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It’s official. The Obama administration is going to take over the largely vacant Thomson Correctional Center in the countryside west of Chicago and convert it into a federal maximum security prison that will house Guantanamo detainees. Predictably, Obama critics have decried the move, arguing that transferring Gitmo detainees stateside will court terrorist attacks on our home soil.

More surprisingly, many local residents of Thomson have applauded the decision on the grounds that it will bring badly needed jobs to their economically depressed town. Though liberals might well support Obama’s efforts to close down Guantanamo, I think they should unequivocally reject this prison-providing-employment justification. It unwisely categorizes incarceration as an economic good.

Of course, there is no denying that prisons provide jobs and that too many Americans need jobs. But a far better idea for reducing unemployment was Obama’s campaign-trail promise to create millions of Green Jobs. Promoting green employment means creating economic incentives to improve the environment. Promoting prison employment, on the other hand, creates an economic incentive to put more people in cages. Putting even more people in prison pollutes our social environment.

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by Lou Bendrick

Can eco-cocoas melt away holiday stress?Photo: Jason HoustonLet’s just say for the sake of argument, that you’re a little busy this time of year. (This is the part where you snort, as if to say, “You have no idea, sister.”) Also, let’s say that it’s cold outside where you live. (Is the pope an old German guy?) Lastly, let’s assume that, because you’re reading this on an environmental news site, you have green inclinations.

This all leads me to conclude that what you need at this very moment is a steaming cup of hot cocoa that is not only quick but also environmentally principled.  (I.E., not made by the handful of corporations known as “Big Chocolate” that buy cacao from heavily sprayed plantations and pay farmers poverty wages or, worse yet, use child labor. )

For you, my frozen, frantic reader, I bullied my friends assembled a panel of tasters, one of whom brought a light-up holiday animal that resembled an electrified Westie (see photo).  I supplied the organic cocoa mixes, a can of whipped cream for the kids, and an array of kitschy mugs.  (Note: The kids, much to their disappointment, were left out of this tasting. I thought it best to avoid full-blown pancreatic shut-down during the holidays.)

Please note: Most of these products were powdered mixes (just add water, milk or your “favorite non-dairy alternative”), but in one case we tried a quickie beverage made from chocolate “discs.” The mixes were largely certified organic as well. They were also, comparatively speaking, pricey. You can get a honkin’ 50-pack box (50 ounces) of Swiss Miss hot coca mix for $12.49 at Staples. (Of course, why the hell you’d want to buy any “food” at Staples is beyond me.)  I paid substantially more in general for the eco hot chocolate drinks—in one case I ponied up $13.95 for 3.5 ounces (go ahead, exhale that breath you just sucked in) for the discs.

How did they taste? Read on.
Our results:
 
Green & Black’s organic hot chocolate drink
Ingredients: Organic raw cane sugar, organic fat-reduced cocoa powder, organic dark chocolate powder (organic chocolate liquor, organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, soy lecithin, (emulsifier), organic vanilla extract).
Price: $4.29 (on sale), for 5.3 ounces
Special notes: Sports the USDA organic seal. Directions call for hot milk rather than hot water, which you’d think would make your beverage somehow better.
 
Who knew hot cocoa mix could taste tannic? This mix made our tasters pucker.  “That’s not right,” quipped one taster who sported a festive holiday sweater. She then reached for the whipped cream. Strangest comment: “Kind of vegetal.” Most passionate comment:  “What the hell are people thinking?” Kindest comment: “It’s not that bad,” said one taster, who, it should be disclosed, was jet-lagged to the point of stupor because he had just returned from an international trip wherein he ate cicada thoraxes and chicken feet, and whose opinion no one trusted.
 
Dagoba organic drinking chocolate
Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, organic coca, organic  chocolate, organic milk (less than 0.1%)
Price: $6.99 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Certified organic and fair trade certified. The directions for this mix included this line: “When the vapors of the milk rise the milk will be at its most receptive to accept the chocolate into its embrace.” Sorta sexy, in this way! This, um, sexyness, might be due to the fact that Dagoba’s eccentric founder, Frederick Schilling,  according to an inside source is “way hot.” Then again, Dagoba was bought by Hershey’s (see Big Chocolate, above.)
 
Again, tasters were freaked out by the smell: In this case, “like the inside of a tire.” Though the panel thought this drink was creamier than the others, some found it to have a bitter aftertaste.  The bug-eater thought it had a “more of a darker chocolate flavor.” To be fair though, this mix may have been more chocolatey because the directions called for four tablespoons of the stuff per your “favorite mug.”  (As opposed to the more common two-tablespoon-per-favorite-mug directive.)
 
Full Circle Organic Milk Chocolate Flavor Hot Cocoa Mix
Ingredients: Organic dehydrated can juice solids, organic whey, organic non-fat dry milk, organic cocoa (processed with alkalai), sea salt, calcium carbonate, natural vanilla flavor, xanthan gum (a natural vegetable product).
Price: $3.49 for 10 1-ounce packets
Special notes: Certified organic. This is my conventional grocery store’s bargain brand of organic products. Slogan: “Return to a natural way of living.”
 
For those prone of nostalgia, this is the most Swiss-Missy of the cocoa mixes—or, as one taster put it, it’s “the cocoa of my youth.” Like all of the add-water mixes, its texture is depressingly thin. Overall, tasters found it to be “synthetic” and “overly sweet.” Strangest comment: “It tastes like Playdoh!” Most damning: “You can get way better stuff at the ski lodge.” Ouch.
 
Equal Exchange Organic and Fairly Traded Hot Cocoa
Ingredients: Fair trade certified organic evaporated sugar cane juice, organic nonfat dry milk powder, fair trade certified organic cocoa-processed with alkali, organic guar gum, sea salt, organic carob bean gum, organic vanilla powder (organic vanilla extract, organic maltodextrin, organic gum Arabic).
Price: $9.29 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Equal Exchange is a worker-owned Fair Trade organization; this mix is certified organic and fair-trade certified. Container is made from recycled cardboard.
 
Q: “What’s that terrible smell?”
A: “I dunno, something weird.”
 
All in all, this product was slightly more chocolatey than the others, but also “cardboardy.” Most disaffected comment. “It has an underlying whatever.”
                           
Pierce Brothers Hot Cocoa
Price: $7.99 for 8 ounces
Ingredients: Organic evaporated cane juice, organic nonfat dry milk, fair trade certified organic cocoa, salt, natural flavor, guar gum.
Special notes: Fair trade and certified organic. Directions warn that “due to all natural organic ingredients, some setting (sic) may occur.”
 
The entire panel winced at the smell of this cocoa, which one taster said was “like ammonia.” The adjective “burned” was used most often to describe its flavor, as in “burned milk” and “burned rubber.” This un-chocolately mix actually made the tasters angry. “Who decided that this was okay?” demanded festive holiday sweater lady.  “I can’t understand how anyone would bring this to market,” scowled another taster. (Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!)
 
Ah!Laska Certified Organic Cocoa Chocolatey Chocolate Mix
Ingredients: Organic cane sugar, organic non-fat milk, organic cocoa powder (non-alkaline), organic rice syrup solids, xanthan gum (a natural thickener), carrageenan (a natural seaweed extract emulsifier), maltodextrin, organic vanilla powder.
Price: $7.99 for 12 ounces
Special notes: Certified organic. Cartoon mascot: AH! Bear.
 
Tasting results. “It’s got that smell again,” someone wailed.  Overall, the panel thought this mix was watery and without chocolate flavor.  One found it “vaguely soap-like.” The grub-eater, who evidently was taking a hatecation,  said it was “not offensive.”
 
Patric Fine Hot Chocolate Disks
Ingredients: cocoa beans, cocoa powder
Price: $13.95, for 3. 5 ounces (!)
Special notes: This product is hot chocolate, not hot cocoa. We’re talking solid form here, not powder. As you might have guessed from the price, this is super-duper premium micro-batch, bean-to-bar artisinal stuff. And although it doesn’t tout its organic ingredients, its cacao from Madagascar is certified organic. (Even though organic chocolate is no tastier than conventional, according to Patric’s founder). Note also that there is no sugar in this stuff—you are trusted to add your own “to taste.” Further, the directions call for you to use an actual whisk and to serve this beverage in “small tea cups.” I’m not sure what happens if you add mini marshmallows—I think someone rings your doorbell and slaps your face with leather gloves. In other words, this is not a hot beverage for the kiddies to swill.
 
“No comparison!” hooted one taster. Another said, “This is the only one I’d drink regularly.” In general this non-mix, which was added to milk, yielded very rich, very creamy results. Once the giddy gratitude died down a bit, the descriptions started to sound like wine-speak: “It’s got legs!” and “lots of complexity.” Then someone mentioned the price tag. The group got quiet and a glum as we collectively realized that we had just fallen in love above our social rank. Not even the Christmas Westie could cheer us.
 
Photo: Jason HoustonThe bottom line: I know it’s blustery out there and you’re busy (okay, really freakin’ busy), but if you buy hot chocolate from a mix, we can’t be friends. It’s that simple. Can you get something quick and delicious and principled? You can. It’s the Patric chocolate discs, but they’re priced like contraband and you’ll have  to have sell plasma to support your habit. Therefore, I’m going to give you an option to avoid other mixes that have that smell:  Get some cocoa powder (fair trade and organic if you’re flush) and sugar from the pantry and mix them in equal parts (say, one heaper of each per mug) in a glass measuring cup. Add a dash of vanilla. Next, add a little water and whisk it all into a syrupy liquid. Then whisk this into a pan of simmering whole milk. (For love of any god you choose, don’t use skim. Please. It’s the holidays.) Pour the result into your favorite mug (yes, it must be your favorite mug—anything less will screw this up royally). Next, bring on the whipped cream. Then, once you’re infused with warm-fellow feeling, and if you have two cents leftover, send a donation to the world-saving organization of your choice.

Related Links:

PETA on one side, FOX on the other … now that’s a conundrum

Umbra on chocolate

THQ’s WWE SmackDown vs. Raw won’t be going anywhere soon. The publisher has secured the license for an additional eight years, beginning next year.

“This agreement ensures that WWE games will continue to be an important cornerstone of THQ’s annual release schedule for the long term,” said THQ CEO Brian Farrell.

“We look forward to working directly with WWE to expand their brand in the video game space through continued game play innovation and increased online delivery of WWE content.”

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Every year for the past few years some health expert has come out against Santa, saying that the big man is just too big to be a good role model for our children. One year there was even a skinny Santa who refused to wear padding because he didn’t want the kids on his lap to think that being as heavy as Santa is typically portrayed was a good thing.

This year the criticism of the jolly elf comes from Nathan Grills of Monash University in Australia, who says that Santa should start walking instead of relying on his sleigh to get around.

The trouble with Santa

Grills noted in his report in the British Medical Journal that there’s “very high Santa awareness” among young children, but he is a poor role model because of his size, frequent reports of cookie binges and refusal to wear a helmet when he slides down chimneys.

He said there’s a correlation between countries that have Santa as part of their tradition and overweight children, and Santa “is a late adopter of evidence-based behavior change and continues to sport a rotund, sedentary image.”

What’s more, Santa presents a public health nightmare as a potential vector for the spread of colds and flu among children who sit on his lap. (While the report is light-hearted, this is probably a real concern.)

The paper suggests Santa should ditch the cookies and start sharing carrots with the reindeer.

Skinny Santa no help

We’ve noted before that we don’t think a slimming Santa would help kids get the message about healthier eating, mostly because kids understand that he’s not real and therefore shouldn’t be a role model for any sort of behavior.

As we noted a couple of months ago in reference to a British anti-obesity campaign featuring “The Simpsons,” most kids know the difference between stories and reality and know not to take advice from folks who aren’t real. Which is a good thing, or we’d have a lot more kids trying to be superheroes out there.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News (REF3076322B7)

Santa’s too fat, the annual edition

Filed under: Motorsports

Some motorsports fans take issue with the fact that the vast majority of NASCAR tracks are little more than a series of left turns. This is for you, roundy-round jokers. The official sport of the South is mixing in some right turns and working the brakes a bit more in 2010 with a pair of road courses. The first race, a June 20 Sprint Cup affair at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, was already on the books, and now the truck racing series has added a second road course on June 19. The Nationwide Truck Series race will be held at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, where a scenic 4.04 mile, 14 turn course awaits tailgate-loving NASCAR drivers.

We joke about NASCAR and right turns, but Wisconsin native Paul Menard thinks the biggest challenge will come courtesy of the brake pedal. “Braking will be the hardest aspect. Strategy will play a big part in this race.” NASCAR hasn’t run a national cup race at Road America since way back in1956, back when race cars used carburetors weren’t as fast. Racing Road America will likely be a challenge for drivers who participate in both NASCAR Series, as a trip from Wisconsin to California inside of 24 hours sandwiched between a pair of tough races doesn’t sound at all easy to us.

Whether you love NASCAR or you can’t stand it, we’re thinking middle America’s racing sport of choice deserves hats off for mixing it up a bit this year.

[Source: NASCAR | Image: Road America]

NASCAR turns right, headed to Road America in 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Helix Wind expects to submit an application to the Department of Energy for two separate loan guarantees totaling $10 million early next year.

San Diego-based Helix plans to use the guarantees to finance it acquisition of U.S. turbine maker  Abundant Renewable Energy and Venco Power, which is based in Germany and manufacturers vertical axis small wind turbines.

Helix CEO Ian Gardner tells us that they are assembling the application package for submittal early next year. Deadlines to submit a DOE loan-guarantee application are February 18, 2010; April 22, and June 24.

The smart money has been saying this week that the final health-care legislation will look a lot like the Senate bill that is very likely to pass tomorrow with 60 votes.

But there could still be a month or more of hollering left before all is said and done. The standard line has been that House and Senate Dems will reconcile their health bills before the president delivers the State of the Union address, which is typically given in late January. But Politico reports today that the haggling may take longer than that.

Even assuming that House Dems gives up on a public option — which they’ll have to do, if they want a bill that can pass the Senate — there will be several other bones of contention. Backers of both bills say they maintain a prohibition on using public money to pay for abortions — but the bills differ on how they treat the issue, and reconciling the two could prove difficult, the Associated Press reports.

Another big difference between the bills is how to pay for expanding the number of people with health insurance. The House bill relies heavily on a surtax on people with high incomes, while the Senate bill includes a payroll tax increase and a tax on high-end health insurance plans, as yesterday’s WSJ noted. (President Obama backed the tax on high-end health plans in an interview with NPR today, by the way.)

Assuming the a bill does clear Congress early and get signed into law at some point in the next month or two, it will be several years before all of the changes are phased in. We figure the debate may wrap up some time in 2019, give or take.

Photo: Associated Press

Rumors about an Apple Tablet have been swirling around for what seems like forever now. The latest is a tip received by BoyGenius Report, who has a source claiming that a 7-inch version is on the verge of launching.

This is interesting, especially in light of the fact that recent stories pegged a 10-inch design for the tablet. Are those rumors wrong, or is Cupertino planning to unleash two different styles of the device? It’s anyone’s guess at this point, but the tipster seems pretty adamant that the smaller version, at least, is real and on the way.

Not the least interesting part of this tip is the purported timeframe: January 2010. Like, as in next month. Normally, I’d roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders, and throw this in the rumor pile without blinking, but BGR says this connection has been extraordinarily accurate in the past. While that still doesn’t mean I’d bet my house on this, it does make it a little tougher to write off.

What do you think? If Apple unveils a 7-inch tablet next month, are you buying?

Via: BoyGenius Report

“This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program.”
– President Barack Obama, after the Senate health care bill secured 60 votes.

The notion that the health care reform bill would make Medicare more solvent and also expand benefits never made any sense.  The health care reform bill makes cuts to Medicare, and uses them to pay for new spending; to the extent that we think we need to pay for, um, Medicare with cuts to Medicare, this bill actually weakens either the program, or our future budgets.

I mostly ignored claims to the contrary because they seemed so self-evidently stupid.  But then this graphic started a-circulating among pundits who favored health care reform:

It’s from the Wonk Room blog at the Center for American Progress, and as you can see, it puts this claim up there front and central.  As you can see from the quote above, it’s not just an error made by one pundit.  As I recall, the claim was made more than once during the Senate debate, and of course, by our president in selling the bill.  The graphic was very widely distributed.

Unfortunately, the CBO finally got around to ruling on this question, and no, this is not actually going to fix the Medicare budget problem; it’s an artifact of the way the government accounting is done.  

The explanation is a little complicated, and I’m not sure how many of you want to go through it, but I’ll try my hand at a reasonably succinct explanation.  Basically, Medicare, like Social Security, has a “trust fund” (actually, more than one), which is supposed to fund it until the trust fund is exhausted in 2019.  The “trust fund” does not exist in any meaningful sense, because its “assets” consist of claims on the general fund, i.e. all the rest of the tax money.  As Medicare goes into deficit, it trades in those assets to cover its funding gap, which means the general fund has to find the money to pay off the special bonds by either raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing more money.  After the trust fund is exhausted, the general fund has to find the money to pay for the Medicare deficit by either . . . raising taxes, cutting other spending, or borrowing more money.  The difference to taxpayers is nil.

Technically, when you cut Medicare spending, that money shows up as an increase in the Medicare trust fund, rather than some other possible accounting entry.  But the effect on the unified budget is the same:  the money saved by cutting Medicare is spent on other stuff.  Whether Medicare is “calling bonds” or “demanding money to cover its deficit”, we still have to find exactly as much money to pay for Medicare as we did before.  Which is a lot of money.  One of the reasons the projected deficits for the rest of the decade are so big is that the cost of Medicare is outstripping the revenue raised by its payroll tax, and so we have to shovel in more and more money from the general fund.

You can dedicate that money to paying for Medicare–but then you have to introduce a corresponding future liability on the general fund, in the amount of the Medicare savings.  That would mean that this bill would increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, rather than reducing it.

Or as the CBO says:

The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the PPACA would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits. To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

It’s a little disappointing, really. At the rate that Democratic politicians were generating ever-more-spectacular budget savings from the same old set of health care proposals, I had expected our looming fiscal problems to be permanently resolved by this time next week.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• HEALTHCARE REFORM SEEN SLIPPING TO FEBRUARY, Obama To Focus On New Stimulus
• Jersey Shore Residents Freaked Out By New Tax On Fake Tanning
• Sorry, Haters, The Healthcare Bill Actually WILL Reduce Costs

Nobody is yet plotting to shrink Raquel Welch and inject her into your veins, but engineers are making notable progress toward the Fantastic Voyage vision: creating miniature probes that could dart around in your blood and treat disease from the inside.

Human-powered mobile answers service ChaCha has raised $7 million funding, according to an SEC filing. The company has confirmed the funding but declines to name investors. This brings ChaCha’s total funding to nearly $70 million.

ChaCha has been the subject of a little bit of ridicule at TechCrunch since its launch, thanks to its entertaining snafus and some issues with its business model. Despite its various problems over the years, the company has been able to raise a boatload of money adding $4 million to the pot earlier this year.

While ChaCha’s service currently attracts about 9 million unique users per month through mobile devices and its website, the model has had some problems ChaCha has cut guides’ payments quite a few times since its inception and was forced to lay off a significant part of its staff earlier this year. The startup recently branched out from the answers engine by launching a digital coupon service.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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YouTube: The Known Universe by AMNH
CICLOPS: Holiday greetings from Saturn! 
Washington Post: SETI quest gains momentum
POGO: Researchers accidentally blow up building
Pwned Experiments: All your data are belong to us
Interstellar mission studied (via Space Coalition Blog)
Science @ NASA: Voyager makes interstellar discovery
Cracked: Six adorable cat behaviors with evil explanations
ONN: Net archaeologists find ruins of ‘Friendster’ civilization …(read more)

This should come as a relief to all you anxiously awaiting your Barnes and Noble Nook pre-orders. We’ve received a statement from Barnes and Noble affirming that all pre-orders which had an original pre-holiday ship date will be fulfilled, and that the rest of the orders will be filled starting in Friday. Here’s the full, reassuring statement:

“We’re happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010. “

Happy, happy holidays!

Nook shipping update assures pre-orders arriving on time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s now been over a year since the infamous announcement, leaked to the Wall Street Journal, that the RIAA was going to effectively drop its strategy of suing individuals in favor of agreements, worked out between the RIAA and ISPs with NY AG Andrew Cuomo adding pressure, to kick people off the internet on a “three strikes” regime. The whole thing sounded pretty ridiculous at the time. Cuomo had absolutely no legal standing to pressure ISPs into such a deal, since the ISPs had every legal right to say no. And, since the “leak” many ISPs have insisted, quite vocally, that they have never made any such agreement with the RIAA and that they would never kick their customers offline in such a manner.

And so Greg Sandoval, over at News.com, smartly realizes that these “preliminary agreements” we were told about last year are still nowhere to be found and goes exploring to find out why. Reading between the lines, it appears the answer is that the RIAA flat out lied (no surprise, but…) and the Wall Street Journal bought it (again, no surprise, but…). Basically, with various record labels hemorrhaging money, they started to cut back on their allowance to the RIAA, such that the legal strategy of suing tons of people was getting too expensive. But they didn’t want to make it look like they were just giving up.

So they concocted a myth: this idea that ISPs would cut people off. It was, in fact, what the RIAA and other international entertainment industry lobbying groups had been pushing for with little success (since then they have had a few wins on that front, but also many losses). But they couldn’t wait for their usual process of pushing through legislation (*cough* ACTA *cough*) to complete before they had to cut back on individual lawsuits. So they brought in Andrew Cuomo, because he had successfully threatened ISPs to get them to cut off Usenet, despite no legal basis for doing so. But, that worked because Cuomo threatened (again, despite no legal basis) to shame them for offering access to child porn. When it came to unauthorized access to music, the moral outrage aspect isn’t nearly as strong (not that the RIAA and their lobbyist friends haven’t tried six dozen ways to try to link file sharing to child porn — but most people realize how ridiculous that is).

Given that the ISPs seemed to have little interest (i.e., no interest) in moving forward with this plan, they leaked it to the WSJ, figuring that if ISPs thought others were doing it, then they’d start to sign up, and the whole thing would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Except they failed to account for the simple fact that people protested against any ISP dim enough to think that it’s smart to kick off customers based on accusations (not convictions), and ISPs quickly stepped up to deny any such deal, shedding light on the RIAA’s big lie.

So, here we are today, with no such agreements in place, and the RIAA back to trying to sneak through “three strikes” legislation through international treaties that they write (which the public has no access to). But, shouldn’t someone call them on the fact that they blatantly lied last year? And also, shouldn’t someone ask where the WSJ’s correction is on that story?

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So last month I noticed another portable device charger in the Newer Technologies NuPower Charge & Sync. I’ve been using a review unit for the past week and I’m generally impressed by this $39.95 solution. The device itself is fairly light at just over three ounces, so it’s easy to pack and carry. There a slide-out lever on the back that exposes prongs to plug the device in — that’s the method used to charge the 1400 mAh Lithium Ion battery inside. A power button ensures that you’re not leaking any energy when not in use.

Most innovative about the NuPower Charge & Sync is the support for a wide range of mobile devices, which is something I place a high value on. I’m not one to buy a single solution for one device when I can purchase a solution that works for multiple devices. The NuPower manages this through three included cables: a 30-pin iPod/iPhone connector, micro-USB and mini-USB. Each of these little cables are only eight inches long, but I find that to be a benefit. When not in use, they wrap around the battery pack in a little cutout channel, keeping the sides of the unit flush. It’s easy to swap out the cables, although I’d like to see a small carry pouch included to carry them. That small nit aside, with the cables this one charger works with my iPhone 3GS, my Palm Pre, a T-Mobile G1 and the Nokia N900 I have on loan. Due to the plastic on the connectors, I found a minor challenge using the cable with devices that have covers for their USB power ports — it took a little finagling to make this work with my Pre, for example.

This charger should work with most mobile devices using these connectors, provided that the device is compatible with the power output of the NuPower Charge & Sync. The unit’s output voltage is a fairly generic 5.1V to 5.5V and provides 650 mA through the USB cables. The Newer Technologies folks tell me that portable cameras with micro-USB or mini-USB are supported as well, but I don’t have one to test with.

When I first saw the NuPower Charge & Sync, I wondered what the “sync” part of the title meant. That’s where the USB cables come into play. The device itself is simply a battery, but the cables can be used to connect any compatible device with the USB port of a computer. So essentially, you’ve got some spare USB connections if you carry the NuPower Charge & Sync. With that kind of flexibility, I’d say this is a winner for anyone that carries multiple handsets or digital audio players.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 3GS in mid-2008, it included serious improvements to the built-in camera hardware, bumping the resolution from 2 to 3.2 megapixels. That trend may well continue with the next version of the iPhone: the latest intelligence about CMOS image sensor supplier OmniVision suggests that the company will be supplying Apple with 5 megapixel sensors for the next-generation iPhone, expected to launch in summer.

The original iPhone and the iPhone 3G made use of compact and relatively low-cost imaging hardware consisting of a rather average-performing 2 megapixel CMOS sensor mated to a fixed-focus, fixed-aperture lens. This combination proved serviceable for most average picture taking—even downright good given ample lighting—but definitely suffered in low light, close focus, and tricky lighting scenarios.

For the iPhone 3GS, Apple switched suppliers to OmniVision, utilizing the company’s 1/4″ 3.2 megapixel CIS paired with a true autofocus lens. This combination offered increased resolution, a truly useful 30 fps video option, and vastly sharper close-up shots. Combined with a “touch to focus” software feature that linked focusing and metering to an area of the image that the user could choose by simply touching the screen, the new hardware proved far superior to previous iPhones.

Taiwan-based DigiTimes, which broke the news of the iPhone 3GS’s impending camera upgrade last year, reports that OmniVision is expected to double the number of image sensors—from about 20 million to about 40 million—that it will supply to Apple in 2010. Unnamed sources indicated that an unknown fraction of that 40 million will be the new, 5 megapixel sensors, which Apple will use in next summer’s expected iPhone hardware revision.

As many readers may know, packing more megapixels onto the same sized sensor generally results in smaller, less-sensitive pixels. However, OmniVision’s 1/4″ 5 megapixel sensor uses a technique called backside illumination to maintain—and in some cases increase—sensitivity of these smaller pixels. It works by flipping the traditional architecture of CMOS image sensors upside down, letting light fall on the “back side” of the sensor. This means that more light hits the actual sensing diode in each pixel location.

The result of using backside illumination is that Apple can use OmniVision’s 1/4″ 5 megapixel sensors as a drop-in replacement for the current 3.2 megapixel one in the iPhone 3GS. It significantly increases the resolution without compromising on low-light performance or requiring a larger lens to accommodate for a larger sensor. These sensors also offer full 1080p HD video resolution at 30 fps—a significant improvement over the iPhone 3GS’s paltry VGA video resolution.

DigiTimes was completely accurate when it came to revealing that OmniVision’s 3.2 megapixel sensor would be used in the iPhone 3GS, but not so accurate when it reported that cameras with such sensors would end up in revisions to the iPod touch, iPod nano (which ultimately ended up with a low-resolution video camera), and, of all things, the iPod classic. If this latest report is accurate, though, the next iPhone could pack some serious imaging horsepower. It should also keep the iPhone competitive with recently released smartphones such as the Motorola Droid, which have higher resolution camera sensors.

What is a “Brief” post?”

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