Verizon and AT&T iPhone 4 Cases, Covers & Holsters | Case. Charge USB Devices On The Go With ZAGGsparq: Online Collaboration « I’ve been on the road a lot lately, and much as I like my Overdrive hotspot, its battery life is limited. So I decided to buy the ZAGGsparq 2.0, which acts as a backup battery charger for USB devices. It features a lithium-polymer battery and can output 2,000mA at 5V, with a capacity of 6,000 mAh. The manufacturer claims that the ZAGGsparq can charge an iPhone four times on one AC charge. I don’t have an iPhone to test this claim, but I did get good results when charging the Overdrive hotspot and an iPod touch.
Physically, the ZAGGsparq is a square with rounded corners. It looks a lot like the charger from a MacBook Pro with a fold-out AC plug, and it is just slightly larger, at 3.5 inches square and 1 inch thick, weighing just over 6 ounces. The form factor fits well into a crowded power strip. The ZAGGsparq has two USB ports. The device I got came about half charged, although I followed the instructions and let the initial charge run for a full nine hours.
The device retails for $99.99. Kensington PowerLift Back-Up Battery and Dock Review & Rating. So, your iPhone is great. You love it and use it all the time, but every afternoon you get that dreaded "Low Battery" message. If that sounds familiar (and it will for most smartphone owners) you need an extra battery. Back-up batteries usually come in cases that snap on and provide an extra charge to your iPhone, but Kensington offers a different option, with a clever twist: the PowerLift Back-Up Battery and Dock ($49.99 direct). It's a spare battery, but it's also a dock, and a vertical or horizontal stand that fits neatly in your pocket. The PowerLift works with any iPhone or iPod touch model. The parts flip around and swivel so the PowerLift can be used in a few different ways. Why would you hold the dock up to your ear?
The Coolest Tech Tour Ever: A Look At How SRI Is Augmenting The Human Condition. Editor’s note: the following is a guest post by Robert Scoble, who studies tech startups and innovators for Rackspace Hosting. His videos usually go up on Rackspace’s Building43. In the post he shares a tour he recently got of SRI International, the Silicon Valley R&D lab where the computer mouse was invented. It also has played a role in many other things, from Disneyland to Polaris Missiles and armor for tanks, not to mention it was one of the first four nodes on the Internet.
You might be like my friends, who thought that the computer mouse was invented at PARC, Xerox’s R&D lab. It wasn’t. Instead the computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart at SRI International and, in the mother of all demos, showed it, and a number of other key features of computing that we all know like windows and hypertext, off in December, 1968. Since then SRI International, which employs 1,700 researchers, has been busy on a number of things from radar, ultrasound imaging, remote surgery, and much more.