iKit rolled out a cool FM transmitter back in December that had a little LCD on it that was interesting. The company is now rolling out a new charging solution that has a USB port and will keep your gear charged up in the car, assuming that gear needs a USB port to charge. The new charger is called the iKit AutoCharge + USB.

The charger slips into the DC outlet in your car and has a 2.1 AMP USB port on it that will charge anything from Apple including the iPad. The USB port is also up the task of charging anything else with a USB port on it.

The AutoCharge + USB also ships with a sync cable. That sync cable is a coiled cable for Apple gear that plugs into the USB port on the DC charger portion. The charger is available right now for $24.95.

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Ben Heck has been modding things and making things for a long time. The geek landed his own show doing what he does best not long ago and has made all sorts of cool gear since then. On the latest episode of the show, Heck made a cool charger that lets you power your Android photo on the go by winding a crank.

The kinetic charger uses a LED wind up flashlight and a micro USB charger that can be purchased over the counter. Heck puts some mod juju on it to combine the two parts into a crank powered charger.

The idea is that you can twist the handle to get juice for your Android smartphone on the road. It will work with any micro USB charging phone though. I wonder how much power the thing generates.

Via Android Community

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With more gadgets wanting to get their juice via USB, and the contents of our hardware bags quickly outnumbering the AC sockets on offer, manufacturers are getting clever to ways they can extend what power ports are accessible at any one time. FlipIt! may have a silly exclamation point in its name, but it also has a reasonably compact way of doubling up a standard US AC socket, sandwiching its connection in-between the wall and a regular plug.

As the graphic above suggests, the connections are hidden in the blue rotating arm; the body of the adapter can rotate 270-degrees. The output is a single USB port giving 5V/750mA, which should be plenty for a smartphone.

It’ll also work with international voltages, though since the two-prong plug isn’t a standard outside of North America you’d need an adapter; still, it could be a handy way to double the use from a single travel adapter. The FlipIt! USB charger is available now, priced at $15.99.

[via Ubergizmo]

A new multi-device charger has surfaced from a company called Joy that is dubbed the Touch-n-Go Multi-Device Charging system. The thing looks really strange with lots of little circular indents with three prongs sticking out.

The indents are where you would connect different short cables for your specific device. I see one little USB connectors and one for Apple gear in the photo. The charger has divots for 16 devices and if you use them all you will have one seriously crowded charger on your hands.

The device is coming soon it seems and pricing is unknown. The magnetic charging ports remind me of the ones that have been used to charge some wired/wireless mice for a long time now.

Via Chipchick

By Caitlyn Muncy

There are times when all of our grand technology runs out of juice, all at once. The only problem being that we don’t have enough USB charge ports available to us to charge everything at once. FastMac finally has their U-Sockets shipping out as you read this. A U-Socket has all the normal capabilities for three-pronged ports, but also has USB charge ports as well.

These super charger outlets can be installed on any pre-existing outlet, which makes for a very easy transfer. This is definitely the first of it’s kind on the market, and will improve the lives of gadget and gizmo-lovers across the states. Hopefully there are some designed for those around the globe who have a different shaped socket. These are only going to cost $19.95, and will help you charge everything when it needs to be charged instead of one at a time.

[ FastMac ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

Much of this stuff was shown off publicly for the first time at CES last week, but we thought it might be interesting to get everything that wireless charging company Powermat has planned for 2011 into one convenient place — and that’s exactly what this here slide deck has done for us. The first products in the pipeline for this year include a charging case for the Nokia N8, targeted for early Q2, along with a two-device portable charging mat that includes a built-in battery (7,800mAh!) that promises up to four full smartphone charges while staying completely off the grid; look for those to run $40 and $130, respectively. Later in the quarter, you’ll get a white two-unit mat (all of Powermat’s gear is black right now, so it’s a nice change of pace), several colored iPhone 4 cases, a BlackBerry Torch case, and an $80 so-called Power! Case for the iPhone 4 that integrates an external 1,800mAh battery for extra juice on the go.

Moving on to the third quarter of the year, you’ll see a dual-power one-device mat that can be powered either from the wall or a USB port for $40, a car mount that inductively charges your Powermat-enabled device, and an iPod touch case. Finally, the 1X Rechargeable Mat comes late in Q3, packing some undetermined (or at least unlisted) amount of juice into a mat that looks roughly similar to the existing one-device mat that’s already on the market; like Powermat’s other battery-powered mats, this one lets you juice devices when you’re not near an outlet, and it’ll be available for $70. Hit up the gallery for the full deck!

Powermat’s 2011 product roadmap: colorful iPhone cases, extended batteries, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GSLO has been buying up the rights to sell some interesting gear in the US. This is the company that is bringing the Peel 520 to the states among other things. GSLO has announced that it has landed the North American distribution rights to the Volt Solar Charger for the iPhone.

GSLO is getting the exclusive rights to the solar charger for all of North America. The Volt is made by a company called XSE. The Volt Solar Charger is an external battery pack that fits onto the iPhone and extends the battery life by using a solar charger on the outside of the case to trickle charge the battery.

The battery inside can also be charged by using a USB cable for longer runtime with the solar panel helping to keep the battery topped off. GSLO is mum on when the Volt will come to the US and how much the device will cost.

Continue reading Native Union MM03i Bluetooth handset / charging cradle for iPhone hits the Vegas strip

Native Union MM03i Bluetooth handset / charging cradle for iPhone hits the Vegas strip originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You won’t have a difficult time hunting down a charger these days, but hunting down a good one? Now that’s a challenge. If you’re looking for something that’s off of the beaten path (and shamelessly fond of Ma Earth), Idapt’s new i1 Eco may be precisely what the doctor ordered. It’s a universal charger with two points of charger: a USB port and a tip port, the latter of which is useful for “over 4,000 gadgets” include the iPad, iPhone, PSP, your Xbox 360 controller and your GPS unit. It features an auto-off system that disables it when not in use, and a restart button kicks things back into gear when the time comes. It’s slated to ship this spring, but only heaven knows for how much.

Continue reading Idapt’s i1 Eco universal charger keeps it lean, mean, and definitely green

Idapt’s i1 Eco universal charger keeps it lean, mean, and definitely green originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been more than a year since Nokia, Apple, RIM, Motorola and just about every other major cellphone manufacturer agreed on a micro-USB cellphone charger standard for Europe, but the two key European standards bodies have just now finally followed up on their end of the bargain. CEN-CENELEC and ETSI have today published harmonized standards for a universal cellphone charger based on micro-USB, which has now put the ball back in the manufacturers’ court to actually produce phones that rely on the newly standardized chargers. According to the European Commission, the first of those are expect to arrive sometime “in the first months of 2011,” and it expects the chargers to be “predominant” within two years. Head on past the break for the official announcement.

[Thanks, Pavel]

Continue reading European standardization bodies formalize micro-USB cellphone charger standard

European standardization bodies formalize micro-USB cellphone charger standard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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