Power Hungry

Several readers have asked me where they can get Energizer's Energi To Go chargers. Here's the deal: only the cell-phone chargers are on sale right now. Energizer originally planned to put the audio and gaming packs on retail shelves this month, at the same time as the cell-phone chargers, but the company says the launch has been postponed. Energizer's trying to enhance the efficiency of those packs so they will be smaller and require fewer batteries, a spokesperson said. The company hasn't announced a new launch date. As for the cell-phone chargers, here's a list of where you can buy them.

Bored by Apple

When Intel CEO Paul Otellini introduced Apple Computer's marketing guy Phil Schiller on stage at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, I thought, "Cool. Wonder what Apple has to say." After all, it was the first time an Apple ambassador showed up at IDF. Instead of an interesting talk or even some amazing demo, Phil went on and on about what Intel-inside machines Apple launched this year. My eyes glazed over. A history lesson. But Paul didn't disappoint. He laid out an aggressive product offering timeline for the next five years.

Holy Hybrid!

Honda unveiled a clean diesel engine today that it says will be as clean as a gasoline engine. In a story for Red Herring, I wrote that such technology could turn up the heat in what one analyst has called a “holy war” between diesels and hybrids. But a Red Herring reader, Ranjit Mathoda, pointed out that the two technologies aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. "Why not a diesel engine with a hybrid power train?" he wrote in an email. Good point. General Motors told me last year it was testing a diesel-hybrid Sprinter Van, although nobody has announced plans to commercialize diesel-hybrids. As Mr. Mathoda wrote in his blog, diesel-hybrid technology isn't cost-effective right now. Still, the potential is certainly exciting.

Play with Fire

We at Red Herring are thinking about creating a running tally of laptops that burst into flames as a result of faulty batteries from Sony. Ever since Dell recalled 4.1 million laptop batteries in mid August, stories about dangerous laptops have kept on coming. The latest is an incident at Yahoo and features, yes, a Dell laptop. Oh wait. I just read about a Lenovo ThinkPad caused a stir at LAX when its owner ran out of a plane during boarding because the laptop was smoking--it later caught fire. Three airlines--Korean, Quantas, and Virgin Atlantic--now bar passengers from using laptops unless they take off the battery packs and use the power outlets near their seats.

Better NAND

The king of memory chips, or Samsung, if you prefer, is proud to unveil a 32-Gigabit NAND chip that uses high-k dieletric and design to boost performance. The company says this chip can make 64-Gigabyte memory cards possible. That means more storage for your movies and songs. Speaking of entertainment, everyone is speculating what Apple Computer will unveil tomorrow at a product launch dubbed "Showtime." Eydie did a nice piece about Apple's march into the living room, so check it out.

Solar for the Poor

Our intrepid energy reporter Jenn Kho is in Germany this week for the world's largest solar conference, where she has uncovered cool stories about turning sunlight into electricity. Her latest is about a discussion on making solar energy affordable for developing countries (see Solar Energy for the Poor). An intriguing proposition, no? Some of the fast-growing developing countries also are energy-hungry, so turning them away from conventional power-generating technologies is a good idea. Think of China's massive Three Gorges Dam, for example. Not that industrialized nations such as the United States shouldn't do the same, of course.

Intel: Labor Day is Over

A day after a long Labor Day weekend, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he plans to cut the company's workforce by 10,500, or 10 percent, before the middle of next year and slash cost by $2 billion 2007 and $3 billion in 2008. These are the latest cost-saving measures he had promised Wall Street, which responded by saying, basically, "Yeah, that's nice, Paul. But really, you need to do more."

If It's Good Enough for PS3 ...

... it's good enough for a supercomputer. IBM, forever trying to find new outlets for its Cell processor, is building a supercomputer that will sport Cell and AMD's Opteron. The machine, called Roadrunner, is destined for a U.S. government lab, and it would faster than the world's reigning supercomputer, IBM's own Blue Gene L. So either way, IBM wins. Speaking of Cell and PS3, is it any surprise that Sony is delaying the game console launch, in Europe for now? It's like watching Prez Bush mispronouncing words--you know it's going to happen again and again.