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How To Charge Your Phone Quickly

I’m sure we have all done it. Got home from, work got changed to go out and looked at our phone to see that the battery is in the red and it needs to be charged. With perhaps only 30 or 40 minutes to charge your phone you know it won’t last the evening so what can you do.

Well surprisingly enough you can still get a lot of charge into your phone in just 30 minutes and here’s how.

Before you connect your phone to a charger make sure you close any open apps this will minimize the amount of processor power being used. You should also put you phone in Airplane mode which will turn off the power to the wireless radios in your device, the downside being you will be prevented from making or receiving calls but and accessing the web but the trade-off is your device will be able to charge faster because all those background processes that eat away and energy will be disabled.

You can achieve the same benefits from powering down the phone completely but this may not be ideal for those of you who relay on the clock or reminder / alarm features.

The back-light and display settings will also have a significant effect on the charging so remember this when checking the charging progress of your device. It’s best to just let the phone charge and grab it when you’re ready to leave. Hopefully these little t tips will help you get more from your phone when you need to charge it quickly so it can last the night but if you’re really in a rush and find yourself in this situation regularly it could be advisable to invest in a power bank.

These come in a range of shapes and sizes and are a great way to let you charge your phone when you don’t have a power socket to hand. Just grab the power bank plug it to your phone and stick them in your pocket or bag and you will never be without power again. You can check out our extensive range of power banks by clicking

No more roaming charges for EU citizens from December 2015

The European Parliament has voted to scrap the roaming fees charged for using a mobile phone while abroad. Under the wide-ranging telecoms reforms, the cost of making a call or downloading internet data in another EU country will be the same as at home. The change is due to take effect from 15 December next year. It still requires approval from EU governments.

Some consumers have faced bills for thousands of pounds after falling foul of current high roaming charges. In recent years the EU has legislated to lower the costs, so telecoms operators have been forced to cap their fees. A European Commission survey in February suggested that 94% of Europeans limit their use of the web when travelling in Europe because of the cost of mobile roaming.

The package was adopted by 534 votes to 25. Last year the cap for internet browsing was lowered to 45 cents (39 pence) per MB, from 70 euro cents (60 pence) per MB in 2012.

The EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, has said “consumers are fed up with being ripped off”.

The new rules come at a time when users are consuming ever more data on mobiles and tablet devices. As 4G networks offer even faster download speeds, data consumption is expected to rise exponentially. [via BBC News]

Welcome to a world through Glass.

Google Glass

Microsoft’s Kinect guards South Korea’s borders against trespassers

It turns out that Kinect is a very good and cheap way to differentiate between animals and errant North Koreans trying to cross the border, and triggering automatic alerts at nearby South Korean military outposts if a human is detected.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone, which is 160 miles long, 2.5 miles wide, and separates the countries of North and South Korea, has been in place since 1953. Despite its name, it’s the actually the most militarized border in the world. For 60 years, the DMZ has essentially been untouched by humans — and as a result, it’s one of the finest examples of temperate habitat in the world. All sorts of endangered species are believed to live there, including the red-crowned crane, the Korean leopard and tiger, and Asian black bear.

South Korea monitors the DMZ with infrared motion sensors, but these sensors lack the ability to differentiate between animals and people. Enter Kinect. The South Korean military says it has been using a Kinect-based system, developed by Microsoft MVP Jae Kwan Ko, that can quickly and reliably pick out human intruders. The system has been in place since August 2013. As is fairly usual for military tech, we don’t have a whole lot of details on how the system actually works, beyond the fact that it alerts a nearby military outpost when a human is detected. The press release implies that the system is impressive because a) it’s cheap, and b) Kwan Ko was a self-taught wunderkind who defeated all the odds to become a Microsoft MVP.

Moving forward, Ko told a South Korean news site that a future version of the system will use the Xbox One’s Kinect 2.0, which will allow for better range, accuracy, and heart beat detection.

via ExtremeTech

1 billion smartphones shipped in 2013, Samsung and Apple take the lead

According to the International Data Corporation or IDC, global smartphone shipments have reached a staggering 1,004.2 million units in 2013, a few million short of its forecast of 1,010.4 million units. This represents another milestone in the smartphone industry, which has grown by 38.4 percent from the 725.3 million units shipped in 2012.

2013 also saw smartphones taking up majority of the total number of mobile phones shipped across the world. In 2012, smartphones only comprised 41.7 percent of 1,7381. million units shipped. Last year, however, the scales tipped in favor of smartphones, reaching 55.1 percent of all 1,821.8 million mobile phones shipped. In comparison, only 494.4 million smartphones were shipped in 2011.

Samsung remains the top vendor, probably through sheer number of models alone. That said, it’s fourth quarter shipments actually declined, but not enough to let its biggest rival take over. Apple, on the other hand, suffered the lowest year-on-year increase, despite the frenzy over the new iPhone 5S and 5C. However, its recent partnership with China Mobile might see it climb higher in 2014.

The other contenders in the world’s top five vendors are also interesting. Huawei has managed to market itself better in 2013, maintaining its spot at third place. Lenovo also surprisingly made it to fourth even though its presence in the US and Western Europe is rather weak. Lenovo might become a force to reckon with as it pushes more mobile devices in developed countries this year. LG has switched places with ZTE and has landed in fifth place, but its rank rests precariously on a 5 million unit lead over the Chinese manufacturer.

via AndroidCommunity

Sugar Battery With Unmatched Energy Density Created

A new “sugar battery” possessing an “unmatched” energy density has been created by a research team from Virginia Tech. The researchers think that their new battery — which, it bears repeating, runs on sugar — could potentially replace conventional forms of battery technology within only the next couple of years.

The researchers argue that their sugar batteries’ relative affordability, ability to be refilled, and biodegradability, are significant advantages as compared to current battery technologies, and should give it the edge in competition. They are currently aiming for the technology to hit the market sometime within the next few years.

“Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature,” stated researcher YH Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering. “So it’s only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery.”

While sugar batteries aren’t an entirely new concept, they have never been all that viable either — the new technology, though, is different, possessing an “energy density an order of magnitude higher than others,” according to Zhang. Continuing: “Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature. So it’s only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery.”

“We are releasing all electron charges stored in the sugar solution slowly step-by-step by using an enzyme cascade,” Zhang explained. “Different from hydrogen fuel cells and direct methanol fuel cells, the fuel sugar solution is neither explosive nor flammable and has a higher energy storage density. The enzymes and fuels used to build the device are biodegradable. The battery is also refillable and sugar can be added to it much like filling a printer cartridge with ink.”

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LINE Now Has 330 Million Registered Users

LINE, a messaging app primarily popular in Asia, now has 330 million registered users, according to a company rep we spoke with. The app added 30 million new users in less than two months.

We estimate that approximately 61% (or, 202 million) of LINE’s registered users are active each month.

Similar to other mobile messaging apps, LINE had a breakout year in 2013. It grew its monthly active user (MAU) audience by 213%. Company management expects that success to continue this year.

“We’re aiming for 500 million [registered] users in 2014,” LINE CEO Akira Morikawa was quoted as saying by CNET Japan.

However, LINE faces stiff competition from other messaging apps.

U.S.-based WhatsApp announced just a few days ago that it now has 430 million MAUs, having added 30 million new users in just one month. Furthermore, WhatsApp users are sharing a reported 50 billion messages daily, compared to the 7.2 billion that LINE was processing each day back in November. Growth for both LINE and WhatsApp are neck and neck. WhatsApp grew its MAU audience by 212% over the course of 2013.

Also, China-based WeChat remains a formidable competitor for both LINE and WhatsApp. WeChat last reported an MAU figure of 272 million in September 2013, when its parent company Tencent announced third quarter earnings. We estimate that WeChat is growing its MAU audience at roughly 4.5% each month, which would mean the app now has approximately 325 million MAUs. Annual growth for 2013 is estimated at roughly 96%.

China has 618 million Internet users, 80% of whom access the Internet via smartphones, so expect WeChat to continue growing at a steady pace. Meanwhile, LINE and WhatsApp will continue expanding to a greater variety of international markets in 2014.

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