Texas Instruments brings fast charging, extended life to Li-ion batteries

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/07/texas-instruments-brings-fast-charging-extended-life-to-li-ion/

Yesterday Texas Instruments introduced a couple of new chipsets (fuel gauge an charger ICs) designed to improve the charging speed and life expectancy of single-cell Li-ion batteries. The technology, called MaxLife, is expected to provide an improvement of up to 30 percent in battery service life and faster charging times. Cell impedance is carefully monitored by the fuel gauge chip while the charger IC uses a model of battery degradation to charge the cell in the most optimal way. Both chips are connected via an I2C bus to form an autonomous battery management system which, according to the company, is safer and more thermally efficient than existing solutions. The two chipsets (2.5A and 4.5A) are now available along with a development kit, so it's only a matter of time until this technology lands into handsets and other devices that use single-cell Li-ion batteries. Check out the details after the break.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile

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This Smart Airbus Case Could Mean You Never Lose Your Luggage Again

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-smart-airbus-case-could-mean-you-never-lose-your-l-511846710

This concept case by Airbus, which pairs up directly with your iPhone, could mean you never lose your bag again.

Called Bag2Go, it uses a GPS-tracker, 2G mobile connection, and an RFID chip built directly into the case itself to record its whereabouts. The idea is, primarily, to allow airports to pair its unique ID with handling systems—and in turn log its location against its owner's travel itinerary. But a paired iPhone can also show the owner data about the case, and even inform them if it's been opened.

That's not where smart stops, either: the thing has a set of scales built into the handle to let you check the weight, and Airbus suggests that the tracking tech could provide people with the confidence to use a door-to-door luggage service so they don't need to lug it themselves. Created in collaboration with T-Mobile and luggage maker Rimowa, it's very much a prototype—but Airbus is hoping to license out the technology. [Australian Business Traveller via MacRumors via Verge]

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SugarSync adds remote wipe, scrubs cloud data from Macs and PCs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/07/sugarsync-adds-remote-wipe/

These days, the danger of a stolen PC resides less in local files and more in cloud access -- presumably, no one wants to share their online storage with a thief. SugarSync's paid subscribers won't have to worry, as the company just rolled out a remote wipe option. Customers now just have to sign in through the web to purge a Mac or Windows system of both its shared files and any active logins. A wipe target doesn't have to be online when the purge starts, either. The new failsafe won't help if an evildoer moves data elsewhere, but we'll gladly take what extra security we can get.

Filed under: Storage, Internet

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Via: Computerworld

Source: SugarSync

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Leaked video seems to show Nokia EOS PureView smartphone with mechanical shutter

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/07/nokia-eos-video-shows-mechanical-shutter/

Don't get your hopes up, because the leaked video after the break is one of the most deliberately constrained pieces of camerawork it's possible to imagine. It avoids showing anything except the mechanical shutter release on the back of a phone that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Nokia EOS photos we covered yesterday, and in fact it comes from @ViziLeaks, who was one of those sources for those images. And, well, that's pretty much all there is to say about it, except that it adds a further bit of weight to the notion that we might see a new version of the PureView 808 camera (which also had a mechanical shutter) on a Nokia Windows Phone sometime soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile, Nokia

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Via: The Verge

Source: ViziLeaks (Twitter)

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Intel's Prototype Thunderbolt Flash Drive Is the World's Fastest

Source: http://gizmodo.com/intels-prototype-thunderbolt-flash-drive-is-the-world-511645717

You can officially stop bragging about how fast your fancy new USB 3.0 flash drive is. At the Computex show in Taipei Intel was showing off this hacked together prototype of a dedicated Thunderbolt 128GB flash drive boasting data transfer speeds of 10 Gbit/s, or about twice as fast as USB 3.0's max. And now that Thunderbolt 2 has been introduced, waiting around for large files to copy to your flash drive could be a thing of the past.

Of course Intel had no word on when consumers could get their hands on the Thunderbolt flash drive, if ever. But there was plenty of interest in it, and as the protocol becomes more popular, it's safe to assume at some point these will move past the prototype stage—hopefully with that adorably compact form factor still intact. [PCWorld]

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