Buyer Beware: How To Spot Counterfeit Batteries
"Buyer beware" is a phrase with which many of us are probably familiar. Translated from "caveat emptor" in Latin, it's a concept that, as you might be able to guess, has been around for quite some time. Obviously there would be no need for this sort of saying unless there was some sort of risk involved in business, but apparently even Ancient Roman markets had their share of scam artists and dishonest businesspeople.
Fast forward to present day, and things are different, but still very similar. With the advent of the internet and all of the information it makes readily available to its users, it has become easier to find out about who you are buying from, or whether or not the claims they make about their "amazing" and "superior" products are true. It all makes it much easier to be an "educated consumer" and protect yourself from being swindled.
The downside to this new technology, though, is that the scam artists and crooks have access to them too. And they are constantly coming up with new loopholes and tricks to get around all the ways consumers have found to try to protect themselves and their investments.
Case in point: We at ShopXtreme like to do our homework on our competition. We like to stay well-informed about their products and the offers they give consumers. After all, they are our competition.
We recently purchased what was advertised by one of our competitors as an original Canon battery. Despite being advertised as a genuine OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) battery, it was priced significantly lower than a similar Canon battery would, so we were suspicious from the get-go. Our suspicions were confirmed when we received the battery in the mail, and compared it to a similar battery that we were sure was manufactured by Canon.
We've put together a step-by-step analysis for all of our readers and customers (and the friends and families of our readers and customers) that details what the differences are between a genuine OEM and a supposed OEM battery. We've included some pictures as well, so you can see the differences for yourself:
In this photo, we show both batteries in their packaging, side by side. They are different models, but very similar in function and production. As you can see, they both have a holographic Canon sticker on the top left corner. The packaging looks very similar, but the NB-2LH looks slightly whiter. Not many noticeable differences at this first glance.- Next, we look at the quality of the type on each of the packages. If you look carefully, you will notice that the NB-2LH packaging looks much less sharp than that of the NB-1LH. The lowercase T's, as well as the lowercase A's and E's are noticeably less sharp than on the NB-2LH
packaging. The NB-2LH type looks bolder, yet blurrier. Its edges are less sharp, especially where the two diagonal lines of the lowercase K's meet the vertical one in "Akku." Would a multinational corporation that sells professional-grade photography and imaging products have such low-quality print in their packaging? Probably not. Which leads us to believe that this is somehow recreated from an original Canon NB-2LH pacakge; it was probably scanned and reprinted using lower-grade printers. 
Following along with the quality of the lettering on the paper insert of the packaging, we will next look at the lettering on the battery itself. Looking closely at the lettering that is painted on the battery it's easy to notice some of the same issues we found with the lettering on the paper. The lettering varies in thickness and consistency; the C in "CANON" looks very thin compared to the A next to it, and even the C in "PACK." The dots over the lowercase I's are barely visible, and all of the lettering is rather blurry and has rough edges. It basically looks like it was printed on the battery with a printer that did not make suitable contact with, or did not apply even pressure as it painted the white lettering on the plastic. Again, would a multinational corporation that sells professional-grade photography and imaging products have such low-quality print in their packaging? Not very likely.
In addition to the quality of the printing of the packaging, we can look at the sealing and alignment of the packaging as well. First off, if you compare the plastic packaging and paper insert of each battery, the NB-2LH looks just plain messy. The paper does not line up with the plastic, whereas the NB-1LH's plastic and paper line up exactly. Furthermore, the NB-2LH is not even sealed. The paper can easily slide out of the plastic cover. The NB-1LH, on the other hand, has been sealed shut with adhesive. We found this out firsthand when we tried to open up the NB-1LH and the plastic tore the paper a bit.
Finally, we take a look at the stickers on the back of the battery. If you see minor imperfections or misalignment with stickers, they can give you some hints as to the battery's authenticity. If you look at this picture of the NB-2LH, you can see that the stickers that they have put on the underside of the battery don't fit quite right. The black sticker is a bit smaller, but follows the edges of the designated "sticker area" pretty well. The blue sticker, however, is slightly smaller, and the upper right corner does not match up with the edge of the sticker area at all. Compare it to a genuine NB-2LH and you can easily see the difference for yourself.
If all else fails and you are still unsure whether or not the battery you have purchased or are looking to purchase is a genuine OEM, look at the price. A typical Canon NB-2LH battery manufactured by Canon will run you about $70. We purchased this "genuine" Canon battery for less than half of that price. If you are buying a replacement NB-2LH, then such a price (or an even lower one) would be believable. However, a supposed original Canon battery would never be so cheap.
Impressive 3D Figurines at Objet’s SIGGRAPH Booth
Hot on the heels of the first 3D printed plane across the pond, 3D printing company Objet impressed visitors to the SIGGRAPH convention in Vancouver this past week. Short for Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH attracts many innovative and front-running firms in the graphic design field, and 3D printing is definitely the cool new tech-du-jour.
For those who don't know, 3D printing is the latest and greatest way to create solid objects from three-dimensional digital designs. A laser is used to turn a special type of powder into a solid, layer by layer. Because the layers are incredibly thin, you can even make objects with moving parts with little to no difficulty. The possible applications are quite endless, making 3D printing an emerging tech trend with enormous potential.
The Objet booth didn't have anything too practical in terms of examples of their work, instead choosing to display some of their coolest and most exceptional examples. Of note was a War Machine mask, a mini version of The Destroyer from the recent Thor film, and a Neytiri figurine from James Cameron's Avatar. They're all examples of work from Legacy Effects, "an award-winning, full-service character design, make-up, specialty prop and animatronic studio." It's just one of the companies that has adopted Objet's 3D printer technology to revolutionize their operations in the best possible way. Check out the source link for more pics and the Objet's press release.
Source: Engadget
OpenStage 2.0 by Organic Motion Shakes Up The Motion Capture Market
Somewhere or another, you have definitely seen motion capture work being done. It's usually a person in a skintight spandex suit, with what look like little ping pong balls attached to the suit at different parts of the body, in front of a bright green or blue curtain. They then record the person doing various movements, and with the help of computer programs, they isolate the person from the bright green or blue backdrop, and use the white balls to create a wireframe model that looks very much like a crude stick figure. It's a pretty common technology in games and movies that feature computer generated characters, like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies.
But a company called Organic Motion has figured out a way to do away with all that. Their system, called OpenStage 2.0, does all of that work without the use of the skintight suits, green curtains, and white balls. Instead, they use anywhere between 8 and 24 cameras capable of recording 200 frames per second. Not too shabby for a revolutionary technology. The best part is that it can record multiple people moving at one, even with props in their hands. If you've got $40,000 to spare, feel free to try out the bottom-of-the-barrel 8-camera setup.
Check the source link for more pics and video.
Source: Engadget
Sony Creates Mega-Battery to Back Up Powerless Businesses
No doubt inspired by the tragic earthquake and resulting nuclear disaster in Japan, Sony has announced the ESSP-2000, a backup battery fit to keep a business afloat in the event of a power outage. Weighing in at just under 200 pounds, it's no lightweight, but it's capabilities definitely make up for its size. If your business should be unlucky enough to experience a power outage, the ESSP-2000 will kick in to provide 2.4kWh of electricity to the office. To put that number into perspective, a computer uses about .167 kWh of electricity in one hour.
The best part of this mega-battery is that it only takes two hours to recharge to 95 percent. This is due to the type of battery chemistry that Sony chose to use. The ESSP-2000 features olivine-type lithium-ion iron phosphate technology, a form of chemistry for rechargeable batteries that has a number of advantages over standard lithium-ion batteries (which use cobalt). First off, they are cheaper to manufacture, since they don't use expensive elements like cobalt. Secondly, they charge much faster. Third, they are non-toxic, and can be disposed of properly with very little effort, unlike more popular and extremely toxic lithium-ion technologies. Lastly (and probably the most impressive of all), Sony claims that the ESSP-2000 will last up to ten years!
The price of being able to continue to surf Facebook and fantasy sports even in the wake of a power outage or natural disaster? Two million yen, or $25,700 USD.
Source: Engadget
New Apple Patent Shows Off Strange Inductive Charging Headphones
Just a few days ago we covered inductive charging in a post about Evatran's Plugless Power system for electric vehicles, and the technology has just come up again in the news today.
Apple submitted a patent today for a system of inductively charging their mobile devices not through the headphone jack, but through the headphones themselves. One of the designs shows a charger base with a post on it, around which the headphone wires of an iPod or iPhone wrap around. The patent stipulates that the wires have a mesh of conductive metal on the outside, so as to create an inductive coil around the pillar-shaped charger stand.
The patent also describes another method of charging via headphones, but this one uses the actual earpieces. This method of charging is a really interesting concept, as it uses the existing technology of the speaker to do so. When music is playing through earphones (or speakers of any size for that matter), power is sent to the components inside, which in turn vibrate outwards and disturb the air. These disturbances are sensed by our ears, and translated into sound. Apple's patent would effectively reverse this process, vibrating the components in the headphones, generating current that is sent back down the headphone wires and into the iPhone or iPod's batteries! If these patents ever actually make it to production, it will be a really wondrous thing to behold!
Source: Engadget
Researchers Use Graphene to Improve on Battery Electrodes
It seems like every day, researchers at some lab in some part of the country are coming up with new and amazing ways to use graphene to improve battery performance in some manner that we never thought possible. This time, the news is coming from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
For those who aren't familiar with graphene, it's the building block of substances such as graphite (pencil lead) and charcoal. It forms one-atom-thick sheets, which are stacked upon each other over and over again to make larger materials. The reason that it's a fantastic conductor of electricity, and can be used in conjunction with other materials to boost efficiency.
Specifically, these researchers have used graphene to improve on existing battery electrode technology (aka the + and - ends of your friendly neighborhood AA). The start by layering alternating graphene and tin sheets, one by one. The resulting sheet is then baked at 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat makes the tin expand, giving it greater volume, and improving the performance of the electrode that it is used to make. This process makes the battery charge much faster, making it an alluring concept for makers of electric vehicles, which run on large rechargeable batteries. Obviously, nobody is going to want to buy a car that has to be recharged over a 12-hour period every time it needs more juice, so many manufacturers will probably be keeping a close eye on this technology as it improves and develops. The only downside to this discovery is that it isn't as resilient as current electrode technology, only lasting about 30 charging cycles, as opposed to the hundreds of charging cycles that something as sizable as an electric car battery would need.
Source: Engadget
Evatran’s Plugless Power System Gets An Upgrade, Looks More and More Attractive
One of the issues that is under constant discussion when talking about renewable energy use in cars is how they will be refueled or recharged. While there are gas stations virtually on every other corner in the country, there isn't a nationwide infrastructure for electrical vehicles (EVs) or hydrogen power vehicles. Part of this is due to the fact that no one form of renewable energy has beaten out all others definitively. Nobody wants to invest all of their money in creating charging or refueling stations for a technology that will be replaced in a year or two. It would be a living nightmare to try to switch the wires, plugs, adapters, and all the other little doodads and parts that the new technology would need. A recharging technology that doesn't have too many moving parts, is simple to use, and effective would be ideal, both in terms of catching on in the EV industry, and in terms of ease of replacement.
Enter Evatran, a company that has developed a system of recharging the batteries in electric vehicles without any physical contact like plugs or adapters. Evatran's Plugless Power charging system take advantage of inductive charging, a method of energy transfer that uses an electromagnetic field, without any physical contact of materials (as is necessary in conductive charging, which we all know and love).
The Plugless Power system uses a disc that is slightly smaller than an hubcap that is anchored to the ground and another plate that is fastened to the underside of your car. When you need to recharge your electric vehicle's battery, just drive over the disc on the ground, and the Plugless Power system will begin to transfer energy to the plate under your car, which in turn is connected to you EV's battery. The ground plate can be anchored just about anywhere there is adequate power, so it wouldn't be restricted to recharging station use - you could install it in your own garage! About a year ago, Evatran's ground-anchored disk was actually a rectangular mat that was about as long and wide as a car's underside, mustered only 80% efficiency, and required you to line up accurately if you wanted it to charge properly. Today, the mat is smaller than a tire, boasts 97% efficiency, and has a little bit of wiggle room in terms of aligning the plates up to charge.
Testing is beginning on Chevy Volts and will expand in January, but you can get your own car retrofitted and buy your own charging station for your home if you are willing to pay. An indoor charging station will run you $2,000, an outdoor station will cost $3,000, and retrofitting your car will cost an additional $2,000.
Source: Autobloggreen via Engadget
3D Printing Set to Take Off From University of Southampton
Lately there's been a lot of hubbub around 3D printers. The idea has been around for a while, but it has been gaining a lot of public attention from appearances on television shows like Known Universe on the National Geographic Channel, and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central.
The concept is simpler to grasp than you might think when you hear "3D printer." Basically, a laser is fired at a powder that solidifies when burned, layer by layer, from top to bottom. In order to print an item, you need a 3D image, which can be designed from scratch, or copied from an existing object by scanning it with special devices that can an object down to within 40 microns (less than the width of a human hair) of its actual dimensions.
Known Universe had an episode that focused on the potential benefits that 3D printing would have in space, for replacing small parts for repairs, while the Colbert Report touched on 3D printer company Makerbot, which focuses more on the consumer market and miniature likeness of Steven Colbert with tentacles.
But researchers from the University of Southampton in England have proven another area where 3D printers excel - aeronautical engineering. In just one week, they designed and built a model airplane from scratch, tweaking designs and reprinting parts that didn't work or that they wanted to test out. Because 3D printing even works for objects with moving parts, everything fit together perfectly, too. Best of all? It's cheaper than other methods of design. Here's to hoping for some new and exotic aeronautical designs in the future with the help of 3D printers.
Check out the video below for a look at the plane's test flight.
Source: Engadget
Stanford Researchers Create Transparent Battery
Those guys at Stanford University are pretty bright, aren't they? First they come up with paper batteries, then they discover efficiency-boosting technologies for lithium-ion batteries. Well, tack on another achievement, folks, because they have just created a transparent battery!
Professor Yi Cui and masters student Yuan Yang led a team of researchers that devised a way to create nanometer-wide grids that, when assembled properly, create a working lithium-ion battery. The best way to imagine it is to think of an incredibly small grid that is held together by a transparent, rubbery, and conductive compound called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The name looks like quite strange and is certainly a mouthful, but anybody who wears contact lenses will be quite familiar with PDMS.
The individual gridlines are composed of layers of metal, a special solution that contains "nano-sized active electrode materials" (aka the positive and negative ends of the battery), and a transparent gel that acts as a separator and electrolyte (aka the stuff in the middle that electricity passes through) simultaneously. Each one of these gridlines is 35 microns in width, making it impossible to see with the naked eye. This, in conjunction with the PDMS in which the grid sits, makes it an incredibly thin and transparent lithium-ion battery.
But how effective is it? Unfortunately, these transparent batteries are only half as powerful as their opaque brothers. Yang compares their energy density to that of nickel-cadmium batteries, an older technology that is most common in toys and other small electronics.
The good news is that what it lacks in capacity, it makes up in its lower costs. Cui claims that if they were to use low-cost metals, these transparent batteries could be as cheap as the AA and AAA batteries you see at your local supermarket.
Check out the video below from Stanford University to get a glimpse at the new technology. Professor Cui talks about having a transparent phone, but I personally think that would just make it twice as impossible to find. I'm more interested in cell phone accessories like cases or skins that double as backup batteries, without adding the additional bulk that current ones do.
Sources: Stanford University News via Engadget
Mozilla Announces Boot to Gecko, Jumping Into the Mobile OS War
With smartphones becoming as commonplace as they are these days, it's no surprise that companies other than Google, Apple, and Microsoft are trying to get into the lucrative market of programming apps and operating systems for mobile devices. And why wouldn't they? As more and more people make the switch from feature phones to smartphones, any tech company worth its salt has to have some hand in the market, be it accessories like headsets, cables, or cases, if not an app or operating system.
Although Mozilla has been battling Google and Microsoft on the internet browser front for a while, it's been noticeably absent from the mobile OS front that's been very hotly contested in the past few years by its competitors. Until today, that is. MozillaWiki added an entry today describing B2G, a shorthand reference to Boot to Gecko, a project by Mozilla "to pursue the goal of building a complete, standalone operating system for the open web."
Here's the lowdown: Mozilla plans to use use a small amount of Google's Android operating system code for hardware interaction. Everything aside from that will be built from scratch, including an entirely new user interface, as well as a suite of unique apps to go along with it. Unlike Android, it will not be using Java as its coding language, and it won't support programming in native code. The project is still in its infancy, and Mozilla has announced it in order to get as much feedback as it can from the public (at least, the programming public).
Source: Gizmodo, Tech Radar, MozillaWiki