Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. Legacy Archives

Keep Going with APC’s Mobile Power Pack

Add as a preferred source on Google
Keep Going with APC
Image used with permission by copyright holder

American Power Conversion, perhaps best known for their power regulation and backup products for individuals and businesses, have announced its new UPB10 Mobile Power Pack, a lithium polymer battery pack smaller than a deck of cards which can be used to provide additional power to portable electronic devices whose own built-in batteries aren’t carrying enough juice.

“Mobile device users continuously face the risk of running out of power. With the increasing dependence on these devices for work and play, the need for power is vital,” said Joe Loberti, general manager of APC’s Consumer Network Solutions group. “APC has built upon its expertise in power availability and protection to create the Mobile Power Pack. Consumers can rely on this rechargeable battery to keep their essential mobile devices operating long after an internal battery would have run out of power.”

Recommended Videos

The Mobile Power Pack includes an AC to USB power adapter and a USB to Mini-B power cable, so the device can be used to charge most portable devices via USB, including mobile phones, smart phones, portable music and video players, and portable gaming systems. APC, of course, recommends charging via its own USB Charging Cables (sold separately!) but the device maker’s own USB cables should work too. According to APC, the Mobile Power Pack can offer up to 55 hours more music playback time for devices like the iPod nano, 8 to 10 hours of email and talk time for smartphones like a BlackBerry or Palm Treo. The unit weighs just over three ounces, and comes in black with a one-year warranty. The Mobile Power Pack is available in North American markets for an estimated price of $69.99.

Geoff Duncan
Former Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
AI chatbots will happily create fake news articles, and tests show ChatGPT is the worst at it
Electronics, Phone, Mobile Phone

The biggest AI chatbots are supposed to help people find information, not manufacture misinformation. But a new investigation suggests that separating those two jobs isn't as straightforward as many AI companies would like users to believe. A series of tests found that several leading AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta AI, could be persuaded to generate fake news stories, fabricated headlines, and even realistic-looking screenshots of well-known media outlets. While every chatbot showed some weaknesses, ChatGPT reportedly performed the worst, producing the most convincing fake content with surprisingly little effort.

The findings come from an investigation by German newsroom CORRECTIV, which tested how the AI assistants responded when asked to create false reports involving sensitive topics such as election fraud, government coups, war, vaccines, climate change, and conspiracy theories.

Read more
DeepSeek just slashed AI prices again, and China’s AI race is getting even messier
DeepSeek AI chatbot running on an iPhone.

China's AI race has never really been short on competition, but it's increasingly looking like a battle over who can charge the least rather than who can build the best model.

DeepSeek has unveiled its latest open-weight AI model, called V4-Flash, alongside a dramatic price reduction that makes it significantly cheaper for developers to use. The company has cut token pricing by 50% and has also decided against introducing a previously announced dynamic pricing system that would have increased costs during periods of heavy demand. The new changes paint a clear picture: DeepSeek appears more interested in winning over developers and expanding its user base than maximizing revenue in the short term.

Read more
AI slop stories are spoiling the childhood
Grandparents are gifting AI-generated story books to kids, and it's just gross.
A child reading a book.

AI slop, the colloquial term for low-effort AI-generated content, has emerged as a huge problem across different industries. Music labels are fighting streaming services to put an AI label on such tra/cks. Publishing houses are wary of AI-written drafts. Research journals are buried under a deluge of AI-generated papers. The software industry is reeling under the pressure of vibe-coded apps brimming with security flaws. Even Apple is struggling against a tide of bug reports created using AI. Of course, the disdain against AI is pretty obvious, but there's now a new dimension to it.

Boomers are gifting AI-generated books to their grandkids.

Read more