File this one under “Idiot Bureaucrats and their rules.” The great thing about bureaucracy is that there’s no end to the supply of nonsensical, needlessly complex, potential harmful regulations enforced under the guise of making life safer for society. Since we’re all apparently incapable of keeping those spare lithium-ion batteries safely stowed during your flight to “wherever,” the TSA has come up with new guidelines on how to carry those extra batteries. In light of all the recent lithium-ion battery explosions , the TSA has decided to take action. You can’t check your spare batteries anymore – that is, unless you have too many spare batteries. But, “too many spare batteries” is defined as the number of grams of lithium you happen to have on your person. So, if you happen to be carrying over the designated limit of lithium gram-age (you do know just how many grams of lithium each of your batteries contains, right?), you can carry the spares on board. Oh, and you can carry-on those spare batteries if they’re installed in some sort of device (external charger, for example). Confused yet? We’re sure we could abide by these new rules if we really tried. But, seriously, are we going to go through the trouble when TSA agents probably won’t know what to do anyway. Has anyone ever taken a look at TSA agents? We’re pretty sure they not exactly up-to-date on just how grams of lithium a particular battery contains - that is, if they can even decipher the TSA’s new rules.  Color us annoyed. Maybe we should just stop reporting all those gadget-related mishaps, that way the TSA will never hear about it and they won’t have to “protect” us with retarded regulations. [Via: WMExperts ] ---Related Articles at IntoMobile:New, Cheaper, Longer-Lasting Batteries on the waySugar-Powered Cell Phone On The Horizon?Mobile phone unlocking laws keeping iPhone out of France?British Information Commissioner's Office: It's ok to Bluetooth spam people2008: Year of the Apple iPhone battery rot

While wireless-charging solutions and hydrogen fuel cells are still on the horizon, Stanford researchers have just come across a breakthrough in battery technology that’s available today. We’d love to have our mobile phone charge while in our pocket, or have our fuel cells topped off at the nearest hydrogen charger, but alas, those technologies have yet to even come close to hitting the mainstream. For now we’ll have to deal with the best that current tech has to offer - the Lithium-Ion battery. The engineering geeks at Stanford have come up with a way to extend the capacity of current Li-ION batteries by ten times. Repeat - that’s ten times longer battery life from the same battery! The new tech promises to boost a cellphone’s 4 hour battery life to 40 hours of uptime - an incredible feat in any book. The research team leader, Yi Cui, has already filed a patent application and hope to get battery manufacturers to adopt his new technology.  “It’s not a small improvement,” Cui said. “It’s a revolutionary development.” Lithium-ION batteries are limited by how many ions can be stored on the battery’s anode, which is usually made of carbon. Cui has replaced the carbon anode with silicon to achieve the boost in capacity. His approach uses silicon stored in nanowire tubes that resist fracturing as the silicon swells and shrinks in proportion to the ion-load. Let’s hope this tech hits the mainstream sooner than later. Who wouldn’t pay a couple more bucks for a a ten-fold increase in battery life? [Via: Nanotechwire ] ---Related Articles at IntoMobile:New, Cheaper, Longer-Lasting Batteries on the wayRennselaer University researchers develop nanotube-paper batteries powered by human sweat, blood, and even urineNokia enters the Silicon Valley2008: Year of the Apple iPhone battery rotNew Thin Film Battery To Revolutionize EVERYTHING!