Today I was doing some research for a good solar powered iPhone charger. I went the direction of a DIY [Do It Yourself] project then realized this is all a waste of time. Maybe there are a select few that would jump on a DIY solar powered iPhone charger project, but considering the complexity of the tutorials I found, very very unlikely my average reader would actually do it.
So to save yourself the 30+ minutes of looking for a good tutorial, just spend 3 minutes and buy one that will A) work better, B) look better and C) be cheaper.
The project directions can be found here and you’ll quickly see it’s a complex project that requires some tools you might not have, plus supplies you’ll surely need to buy. All in all, it’s about a $70 project,
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The world is going Green. This is your chance to keep those USB gadgets, yet charge them without consuming electricity and leaving your carbon footprint. The idea behind this USB tutorial is taking the kinetic energy of your bike and turn that into re-powering any USB gadget.
I found this fun little project off the Instructables website. Apparently the author received some grant funds from Lemelson-MIT program and put together a team of 6 students to create this solution.
The team got their idea from shake-up flashlights which are based off the Faraday Principle – which is a type of electromagnetism reaction to generate energy.
You will need to get a bread-board and create a small circuit to capture the energy produced by the bike and turn it towards your USB gadget.
Next, you’ll need a motor provider that will actually “capture” the energy, feed it through your newly made circuit. There are many options for this, check
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How would you like to connect wirelessly to your iPhone? Imagine sharing your photo’s or [soon to be] video with your TV or monitor without a cable? How about sync your iTunes without the white USB connector, or update contacts, schedules, calendar and more without making a connection. How about getting real crazy and juicing up your iPhone without a plug?
Well, all of this will be possible with the new Alereon wireless USB technology for the iPhone and those who integrate into their peripheral.
The demonstration consists of a small wireless USB peripheral connected to a typical iPhone or iPod’s edge connector. The adapter enables any iPhone or iPod to both provide extra battery power/charging as well as synchronize wirelessly to iTunes whether on a Windows or MAC OS machine. Future enhancements will enable connectivity to HDTVs for displaying photos or videos.
I’ve seen plenty of cigarette USB chargers, but this one design from Belkin out does them all.
It’s not bulky. It will sit flush in your car. It’s got feedback via the blue LED light. It’s iPhone compatible, meaning it’ll charge anything. Only $15 USD. Awesome.
I went to buy it on-line and it’s not yet propagated into the e-commerce sites, but give it a couple weeks. It’ll be there.
Gizmodo just did a review about the Pogoplug device which allows anyone to share their USB stick over the internet with just a couple clicks.
The box has it’s own internal client and makes installation and connection a snap. The device will support a number of formats such as FAT, FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ or EXT2/EXT3 Linux.
Using Pogoplug is just as simple as setting it up. You, as the account owner, can hit up your Pogoplug.com share from any web browser and upload/download/view files from there. If you’re on the same local network as your Pogoplug, it’s smart enough to use your Wi-Fi/Ethernet to transfer files faster. There’s also Mac and Windows software that loads the share as a network-mounted drive.
Other cool things you can do: Grab the iPhone app and stream MP3 files, view JPG files, open PDF/Doc files over Wi-Fi or 3G.
The great thing about the Pogoplug is that it only costs $100 and no monthly access fee. Given this, along with it’s universal accpetance to OS support, it’s one slick answer to easy file sharing.
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America takes comfort in the fact we lead technology, but with mobile devices we are the exception. Europe is way ahead of us and so is China. In fact, back in Dec 2006, China made the decision to standardize cell phone charges to have a micro USB port. The reason, to reduce waste. Back then, you purchased a phone and you’d get a new wall charger. The charger was loaded with lead, plastic etc. Today, you simply get a USB cable.
Last week 17 mobile phone companies officially made the plung to accept micro USB as the connection for recharging cell phones. This decision was based on the same reasons as mentioned above.
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USBFever has a 5 port USB wall charger for those a bit light on USB ports, yet need something to charge those iPhones, iPods and PDAs.
The USB SuperTravel has 4 standard USB ports and one miniUSB port. It’s no longer required to haul around your laptop just to power up your gadgets while on the go.
The kit includes world voltage acceptance with plugs that cover you in US, UK, AU and EU. The charger will auto detect the voltage and adjust accordingly so no mess with figuring out which fuse or setting is needed in different countries.
Do you know what Femtocells are? I didn’t know until just the other day when I read an article about AT&T testing Femtocells to boost iPhone reception inside your home. To restate: a femtocell is a device to boost your mobile phone signal. You can say phone booster. Apparently Sprint has been selling this technology for a while and now AT&T is on board to improve their popular selling iPhone.
The goal is to improve your G3 service inside the home via your high speed internet connection. Think of a femtocell as turning your house into a cell phone tower.
Testing is currently taking place through AT&T with expected products to ship the first half of next year. So for those of you in the void, yet addicted to your iPhone, there is hope. And it’s on the way.
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No pun intended, but this laptop fan is cool looking with a great design. The Dog shapped USB cooling fan is an ideal adition to those working from laptops. With two 6″ built-in cooling fans, it can dissipate heat away from the bottom of your laptop and cool down the the under belly of your laptop.
The USB cooling fan for your laptop comes in either a Dog or Penguin shape and acrylic top. It’s almost a shame you cover up the design with your laptop.
Here is a side view of the laptop cooling pad:
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SEH launched a mini USB server designed to secure USB peripherals over fiber optic and Ethernet networks. What the myUTN USB Server does is allow connection of a USB device into your fiber optics network or Ethernet network without needing additional USB cables or drivers. Imagine plugging in your printer or scanner into a fiber optic port on the wall rather than a traditional USB port of your computer. In addition, the myUTN USB Server provides top-level security so data being transmitted over the network wont be compromised. A good example is connecting a USB bar code scanner for products or medical devices to the network with ease and security.
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Yep, you heard it right. Imation, from my understanding, is the first to offer a USB hard drive that is completely wireless. Well, expect for the power cord.
The Imation Apollo Pro WX is the wireless hard drive with speeds close to that of wired speeds. Since the product isn’t yet available, we’ll need to wait for real-world results, but I’m keeping an optimistic outlook. Mostly because I REALLY want one.
The Apollo Pro WX will use Seagate hard drives and will come in a variety of sizes with a maximum capacity of 1.5TBs. The wireless hard drive solution has a total range of about 30 feet. Meaning your hard drive can sit, by itself, up to 30 feet away from computers and read/write data as though you had a direct connect hard drive. Talk about conveninece, this is it!
Since USB wireless isn’t available on all computers, the Imation wireless hard drive will still come with an available USB port and cable for those who haven’t made the switch.
Along with no price tag, Imation is also vague about release date, just sometime in the fall.
Source:Â Electronista.
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A solar powered Bonsai tree, who would have thought? Vivien Muller did. Her design takes each end-point of the Bonsai tree and turns it into a small photocell.
Methodshop coined this as photovoltaic panels, but I like the term photogalactic a little better. The unit recharges a hidden battery beneath the tray – which happens to be the same place as the wires for your gadgets – so even re-charging can take place during the night. Of course USB support for those USB gadgets we all love.
As you can see, one could make a nice solor tree for their kitchen table or large office desk, but what if your space was a little more cramped? Well, the USB solar Bonsai can be redesigned and shaped to any dimension of your liking. It can spin, detach and rotate through small connectors.
So how much is this ingenious device cost? Not much right now, it’s just a prototype. Since this looks like such a great product, lets hope someone picks up the production rights. Wouldn’t you say Vivien?
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Do you know what 
