Smartphone Charger and Backup Battery

Batteries are the bane of our existence. Can’t live with their pitiful charge. Can’t toss ‘em because then you’re completely dead in the water. Have you been a victim of short battery life? Have you been stranded powerless in the middle of nowhere, especially at restaurants? What you need is the ZAGGsparq 2.0.

ZAGGsparq 2.0 is two devices in one. First it’s a charger for all your USB charged devices. That’s pretty much everything these days. Second, it’s a backup battery with up to four time the charge contained in your device’s battery. Charge it when you have a outlet handy. Use it to power or recharge your gadgets where there are no outlets to be found. Check out this short video to get the overview.



Note that the ZAGGsparq 2.0 has two types of USB ports. One offers an optimized charge for devices that are capable of taking advantage of this feature. The Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod can make good use of this. The other port is a plain vanilla USB charger that works with other devices that don’t use the optimized USB charging specification.

The ZAGGsparq 2.0 is specifically engineered to charge the Apple iPad. Amazingly, it adds an additional 5 to 6 hours of video playback to the iPad. It will also extend the operation of your iPhone or iPod when you are running low but not in situation where you can pull out a conventional charger and plug it in.

You’re looking at a 6,000 mAh Lithium Polymer battery with the power to charge most smartphones 4 times, the yellow LED’s onboard indicate the amount of charge available in steps of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. You can plug it into any outlet with 100 to 240 VAC @ 50/60 Hz. Maximum output power is 2000 mA (2 Amps) at 5V.

All this fits into a package 3.5 x 3.5 x 1 inch. That’s easily small enough to fit into pocket, purse or other bag. How much does it weigh? Just 8.6 ounces - about half a pound.

Does this sound like just the accessory you’ve been desperately needing? If so, learn more and order your ZAGGsparq 2.0 charger and backup battery now.

MiFi Points The Way to Wireless Transition

Verizon Wireless just made an amazing announcement. They will be selling the Apple iPad in their stores. But aren’t Apple and AT&T exclusive partners? Indeed. So, why is Verizon selling a product that won’t work on their network? ...Or will it?

Yes, it will. How Verizon accomplished this clever feat of engineering points the way to the future of wireless broadband. Actually, not the future future. Just the immediate future. Call it the era of wireless transition.

Wireless technology has pretty much developed along two lines. One is the telecom carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. There are other players in the cellular wireless game, but they are simply private branded versions of the big four within the US. What characterizes the major carriers is that their offerings are proprietary. What works on AT&T won’t work on Verizon Wireless, and vice versa.

The other wireless path is an industry standard known a WiFi. It comes in flavors such as a, b, g, and n. But unlike telecom carrier services there is enough commonality and backwards compatibility that pretty much any WiFi device will work on pretty much any wireless router, hotspot or access point.

What Verizon has cleverly done is marry the two lines. They can’t get into the iPad through the front door, so the come in the back door. How? Very simple. They use an interface device to convert cellular to WiFi. That device is the MiFi. The Verizon MiFi is a little box about the size of a pack of cards. Inside is a cellular radio, a WiFi radio, a battery and some circuitry to make it all work. All you do is push a button to turn it on and the converter works automatically. It allows up to 5 wireless devices to gain access to the Verizon 3G wireless network as if they were Verizon-enabled to begin with.

The Verizon iPad will consist of an Apple iPad and a Verizon MiFi bundled together. They are separate pieces of equipment, but the MiFi will slip into your pocket or bag so it isn’t intrusive. At first blush, it may seem like having to carry around two pieces of equipment instead of just one is a big disadvantage for Verizon compared to AT&T. But Verizon may get the last laugh after all. The MiFi provides 3G connectivity for your iPad, but it also provides 3G connectivity for your other devices that don’t have their own 3G service built-in. That includes your laptop computer, netbook, games, and even your Apple iPod. If you had to buy separate 3G service for each device, you’d go broke. But one MiFi can serve whatever gadgets need connectivity, as long as they are WiFi enabled.

Verizon isn’t the only one with a MiFi. Novatel, maker of the MiFi, offers an unlocked version for GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. There’s a MiFi specifically for Virgin Mobile. Sprint goes one further with their Sierra Wireless Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot. It works on both the Sprint 3G Mobile Broadband network and its 4G WiMAX network. CLEAR offers a similar 3G/4G converter called Clear Spot.

Even these converters are transitional technology. Smartphones, starting with the Droid X by Motorola and Samsung Epic, have the cellular to WiFi hotspot capability built-in. This is likely to become a standard feature on smartphone designs, as WiFi and Bluetooth are the industry standard wireless technologies. WiFi has the greater transmission range.

Down the road a few years, the tide of wireless seems to be going in the direction of standardizing on LTE as a 4G standard. Cellular phone may give way to VoIP over LTE. At that point it will be hard to tell the difference between a mobile phone, a smartphone and a digital device like a tablet computer. Perhaps a single smart radio chip will provide universal wireless connectivity. Just pick your carrier and sign up for a service plan after you buy the device. The wireless transition era will be complete.

Is The End Of Cellular Phone Near?

We love our cell phones. We can’t live without them. Yet, a recent report throws into doubt the future of cellular phone service as we know it today. What can possibly threaten the most popular telecommunications service in the world and what will we do instead?

The report is a bit of news that was announced about the same time as the release of the new Apple iPad. Almost lost in the hoopla was a confirmation by Apple that they are now allowing VoIP applications over 3G cellular on the iPhone. AT&T chimed in that they had “tweaked” their network to allow VoIP over 3G.

What’s so earth-shattering about that? Until now, VoIP has been application non-grata on cellular networks. There are two good reasons for that. The technical reason is that VoIP generates a steady stream of packets while a call is in progress. If you have too many conversations going simultaneously, they’ll hog all the bandwidth and the network will become congested to the detriment of everyone. The business reason is that any call made using VoIP on the broadband data link is one less call using cellular minutes.

This showdown has been brewing for some time. It’s rooted in the historical design and pricing for cell phone service. In the beginning... a couple of decades ago... cellular phone systems were designed to offer mobile telephone service. The first generation were analog. The next generation went digital. But it was all based on voice channels transporting full duplex phone conversations. The model was the standard telephone handset minus the wire.

The addition of a separate data service, especially a broadband data service, is a more recent addition. Each carrier has only certain licensed frequencies that it can use at each tower site. They divvy up that bandwidth between voice and data. There need to be enough channels so that anyone who wants to make a phone call can do so. But there also needs to be enough broadband capacity so that customers will buy the add-on data service for their smartphones.

Now here’s the rub. Voice plans are sold as a package of so many minutes per month. Data plans are sold as an unlimited broadband usage, although in practice there actually is a limit of 5GB or so to thwart those who try to use the cellular network to replace a DSL or Cable broadband connection. There’s just not enough bandwidth available if everyone did THAT. But, in theory, you could use Skype or another VoIP service on your data plan for telephony and skip the voice package completely. This is the doomsday scenario that has triggered the wrath of cellular carriers whenever they suspect a VoIP incursion into their networks.

There are some recent developments that may soon render this battle of the protocols moot. The first change was the availability of all-you-can-eat voice and data plans. If no one is tracking minutes so they can charge for overages, then who cares if the call goes down the voice or data pipe? It all pays the same.

Just as significant is the reality that the data channel is the one with the screaming demand for more and more bandwidth. Video is becoming the wireless killer-app and video consumes bandwidth by the Mbps, versus a few dozen Kbps to support a phone call. Every carrier is in a mad scramble to upgrade its backhaul capability and tower site facilities to add more and more 3G bandwidth. They’ll likely not even finish before the next generation of higher bandwidth called 4G is deployed. That’s coming sooner than you think. The FCC just told wireless microphone users to get off the off the old 700 MHz TV channels that were sold to wireless carriers so they can be put to their planned uses.

If data bandwidth demands are swamping voice channel demands, it’s only logical to rethink the whole cellular service market. In the future, we’ll all be carrying small computers that also make voice calls or, more likely, video chat calls. Telephones that also do a little Internet browsing will be relegated to the recyclers. How about that iPad? It even looks like a big iPhone. All you need is a Bluetooth headset and an approved VoIP app and you’ve got yourself a tablet telephone.

Data dominance is going to render the idea of talk minutes a bit quaint. You’ll either pay by the minute for everything with a pay-as-you-go plan, or pay a flat fee for however you want to use the cellular network. The cellular carriers will become wireless broadband network providers for roaming, mobile and some fixed location applications. Cellular may be entering its twilight years, but wireless is just getting started.

iPad Jones. I’ve Got An iPad Jones

I’ve been eyeing those e-book readers ever since the Amazon Kindle appeared on the scene. There’s some appeal in being able to tote lots of books with you wherever you happen to go. But even more appealing to me is the ability to adjust font sizes so I can read without my glasses on. Plus, not having to find space on the basement shelves for more books that do little more than collect dust is a bonus. I’ve held off, though, mostly because I don’t just sit and read book after book anymore. The real-time interactive nature of the Internet is just so much more compelling. If only you could have a e-book reader that was also an Internet computer. Now THAT would be something!


(The iPad baby picture courtesy of Apple)

Enter the iPad, Steve Jobs' latest paradigm shifting device. It’s an e-book reader, for sure. But it’s also an Internet computer that lets you surf the Web, shop online, watch movies and YouTube videos, store your photos, listen to music, send and receive email, get maps, make notes, manage your contacts and calendar, and even make presentations.

Those are just the initial applications that will be provided by Apple itself. What’s even more revolutionary is that the iPad is designed to run almost 140,000 existing apps from the App Store. Where did they get all those apps so quickly? These are the same apps that have been developed for the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone. Just look at the iPad design. Is it not a much larger version of those devices?

This is part of the genius behind the iPad and why it will change society. It’s a device you didn’t know you needed but won’t be able to live without once it’s in your hands. The fact that it comes with such an incredible array of software applications right out of the gate, and with the familiar user interface of other apple mobile devices, means millions of users will know just what to do with it instinctively.

At home, we can really use something like this for sitting around the living room with the TV on. No need to balance a clunky laptop on your knees. No need to go to another room to check Twitter, email, FaceBook, RSS feeds, favorite websites or online business activities. The electronic books are a bonus. I’d want one of these just to have Safari on a device I can hold like a book.

An iPad on the go has even more advantages. It’s about the size and weight of a thin hardcover book. That means it slips into a much smaller bag or briefcase than a standard laptop computer. Connectivity is via WiFi, of course. But it also comes in a version that will run on AT&T’s 3G network for complete mobility. Apple has even negotiated special wireless rates so that you’ll pay half or less what you would for cellular broadband on a netbook or laptop aircard.

What Jobs showed at the iPad introduction and what’s on the Apple website now is surely only the beginning. There’s an SDK for developers, and you know they’ll go wild with the new tablet form factor. I’d expect apps for business to be on the shelf by the time the first iPads ship in a couple of months. It seems so perfect for outside sales of all types, medical offices, factory paperwork, engineering teams, corporate meetings, college and even high school students.

What makes the iPad perhaps less than perfect? I would like to have seen a built-in webcam for video conferencing, multitasking capability and support for Flash websites. Perhaps these things will come later. Apple already offers a dock with a full size keyboard and a connector so you can sync to other computers and load pictures from your digital camera. With as popular as this device is going to become, you know that the aftermarket companies are testing prototypes of all sorts of peripherals in their labs right now.

Oh, did I mention the pricing? It starts at $499 for the 16 GB WiFi only device and goes up to $829 for a 64 GB WiFi + 3G model that will take an extra month to become available. Drat! I want to start using one of these tonight!