What’s the one thing we need more of in the 21st century? If you said that we need more robots performing daring feats, you’re in luck. It just so happens that on Saturday, the Panasonic Evolta battery robot, a 17-centimeter tall super-hero looking bot and all around bundle of cuteness, scaled a 500-meter cliff at the Grand Canyon.

It was a publicity stunt of course, to show-off the endurance of the Evolta AA alkaline batteries. The Guinness Book of World Records already recognizes the batteries as the longest-lasting of their kind. The robot, powered by just a pair of Evoltas, pulled itself up 530 meters of rope, finally reaching the top after 6 hours and 45 minutes. I don’t know about you, but if you show me a cool robot doing cool stuff I’m gonna buy your batteries.

The thing that sucks about electric cars is that they need to be plugged in every day. Most people don’t have a plug in their garage or their driveway. That being the case, you are going to have an extension cord mess somewhere.

That won’t be a problem with the MIRA HAV, an electric car that’s designed a little smarter. It allows you to remove the batteries and charge them up in your home. That’s where your outlets are after all, so it makes sense. Obviously moving large batteries to and fro is not ideal either. They have some flaws to work out, but hey, it’s an option that has to work for some people.

An outfit by the name of PDASmart has announced a longer running battery specifically designed for the iPod 5G 30 GB model. This battery upgrade will run you around $75.

PDASmart says its upgraded iPod 5G 30GB battery will let you enjoy “over 45 hours on continuous song playing and an impressive 24 hour video playing time.” It installs obviously where the current battery is and also being made available by PDASmart is a special rear casing which slightly expands this particular iPod’s size to accommodate the battery.

Even though we don’t see them in most devices, AAA batteries can be pretty darn useful, aside from powering remote controls and toys. Philips thinks so too, that’s why the Philips Xenium 9@9j has a AAA battery slot at the base. This is very likely the first cellphone that supports a AAA battery. It supposedly gives it up to three hours of talk time. It still has the standard lithium ion rechargeable battery, but the AAA is a backup.

It does add some bulk, but what is a backup worth to you? The 9@9j should be around in April. The technology is from the Israeli firm Techtium, and they are calling it Backupower. If your main battery goes dead, the backup battery takes over.