Now charge your cellphone with a cold beer

 A new device that can charge your mobile phone with a hot cup of coffee or a cold beer mug has been developed by a US company.

The company claims that the two-sided Epiphany onE Puck converts the warmth of your hot cocoa or iced beverage into power for your phone. The lightweight device is portable enough to store in your purse or day bag for emergencies.   The device uses a Stirling engine powered solely by heat disparities to generate the electricity to keep your phone up and running, 'Gizmag' reported.

Stirling engines were actually invented in 1816 as a rival to the steam engine, but its use was limited to low-power applications for a long time.  Epiphany Labs is using modern materials to use the technology in a rather different way. The most obvious evolution comes in terms of size.

The working prototype of the Epiphany onE Puck is not much larger than the bottom of a cup, so it's small enough to carry around easily.   The device has two sides - a blue side for cold drinks and a red side for hot drinks. According to its creators, a hot drink is the optimal way to charge a device.

It comes with a USB port that can charge any device that draws 1000 mA or less. This means it can charge iPhones, Androids, iPods and other USB-based devices. Epiphany Labs claims that, in ideal circumstances, the device would be able to charge your phone at the same speed you would see plugging it in directly to a wall.

It will also work in less-than-ideal conditions, but if you are not placing a fresh hot drink on the Puck, you will have to wait a little longer for your device to receive a full charge.  The team from Epiphany Labs has a working prototype, and is turning to Kickstarter to get the funding needed for production.

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Could we all be driving iCars? How Steve Jobs's final ambition before he died was for Apple to dominate the roads

• The deceased Apple CEO wanted to design a vehicle that could take on Detroit automakers
• Current Apple big wigs may still be keeping iCar hope alive

It turns out there is one very big thing design and marketing guru Steve Jobs wanted to do before he died: design an Apple car.

The Apple co-founder and CEO reportedly told associates he wanted to create an iCar, reports Business Insider. and Jobs reportedly told the Times' John Markoff, during a meeting prior to his death, that he wanted to 'take on Detroit.'

Longtime Apple board member Mickey Drexler, who is also the CEO of J. Crew, confirmed as much in May.

Gcar: Apple's biggest rival, Google, has put considerable sums behind their driverless car 'It's a tragedy in America. Who is designing the cars?' Drexler said. 'Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar.'

Drexler believes the never-realized Apple car could have made a serious impact in the American car market.
'It would've been probably 50% of the market. He never did design it,' he said.

The New York Times revisited the late genius's unfulfilled dream Sunday in a piece about Apple's foray into another market, that of wearable technology. The tech giant is apparently poised to soon bring a watch-like wearable computer to the market with the help of a new, flexible glass developed by Corning. Though the iCar may still be a fantasy, Apple's largest rival Google has already famously put weight behind a self-driving car. The Google driverless car, as it's most often known, has been the subject of countless videos and news articles detailing the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of its success or even feasibility.

Whether Google will succeed or not remains to be seen, but the search giant is currently the only name in tech pumping untold research dollars into automobile research and development.

Car loving Apple devotees need not lose all hope, though.

 

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MapmyIndia launches Lx340 Navigator at Rs 8,990

Digital maps and GPS provider MapmyIndia has added another product -- Lx340 Navigator – to its navigation devices portfolio. Lx340 Navigator has a 4.3-inch display for seamless navigation.
MapmyIndia says Lx340 Navigator has comprehensive and detailed pre-installed maps which provide for door-to-door navigation in 39 cities and connectivity 5,79,000 towns and villages across India. Built-in maps mean no more recurring charges and no dependence on internet or mobile network for navigation.

The device's Don't Panic software features instant route calculation and re-routing to help users find routes available to reach their destination. It has visual and audible alerts for lane guidance, over-speeding and road signs.

Shivalik Prasad, Executive Director, MapmyIndia, says, "With Lx340, we're making available to all car owners in India, a powerful and premium GPS navigation and entertainment experience, at a very affordable and attractive price point. We're excited to further accelerate the strong proliferation of in-car GPS navigation systems in India and power every car in India with a MapmyIndia product in the coming time, and will continue to innovate and invent new products and technologies to deliver the best navigation and driving experience to Indians."

Specs:
*SiRF V GPS chipset with Windows CE 6.0 OS
*Matte-black finish,
*Dimensions: 118x82x12.5mm, Net weight: 124 g
*In-built 2GB storage with expandable SD card slot up to 8GB (for movies, music, photos)
*950mAH battery
*4.3-inch (10.9 cm) LCD touchscreen display with 480 x 272 pixels resolution

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Google to launch its own Chromebook?

If Google made a Chromebook, how would you imagine it to be? Well, somoene has done the imagination for us and rumours suggest it will sport a Retina Display and a full touch-enabled screen.

There is a rumour floating around the internet that Google may be cooking up its own version of the Chromebook. Just last week, Hewlett Packard announced that it will be releasing its Chromebook, but it looks like the Google version will be different based on some spec sheets.

According to Google Developer, there will be a "lightbar scheme" in the rumoured Chromebook, a scheme that does not exist in any of the current versions of the Chromebook. A mysterious video surfaced online a few days ago which points to Google's own Chromebook bing dubbed "Chromebook Pixel" hinting that Google may be taking a jab at Apple's Retina Display capable machines. But it’s not the eye-popping resolution that will be the clincher, rather the fact that the video teases the screen to be a touchscreen.

One must wonder what sort of power the Chromebook from Google will pack in order to provide juice to this gorgeous touch-enabled display. Other than the crunchy display, there is no word in any leaks about the specs the Chromebook from Google might sport, but just as with the Nexus phones, we can expect this device to also set a benchmark for the other companies making Chromebooks.

As of now, there is no official word from Google on any such private undertakings, but we wouldn't put it past the MountainView company. Google I/O set for May 15, we would love for Google to announce a "premium" Chromebook.

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New BlackBerry Will Definitely Not Be Big in Japan

Although Japanese consumers are among the world’s most voracious consumers of smartphones, BlackBerry said on Thursday that they won’t be getting its new line of phones.
Two days after releasing its new BlackBerry Z10 handset in Canada, BlackBerry, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, said it would not follow suit in Japan.
“Japan is not a major market for BlackBerry and we have no plans to launch BlackBerry 10 smartphones there at this time,” Adam Emery, a spokesman for the company said in an e-mail. “We will continue to support BlackBerry customers in Japan.”
Mr. Emery did not respond to questions about the continued sale in Japan of the company’s older line of phones based on the BlackBerry 7 operating system.
Nikkei, the Japanese financial newspaper, first reported the retreat by BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion.
Perhaps because the Roman alphabet keyboard that traditionally distinguished BlackBerrys offered relatively little utility for Japanese users working in their own language, the smartphones never found enormous success in that market.
ComScore, a company that tracks mobile and Web usage, did not break out BlackBerry’s market share in Japan in a study released last August. Instead, BlackBerry was lumped with other unspecified operating system makers, which held a combined total of just 0.4 percent of the market.
The Google Android operating system, ComScore reported, had a market share of 64.1 percent, and Apple’s iOS had 32.3 percent.
The touchscreen based Z10 was released last week in Britain. It will arrive in stores in the United States at a still unspecified date next month.
A second phone with a physical keyboard as well as a touchscreen, the Q10, will be released later in the spring. At the Canadian introduction, Thorsten Heins, the president and chief executive of BlackBerry, appeared to suggest that the Q10 may arrive later than April, the company’s initial delivery date estimate.

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Asus to launch Intel-based FonePad tablet at MWC: Report

After launching the PadFone, Asus is now gearing to launch FonePad. As per Digitimes, FonePad will be a 7-inch tablet that the company is expected to showcase at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013.

The website claims that this tablet will come with Intel Atom Z2420 processor, which is tipped to clock at 1.2GHz clock speed. It is likely to run on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It is expected that device will support a display resolution of 1280X800 IPS touch screen. PhoneArena via tablet.bg has reported that this tablet will have an aluminium body and come with 4,270mAh battery, which is claimed to last through 9.5 hours of continuous use.

Digitimes also claims that this tablet will have 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, 3-megapixel rear camera, and support for 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Furthermore, the tablet is expected to be priced around NT$8,000-9,000 ($271-305). This tablet is rumoured to start shipping from the second quarter of 2013.

It is noteworthy, that Asus is also the manufacturer of the Google Nexus 7 tablet. The 16GB version of this tablet is currently available for $199 (In India this tablet costs Rs. 19,999). The Nexus 7 is powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, which clocks at 1.3 GHz. This tablet also has 7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. It has 1GB of RAM and 4,325 mAh battery. At the time of launch, Nexus 7 came with Android 4.1 but it has now got an update to Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean).

Currently there are plenty of 7-inch tablets that are available in the market. However, for Asus FonePad the biggest challenge would indeed come from Nexus 7 tablet. If the rumoured specifications and pricing is indeed correct, then it is unlikely that Asus's Intel powered tablet will be able to take on the Nexus 7.

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Lava Etab Xtron Unveiled for Rs. 6,499, now up for grabs

The Lava Etab Xtron price has been etched and the slate is out to be nabbed through an online shopping website for Rs. 6,499. This introduction by the company has marked the arrival of one more 7-inch slab into the booming tablet market.
Speaking of the screen, the TFT LCD display of the Xtron makes use of the IPS technology and will come with a resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels. It packs a dual core Cortex A9 processor which has been clocked at 1.5GHz. Accompanying the CPU within the interiors will be 1GB of DDR3 RAM and a Mali-400 quad core GPU.



The 2MP camera drilled into place on the front panel, happens to be the only lens available. It undertakes the responsibility of carrying out various tasks ranging from clicking pictures and recording clips to live face-to-face calling. Complementing the process of video conferencing is the slab’s ability to support Wi-Fi and 3G.
The tablet has been unveiled with a storage configuration of 8GB. People whose storage needs exceed the internal memory proffered can choose to expand the bulk capacity up to 32GB using a microSD card. The device will consume power from a 3,500mAh battery, through which users could derive 3 to 4 hours of usage time, even when WLAN is being utilized.


Not surprisingly, it runs on the Android 4.1, Jelly Bean OS. This attribute qualifies it to provide access to the Google Play store. Even with no mention of a probable upgrade, the incorporated platform could sum up as a good offer in the given retail value.
Those who want to bag in the Etab Xtron will find it stocked on Flipkart. At present, the slate has only been made available through the aforesaid online shopping portal and those wishing to weigh their options might have to wait for a while.



Highlighted specifications:
Android 4.1 OS
7-inch TFT LCD IPS display
1.5GHz dual core Cortex A9 processor
Mali-400 quad core GPU
1GB DDR3 RAM
8GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB
2MP front-facing camera
3,500mAh battery

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