charging

With a gasoline-powered car, refueling is as simple as pulling into a gas station and waiting a few minutes for the gas take to be refilled. Things are a bit trickier with electric vehicles, however, which require charging stations rather than gas stations. Tesla has been rolling out it SuperCharger network over many months, having added six in California back in October, for example. At tonight's D11 conference, Musk made an announcement early: Tesla's SuperCharger network will be tripled.

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The researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed new microbatteries that are extremely small in size, but pack a huge amount of power. Not only do they pack a huge punch, but they recharge "1,000 times faster than competing technologies", according to the research team. The team wanted to find a solution to the dilemma that afflicts current power sources, where power sources can either have a lot of power, or have a lot of energy, not both at the same time.

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Apple's new Smart Cover for the iPad has a lot of potential, and it seems the company thinks so as well. Case in point: Apple just applied for a patent that would see the Smart Cover being used as a wireless charger to charge up the iPad when the Smart Cover is closed. Both the iPad and Smart Cover would have induction coils to make the wireless charging possible.

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With the introduction of their full 2013 (and beyond) lineup of processors for the mobile universe, Qualcomm had made it clear that they're here not only to stay, but to bring on feature boosts like Quick Charge 2.0. With this second iteration of the feature many only discovered existed just about a week ago, you'll be charging up to 75% faster than the competition. This means that if you've got your phone (with Quick Charge 2.0 technology inside), and your friend has their phone, and you're both charging your devices at the same time, you'll be going up to 75% faster than he or she - off to the races!

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In an effort to bolster the city's friendliness towards electric vehicles, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is calling for 10,000 charging stations all across the city by 2019. Bloomberg mentioned the goal during his last State of the City address today, and he's asking the city council to require landlords to make at least 20% of new parking spaces equipped for electric vehicles.

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The awesome backpack you see below is the Energi Backpack from the folks at TYLT. They're here at CES 2013 showing off a wide array of accessories for all sorts of users. From iPhone 5 cases, TYLT TUNZ Bluetooth speakers, fun multi-colored chargers and more. This new backpack available now is certainly made with those who carry multiple devices every day in mind. Read on for more details.

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Earlier today we told you about Griffin's new PowerDock 5 charging station, and today at CES, we ended up getting our hands on the new device. Essentially, it's a multi-device charging station that includes transparent plastic walls that help keep your devices organized and separated for quick and easy charging of all your mobile devices.

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The folks at Griffin have revealed a lovely multi-device charger for your home or office by the name of PowerDock 5. This machine works to charge up to five devices at once and, as you can see, it works with Apple devices (as well as anything else working with USB) just so long as you've got the right connection cord. Along with this release you'll see a couple of new Griffin ChargeSensor-weilding adapters for your everyday USB-bound device charging action.

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If you're buying an iPhone 5, you're probably paying a lot of money for the handset. That's especially true if you're buying the phone directly from Apple without a two-year contract, as the cost of the 16GB model is set at $649 - and that's the least expensive model on offer. That certainly isn't cheap, but there's one aspect of the iPhone 5 that isn't expensive at all: the cost to charge it.

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Nokia's new Lumia 920 may have stolen the show this morning while they announced a few new handsets, but the accessories Nokia brought to the market along with their new phones deserve a quick look too. We have wireless charging in multiple ways, NFC speaker docks from JBL and more so check them out below along with some hands-on and first impressions.

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Wireless phone and tablet charging without the bulky case compromise could be in the pipeline if TDK Corporation has its way, revealing the slimmest wireless power transfer coil unit to-date. It may look like the tiniest underfloor heating system in the world, but in fact the 0.57mm thick panel promises to get your future smartphone or tablet rejuiced simply by slapping it down onto an inductive pad.

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Apple has been granted a batch of patents today by the US Patent and Trademark Office---27 new patents to be exact. PatentlyApple dug up the details on these patents, pointing out some of the more notable ones including an inductive charging station for handsets as well as iOS scrolling, rotating, and scaling on a touchscreen display.

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