Storming expectations supervening

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Tablet is a very popular electronic gadget among the users mostly associated with the next generation. It is more advanced than mobile phones and you can denote it as a laptop killer. People do not want to think of mobiles only as a communication media. Naturally almost every mobile manufacturer is now going to launch their tablet computers to capture the future market shares of these extraordinary invention. HTC is also entering the world of tablet computer with their new stylish HTC Flyer coming up very soon. HTC is very much popular for their Sense UI which they are going to feature in the tablet computer as well. The Flyer will start shipping probably in the second quarter of 2011. The gadget with Android Gingerbread power upgraded to version 2.4 will be far more advanced than its previous version. The case looks smarter and eye catching and also includes protective edges to keep the gadget as safe as possible. A weight of mere 420g will definitely enable you to easily hold it in one hand.

HTC Flyer with 7 inches LCD touchscreen display will also be unique due to its high pixel density of 600 x 1024. At the same time it will support multi touch input method and the ability to recognize handwritings. It is expected that it will run every application very fast owing to its advanced and highly improved 1.5 GHz processor and 1GB RAM. There is also a good news with respect to its storage features. HTC will include 32 GB of internal flash storage memory with their upcoming tablet and also give you a provision of upgrading the memory power up to another 32 GB with extra micro SD card slot. The device will also support dual camera to fulfill all kind of requirements of users. The back side 5MP camera is also expected to capture HD videos and the front side 1.3 mega pixel camera will also be much more advanced than the previous VGA ones. For the better sound quality HTC will also include Dolby mobile and SRS sound enhancement with the tablet. In every aspect HTC Flyer will definitely score good marks with truly exceptional high resolution display and technical configuration.

Keeping in line with its portable style, the advanced tablet from HTC will also provide extraordinary support with respect to its battery power such as Toshiba PA3107U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3399U-1BAS Battery. It will possess Li-Ion based 4000 mAh battery providing extra backup so that you can run every application without charging panic. A compact design with powerful features will make the HTC Flyer more valuable and advanced than other tablets available in the market. It will also provide uniqueness in terms of highly advanced web browsing features like multi window browsing, Adobe Flash support etc. With so many attractions embedded in a powerful tablet PC, HTC has worked upon every single detail in its first tablet to come up with advanced functionalities satisfying all users worldwide.

Consumers Before Purchase

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

The site deals in a wide range of electronic products like laptops, keyboards, batteries, chargers, and ear pieces. Through this new initiative, the site hopes to make consumers more confident about the buying process.

Walkietalkiestore.com decided to launch this new feature to address a real problem that it noticed among many potential consumers. “We realized that a lot of people were looking for digital two-way radios or wanted to buy walkie talkies. But they really didn’t know how to go about it. In many cases, they were very intimidated by the whole process,” explained a company representative. “In many ways, the Internet can make the whole walkie talkie radios buying experience even more confusing. Not only are there are a lot of products advertised online, there’s a lot of fraudulent products out there as well. It can be hard to know how exactly to shop in an informed and confident manner.”

The company decided that it would launch a feature that would allow users to get expert advice about the product before buying. Whether it’s a laptop battery such as Toshiba PA3107U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BAS Battery, Toshiba PA3399U-1BAS Battery, walkie talkie radios, or any kind of radio accessories, the site provides the expertise of trained personnel to help consumers with their questions. “We understand how confusing it can be,” shared a company executive. “A small business may want to know what would be the best option in terms of two-way radios for sale. Or an individual may just want to know how to buy certain kinds of accessories. We make the effort to answer all these questions in the best way we can. We believe that if the consumer is better informed, they will be able to make a much better purchase.”

Not Just Good Advice

Walkietalkiestore.com is doing much more than simply offering expert advice about walkie talkie radios to its clients. The site has also taken steps to initiate a number of new features, which it hopes the clients will find useful. “We’re very excited about our Gift Certificate System which we’ve recently started,” shared a company executive. “We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for our users, both in terms of purchasing and in terms of cashing them online. We also have a number of discount coupons available. We’ve also started a newsletter to keep our consumers informed about new products and offers.”

Whether clients are looking for information on two-way radio batteries or two-way batteries for sale, Walkietalkiestore.com not only aims to offer the product for purchase, but also hopes to help the consumer make the best possible purchase. To do this, it aims to work together with the consumers, understanding their needs and providing them with the information they need to make an informed purchase.

To learn more about walkie talkie radios or any other kind of accessories, you can visit www.walkietalkiestore.com. The site offers numerous resources on various products and information on pricing. Walkie talkie radios offered for sale along with digital two way radios and accessories on the internet. For information regarding how to buy walkie talkies and other shipping and returns policy log on to batterystores.ca.

Laptop market

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Intel's contribution is developing a mobile platform technology enabling laptops to take advantage of Panasonic's battery such as Toshiba Satellite A70 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A75 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8100 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9100 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A60-662 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A65 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 2100 Battery.

"It's not a trivial matter to get handheld devices to operate down to 2.5 volts," said Kelty, adding that most laptops are designed to shut down when a battery gets down to 3 volts.

"Intel is going to modify their platform so their chips can run off the lower voltage," Kelty said.

Independent studies of the Sony and Panasonic performance claims are hard to come by, and some scientists suspect any improvement has more to do with better power management in the design of mobile products.

Donald Sadoway, a materials scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the only way to really test the value of Sony's new battery is to see it perform in a wide range of products.

"For all we know they could have developed more efficient displays, improved hard drives in their cameras," he said.

Finding ways of squeezing more performance from available power is a huge area of exploration for electronics makers.

For example, they tinker with a device's clockwork — the term used to describe how fast a machine performs a specific function — to speed up energy-eating chores.

They look for ways to prevent extreme temperatures from siphoning off energy.

Sometimes an executive in charge of power management employs a less scientific approach: begging designers to make room for a bigger battery in the device, said Dave Heacock, vice president of Texas Instruments' portable power division.

"Everyone is involved in the same race to lower power consumption of their products while improving them," Heacock said.

Meantime, people can always buy heavy portable batteries for backup power, extra rechargeable batteries and extra chargers. And lug them around.

Paul, the salesman, is among consumers who wonder what good mobile devices do if they need to be recharged so often.

"When you're trying to streamline our lives, the idea of keeping a backup battery, car charger and a standard charger is not the ideal solution," he said.

Electronics thirst for more juice

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

For most of us, a dead battery in our cellphone or digital camera is an annoyance. For surgical-tools salesman Jason Paul, it can cost him big money.

Paul counts on his cellphone to check his stocks and send e-mail. He logs more than 3,000 minutes a month in calls to his clients. He also uses his phone to show doctors video clips of how his products perform in the operating room.

"When I'm using it like this, which is most days, I maybe get two or three hours out of the batteries," says Paul, who works for Fremont, Calif.-based Rita Medical Systems.

"If it goes out and some doctor is trying to get a hold of me and can't, then they get angry. You're only one bad case away from losing a customer."

Paul, 29, is among a growing number of consumers becoming ever more dependent on their energy-hungry gadgets.

But cellphones, laptops, digital music players and portable video-game consoles tend to gobble up more power with every additional feature.

Battery makers are racing to keep up, finding new ways to pack more power into smaller and smaller spaces.

Technical challenges

The technical challenges are daunting. Most people have little understanding of the complex and volatile chemistry that occurs in their batteries each time they videotape the kids at soccer practice or listen to their iPod, says Brian Barnett, managing director of research and development firm Tiax.

"Can you imagine a chemical plant that has to operate in a closed condition and send energy forward and backward 500 times?" Barnett said.

"And you can't send anybody in to do maintenance. People who operate chemical plants laugh, but that's what we do with a rechargeable cell."

Much of the research is centered on improving the lithium ion battery such as Toshiba Satellite A70 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A75 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8100 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9100 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A60-662 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A65 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 2100 Battery, which has revolutionized the electronics industry since it was widely adopted in the mid-1990s.

Found in most mobile electronics gear, lithium ion batteries are energy dense, smaller and lighter than nickel-based batteries, but are often more expensive.

They work by mixing lithium cobaltate at the positive terminal and graphite at the negative. The two materials produce a lot of energy when they react with each other.

Some of the scientists involved believe lithium ion has maxed out as a power source. And some companies are already coming up with new materials to replace cobaltate and graphite.

Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes Panasonic brand products, each announced earlier this year that they had developed longer-lasting lithium ion batteries by tweaking the chemical equation.

Both companies say their methods can boost the life of a battery by up to 30 percent, claims some analysts question.

Sony says it replaced graphite with a mixture of tin, cobalt and carbon for its "hybrid" battery, which is being rolled out exclusively in the company's new DVD Handycam camcorders.

Mike Kahn, a Sony senior product manager, said the new materials stuff more ions into a cell, extending the life of the battery by 20 percent in normal conditions.

The hybrid outperforms standard batteries in cold weather by 30 percent and recharges faster, he says.

Kahn declined to say when Sony's innovation would be brought to cellphones, laptops or other products.

Panasonic says it's working together with Intel to develop an "all-day battery," increasing the capacity by swapping cobaltate for another material the company won't disclose.

The new material allows the batteries to be discharged down to a lower voltage, enabling users to get more runtime from their devices.

Designed to power laptops, cellphones and other mobile electronics, Panasonic's first-generation battery is scheduled to hit store shelves in April, says Kurt Kelty, director of the Panasonic Energy Solutions Lab.

Nigeria starts voter registration for April poll

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

An effort to register 70 million voters across Nigeria before its April presidential election wobbled to a start Saturday, as volunteers fought with malfunctioning equipment and frustrated people struggled to find registration stations.

The two-week effort in Africa's most populous nation will see volunteers scattered across about 120,000 locations in Nigeria's arid north, fertile central valleys and oil-rich southern delta. They'll use laptop computers, digital cameras and fingerprint scanners to register eligible voters.

But on Saturday, the drive's first day, problems began almost immediately.

At a school on Lagos' Ikoyi Island, officials argued with each other at a distribution point hours after volunteers should have staffed their locations. When workers finally opened the metal cases containing their laptops, printers and extra batteries such as Toshiba PA3399U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3395U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3250U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3356U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3291U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3506U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3591U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba Portege 4000 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A10 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A100 Battery, they discovered the electronic equipment hadn't been charged, in a country where electricity remains scarce.

Later, workers sat idle at several locations visited by an Associated Press reporter as they couldn't make the machines the government bought for more than $230 million work. At another station, Nigerian-born rapper and singer Nneka said she had waited several hours to register, but officials shut down and left. Many complaints focused on the fingerprint scanners.

"It is only people who are politicians who can afford to wait for four hours," said Oluwa Aren, one frustrated voter.

Adding to the confusion for prospective voters, the Independent National Electoral Commission has not published a list of registration points or posted the information to their website.

Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said Saturday that Nigerians had been instructed to walk around near their homes to find a station. He called the issues Saturday as "teaching problems." However, he acknowledged that some locations had not even received their equipment yet.

"They'll be sorted out in the next 24 hours," Idowu said.

A list of registration points he previously showed to the AP identified many sites as schools. The government recently announced all schools in the nation of 150 million people would remain closed for a month to allow for the registration, angering parents and educators. Other locations on the list remained more vague. At least eighteen locations were described as being under or near mango trees.

The April elections include a presidential poll in which President Goodluck Jonathan will face opponents from minor parties. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, the only force with the money, political connections and muscle necessary to manipulate an election.

International observers called the 2007 election of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua rigged, even though it represented the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the nation's history.

The registration points are staffed by members of Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory yearlong program for students after they graduate from university. Those volunteers also will serve as local election officials in April elections, though the corps leader recently warned: "If anybody wants to snatch the ballot box, just give them and save your life."

On Lagos Island, one registration point along a busy road did work. Muritala Okeowo, 48, held up his card to passers-by, which was simply two pieces of computer paper in a laminated cover bearing a fuzzy photograph and a barcode on the back.

"To get the card there was a queue," Okeowo said. "The machine is not working well. We've been waiting here since morning."

While organizers at the Ikoyi Island school tried to prepare, 29-year-old Remi Aderem arrived to try and register. Officials turned him away. Afterward, he said he had driven around his neighborhood to try and a registration point, but found no one. Someone finally suggested he try the school.

Aderem shrugged and accepted it in a country where parties and events routinely begin hours after their starting time.

"People want real democracy," he said. "If you invite people, they will come."

Nigeria off to a rocky start in drive to register 70 million voters

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

An effort to register 70 million voters across Nigeria before its April presidential election wobbled to a start Saturday, as volunteers fought with malfunctioning equipment, and frustrated people struggled to find registration stations.

The two-week effort in Africa's most populous nation will see volunteers scattered across about 120,000 locations in Nigeria's arid north, fertile central valleys and oil-rich southern delta. They'll use laptop computers, digital cameras and fingerprint scanners to register eligible voters.

But on Saturday, the drive's first day, problems began almost immediately.

At a school on Lagos' Ikoyi Island, officials argued with each other at a distribution point hours after volunteers should have staffed their locations. When workers finally opened the metal cases containing their laptops, printers and extra batteries such as Toshiba PA3399U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3395U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3250U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3356U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3291U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3506U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3591U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba Portege 4000 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A10 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A100 Battery, they discovered the electronic equipment hadn't been charged, in a country where electricity remains scarce.

Later, workers sat idle at several locations as they couldn't make the machines the government bought for more than $230 million work. At another station, Nigerian-born rapper and singer Nneka said she had waited several hours to register, but officials shut down and left. Many complaints focused on the fingerprint scanners.

"It is only people who are politicians who can afford to wait for four hours," said Oluwa Aren, one frustrated voter.

Adding to the confusion for prospective voters, the Independent National Electoral Commission has not published a list of registration points or posted the information to their website.

Commission spokesman Kayode Idowu said Saturday that Nigerians had been instructed to walk around near their homes to find a station. He called the issues Saturday as "teaching problems." However, he acknowledged that some locations had not even received their equipment yet.

"They'll be sorted out in the next 24 hours," Idowu said.

The April elections include a presidential poll in which President Goodluck Jonathan will face opponents from minor parties. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, the only force with the money, political connections and muscle necessary to manipulate an election.

International observers called the 2007 election of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua rigged, even though it represented the first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power in the nation's history.

The registration points are staffed by members of Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps, a mandatory yearlong program for students after they graduate from university. Those volunteers also will serve as local election officials in April elections, though the corps leader recently warned: "If anybody wants to snatch the ballot box, just give it to them and save your life."

On Lagos Island, one registration point along a busy road did work. Muritala Okeowo, 48, held up his card to passers-by, which was simply two pieces of computer paper in a laminated cover bearing a fuzzy photograph and a bar code on the back.

"To get the card there was a queue," Okeowo said. "The machine is not working well. We've been waiting here since morning."

Google Debuts Chromebook, the Web-Only Laptop

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Should I use a laptop as my only computer? That's not an uncommon question these days.

Choosing a notebook as primary computer certainly is a reasonable choice, especially now that many are packed with the power and capabilities formerly found only in desktop models.

In 2000, I used a Dell laptop as my sole PC. It worked fine for a year, until the CD drive began behaving erratically and finally quit. At the same time, I started thinking the notebook's small screen, single USB port and 128 megabytes of memory weren't enough for the range of projects I wanted to do.

So I switched to a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion desktop with a 17-inch monitor, one Firewire and four USB ports, CD-RW and DVD drives, 80 gigabyte hard drive and 512 MB of memory. Laptops didn't carry all that back then, at least at any price I could afford.

My older daughter, for example, likes being able to take her Toshiba laptop to work, coffee shops and friends' houses. Still, she has complained that after a year of constant use, the CD-RW drive sometimes doesn't work. That sounds familiar.

Reader Don Brubeck wrote that his daughter "took a brand new laptop to college and within days spilled a cup of lemonade on the keyboard. If it were a desktop computer, the damage would have been a $50 keyboard. But a laptop has the motherboard under the permeable keyboard, and it was a $1,200 event, with the computer at a repair shop for two weeks. She learned a costly lesson in how to make a lemon out of lemonade."

For three years, University of Washington professor Mike Copeland has been using an Apple PowerBook to do all his work, including creating videos for teaching. He keeps a peripheral keyboard and mouse at home and another set at work to make using the laptop easier. Plus, he regularly backs up the traveling data on an external hard drive.

The only problems, he says, have been a CD drive that died (no surprise), and once he dropped the notebook in an airport and had to replace the screen.

Mac programmer Kevin Callahan says a lot of professionals use Apple's 17-inch PowerBook with FinalCut Pro to do broadcast-quality editing for video. But, he adds, no laptop can approach Apple's new 64-bit Dual 2Ghz G5 when it comes to processing video and audio.

The primary advantage of a laptop, of course, is mobility. Indeed, I started writing this column on a notebook in the lounge of the Rain City Fencing Center while my younger daughter began training for her current life's ambition to be a medieval warrior. Without the laptop, I would have had to pass three hours every day for two weeks reading magazines and novels while she learned to handle a foil.

That was in August, and I'm still procrastinating on my laptop decision.

Hmmm, the features and capabilities I would want on a laptop are different from what I'd want if I traveled a lot. If I were a frequent flier, I'd want my notebook to be light and have extended life of the battery such as Toshiba PA2487U Battery, Toshiba PA3107U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BRS Battery and good Wi-Fi support. I'd also be concerned about theft, since more than 590,000 laptops were reportedly stolen in the U.S. in just a year.

Since I don't travel much, my laptop doesn't need to be superlight, but does need to be easily portable and must have ample battery life and Wi-Fi support. It also must have a few Firewire and USB 2.0 ports and enough speed, memory and storage space to handle large multimedia projects. That last requirement is still what makes me hesitate.

Maybe I should use a desktop for creating and saving multimedia projects, and keep it disconnected from the Internet so photos and videos will be safe. The notebook would then be the computer for daily e-mail, writing and searching the Net.

Neah Power gives charge to laptops

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Anyone who has spent much time with a laptop or notebook computer knows intimately the frustrations of short battery life.

Whereas cellphones, personal digital assistants and cameras have made continuous progress in recent years — with batteries getting smaller, lighter and more long-lived — PCs seem stuck in recharger hell. My Sony Vaio gets about an hour and a half of continuous use from a charge. My older IBM ThinkPad gets around two hours, but it doesn't have the Vaio's power-sucking DVD drive. My Apple iBook does much better, around five hours a charge, although it shortens considerably if I'm watching videos.

It's almost as though we are gluttons for punishment. Notebooks are the fastest-growing segment of PC sales, at 30 million units last year. By 2004, 60 million Wi-Fi-capable notebooks will be in use, Intel projects. Notebooks are taking over the enterprise and mobile professional markets.

Salvation from recharger hell may be on the way — from a pioneering Bothell company called Neah Power Systems. Possessing strong tech bloodlines and financial backing from venture companies and Intel, Neah is on track to make portable PCs wireless — and cordless.

I say "cordless" because 80 percent of the time I'm running a notebook off an outlet. I'm either recharging the battery in use, charging a spare or getting work done that requires more than a couple of hours of running time.

Neah promises to make battery panic go away through use of its unique fuel-cell technology. Here's what the company foresees: eight-plus hours on a fuel cell that weighs a third as much as a conventional lithium-ion battery (remember when lithium-ion was considered the weight breakthrough?). And the fuel cell will go in the same bay as the regular battery such as Toshiba PA2487U Battery, Toshiba PA3107U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3383U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3384U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3285U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3191U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3166U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3331U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3098U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3084U-1BRS Battery.

The last point is significant because traditional fuel-cell technology isn't quite refined enough to fit in a regular battery slot. So you get ugly "growths" on a portable device with a bolt-on cell. Neah Power's technology is more compact and does away with another fuel-cell concern: the byproduct of water vapor.

Conventional fuel cells produce moisture. Not a problem in an automobile, say. But you don't want water around sophisticated microchip gear.

The Neah Power cell is sealed, drawing oxygen from a separate chamber and capturing water and carbon dioxide internally.

The secret to Neah Power's compactness lies in its fuel-cell innovation. The cell contains porous silicon substrata that pack a lot of electrochemical activity into very small spaces. The honeycomb design is intended to be more efficient as well as safer than conventional fuel cells.

So far Neah Power is making all the right corporate moves. It recently brought in as chief executive David Dorheim, whose credits include the DustBuster line at Black & Decker and managerial positions in GE's battery division. Neah's board also added Global Business Network's Peter Schwartz and former RealNetworks executive Len Jordan. Its chairman is Dan Rosen, a seasoned deal maker who played key roles at AT&T and Microsoft.

Now all Neah Power has to do is produce. Founded in 1999, it hopes to offer a demonstration product this year and ship by 2005.

The company could face some speed bumps. Lithium-ion technology could improve, although that's a long shot. Experts such as Brian Barnett, director of advanced battery technology at TIAX, are on record as saying lithium-ion is pretty much maxed out.

And pricing hasn't been set. The company says a fuel cell will cost about the equivalent of a blister pack of standard batteries — $4 to $5. Fuel cells will have to be cheap to offer a meaningful alternative.

Finally, I wish Neah Power's cells could be recharged. The technology may emerge to do so, company executives say. But I hate the thought of a "green" technology contributing to landfills.

For now, more power to Neah Power. All road warriors will appreciate any promise of recharger redemption.

FAA issues fire warning for lithium batteries

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Sony laptop battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

Federal aviation officials urged air carriers Friday to voluntarily take steps to reduce the risk of cargo fires caused by overheated lithium batteries, an indication of regulators' growing concern about the threat posed by air transport of the batteries such as Sony PCGA-BP71 battery, Sony VGP-BPL2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS2 battery, Sony VGP-BPS3 battery, Sony VGP-BPS5 battery, Sony VGP-BPS8 battery, Sony VGP-BPS9 battery, Sony PCG-R505 battery, Sony PCG-V505 battery, Sony PCG-Z505 battery.

The warning follows last month's crash of a United Parcel Service plane in Dubai that killed both pilots.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged publicly for the first time in Friday's safety directive that the Boeing 747-400 was carrying a large quantity of lithium batteries. Smoke from a fire in the plane's main cabin, which was used for cargo, was so thick that the pilots told air traffic controllers they couldn't see their instruments as they struggled to land the plane.

Dubai authorities are leading an investigation of the accident with assistance from the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA. The cause of the crash hasn't yet been determined.

The safety directive urges air carriers to ask shippers to identify bulk battery shipments in shipping documents. It also recommends stowing battery shipments in cargo compartments in the belly of planes, where there are halon gas fire suppression systems. There are no fire suppression systems required in the main cabins of cargo or passenger planes.

The Air Transport Association, which represents major airlines and cargo carriers, is reviewing the safety directive and will implement the recommendations, David Castelveter, an association spokesman, said in a statement.

PRBA, which represents the rechargeable battery industry, said in a statement that the safety directive is consistent with the association's position that greater enforcement of existing safety regulations - not more stringent regulations - is the best way to address the problem.

Since the early 1990s, there have been dozens of incidents of batteries igniting in flight or during cargo handling. But exactly what triggered many of the fires is not well understood.

The FAA's safety directive said that recent research conducted by its scientists shows that when batteries are exposed to high temperatures they have the potential to create "thermal runaway," a chain reaction leading to self-heating and the release of a battery's stored energy.

A cargo compartment fire can be hot enough to ignite batteries even if they aren't involved the initial fire, "creating a risk of a catastrophic event," the safety directive said. Once one battery experiences thermal runaway, it generates enough heat to trigger thermal runaway in other nearby batteries. Lithium metal batteries - the kind normally used in watches and cameras, for example - can create explosions forceful enough to damage cargo compartments.

FAA tests of as few as six loose lithium metal batteries stored in steel containers found that when exposed to heat they created enough explosive force to blow the lids off the containers, the directive said.

"There are currently no approved and tested containers that can sufficiently contain the known effects of accidental lithium metal battery ignition," the safety directive said. "Common metal shipping containers, pails and drums are not designed to withstand a lithium metal cell fire."

The halon fire suppression systems used in the lower cargo compartments of passenger and cargo planes aren't able to put out fires caused by lithium metal batteries. However, the systems can extinguish fires caused by lithium ion batteries, which are rechargeable batteries similar to the kind used in many cell phones and laptop computers.

Lithium ion batteries are also flammable and capable of self-igniting. They can generate temperatures very close to the melting point of aluminum, which is what the exterior of airplanes are typically made of, the safety directive said.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, said the safety directive indicates it is even easier for lithium battery fires to spread than was previously known.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed new regulations in January that would require lithium batteries be treated as hazardous cargo. Battery shipments would have to have special packaging and workers who ship them would have to receive special training. There would also have to be special labeling and pilots would have to be told that their cargo contained lithium batteries.

The regulations, which have not yet been made final, have been strongly opposed by the electronics industry, battery makers and some cargo carriers, including UPS. Industry officials have estimated the cost of the proposed regulations at over $1 billion a year.