cars is that it takes too long to recharge the battery. Even using a DC fast-charger, going from 0 to 80 percent capacity still takes about 30 minutes. But Nissan is working on a new super-rapid charging system that can recharge a drained EV battery in 10 minutes, which could be a game changer for the industry.

Nissan engineers and researchers at Japan's Kansai University have created a new capacitor electrode made of tungsten oxide and vanadium oxide instead of the usual carbon, according to an article in Paul Tan's Automotive News. According to an unnamed report, the new capacitor electrode can hold more power and reduce charging time without reducing capacity or voltage. … Read more

Apple plans to launch a new platform Wednesday that could put a big dent in wireless carriers' bottom line.

Introduced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, iMessage lets users on iOS devices chat with one another like they would send a text message. Like the BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage allows them to bypass the SMS text-messaging network--along with carriers' texting charges.

Instead of routing the text message over the cellular network using SMS, it sends the message over a wireless Internet data connection. The service itself is not tied to any carriers and is designed to work on the … Read more

Verizon Wireless meant business when it promised a big push for 4G LTE at CES 2011. The carrier unveiled four new devices: the HTC ThunderBolt, the Samsung Droid Charge, the LG Revolution, and the Motorola Droid Bionic. All four promise fast 4G speeds, and indeed, they deliver. However, they aren't all the same. Here's our roundup of all four Verizon 4G handsets. … Read more

It's not the first concept we've heard of that uses human motion to charge our batteries, but it could be far more efficient than anything up to now.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison say that one day soon, any portable device--including the meatiest smartphones--could be charged by simply taking a stroll.

"Humans, generally speaking, are very powerful energy-producing machines," Tom Krupenkin, a UW-Madison associate professor of mechanical engineering, said yesterday in a statement. "While sprinting, a person can produce as much as a kilowatt of power."… Read more

As any company involved in the mobile consumer electronics industry is aware, one of the main areas of focus for new technology is the speed and ease of charging solutions. For iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads, charging may soon include wrapping your headphones around an inductive charging tower.

According to a new patent discovered by AppleInsider, Apple suggests that by twisting your headphones around a specially designed tower, an inductive receiving coil would be formed.

In an effort to keep the devices small, having a home-based tower may be the solution.The charging tower creates a magnetic field, allowing a … Read more