Duracell recently introduced its new Ultra Advanced battery that lets consumers know exactly how much power is available in each battery, eliminating the need to guess. The battery comes with Powercheck, which is a gauge on the battery that can be activated by pressing two white dots on the cell.

The Ultra Advanced with Powercheck will make their debut at Costco and some other major retailers in December. There’s a small additional cost compared to regular CopperTop batteries though, as you might expect.

We’re used to seeing our gadgets come in a variety of colors, but rechargeable batteries are generally dull and boring. Not anymore. Sanyo’s latest Eneloop Tone batteries introduce bright colors that they hope will entice you to buy some.

Sanyo’s Eneloop batteries are capable of being charged about 1500 times, and are sold already charged up without losing much of their original charge by the time they get to you.

Sanyo’s line of Eneloop batteries are as green a battery as you will find and they have some more improvements to make them even more Earth friendly. These newly upgraded Eneloops can be recharged around 1,500 times, which is said to be a new record for the industry.

The batteries come pre-charged from the factory using clean energy from renewable solar power. If we had to guess, we would say that the other big names in batteries are watching very closely indeed.

Energizer is really onto something with their Energi To Go gear. A few weeks ago we told you about their new XPAL battery chargers. Well, here’s another highly convenient product.

This USB clip will clip onto your DSLR and camcorder batteries and charge them up via USB. So what we have here is a much more portable DSLR battery charger. Nothing on price, but we should see it soon. We’re hoping the price is as convenient as the clip itself.

Need to add some geek to your diet? The folks at Antrepo Design Industry can help. These “Salt & Pepper Cell” shakers are shaped like D batteries, but they don’t hold energy. Instead they hold salt and pepper. The Cells have a strip that will show you when they need to be “recharged” with seasoning.

They’re made out of stainless steel and perfect for your geek dinners. You can get either a red and blue set, or black and white. Sadly, they aren’t for sale yet though. Antrepo is looking for a manufacturer. Let’s hope they find one. These are too cool.

Our favorite batteries are back. We’ve missed them. What other batteries are powered by your pee? Only Nopopo. As far as we know. We’ve missed you Nopopo. Our urine feels wasted without ye. But no more. This compact LED lantern will be equipped with a NoPoPo battery that doesn’t require a power outlet to juice up. It’s powered by water. Failing that, it will gladly accept your urine and give you power.

Sadly, the NoPoPo battery has been rated at just 500mAh and has a recharge capability of just four times, making this Wiz-powered lantern only good for emergency use.

A few weeks ago HP recalled 70,000 laptop batteries, but they aren’t done yet. They are recalling another 15,000 batteries sold in China. There aren’t any reports of actual fire or flames this time, but the batteries are prone to overheating, and can pose a fire hazard.

At the moment, details about the models affected are scarce, but the batteries were used in laptops manufactured between late 2007 and early 2008, and include models sold under the HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario brands.

I’m sure everyone’s heard of this, the good ol’ Sound Activated LED Equalizer T-shirt. For those that have are out of the loop (don’t worry, it happens to us all sometimes), all you have to do is put this on your body, and music makes it lose control. Well, pending that you have 4 “AAA” batteries, that is.
This shirt is not for doing homework in, though. Unless by “homework” you mean gettin’ super duper crunk. The LEDs on the panel respond to particular frequencies (primarily bass hits), so it’s not exactly the most versatile equalizer. But I think that feature makes it more interesting, as when there are dramatic pauses in percussion, they are matched by the LEDs on the shirt. It’s hard to find this shirt for under 20-30 bucks, so I hope you appreciate that today Dillyeo is offering it for 15$, after shipping.

For awhile there batteries were getting recalled fairly often, but now it’s been quite awhile since we’ve seen a major recall involving laptop batteries. Sadly, its back in the news. Today, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard, has issued a voluntary recall of about 70,000 Li-ion batteries.

Apparently, these cells can “overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers,”. Thus far, the firm and CPSC have received two separate reports of batteries overheating and rupturing. The result is “flames/fire that caused minor property damage.”

Battery Snaps are an interesting little gadget that turns a regular 9volt battery into a single-LED flashlight, by snapping onto the top. Just snap it on and use the button on top to turn on the LED light. Instant flashlight.

When the LED light stops working, that’s when it’s time to replace the battery. For $5, it comes with a 9 volt battery included. It isn’t going to light up a whole room or anything, but these would be handy to have for power outages.

Typically a battery functions with lithium ions flowing between a negatively charged anode, usually graphite, and the positively charged cathode, usually cobalt oxide or lithium iron phosphate. But three years ago, an MIT team reported that it had engineered viruses that could build an anode by coating themselves with cobalt oxide and gold and self-assembling to form a nanowire. The “virus batteries” have the energy capacity and power performance similar to rechargeable batteries.

The prototype battery is a coin battery, but the idea is that cell and larger batteries could be made from this process and that one day it will power cars, boats and everything else. As it stands right now, it can go at least 100 charges before performance goes down. That will change of course.

Want some batteries that you can put out in the sun and power up? Knut Karlsen constructed his very own solar rechargeable batteries that soak up the sun’s rays and convert them into power. If you want to try your hand at making some, he has documented the DIY project to create the prototype SunCat battery. If you can get your hands on some flexible solar cells.

Knut has some connections at the Institute for Energy Technology, so it wasn’t a problem for him. Basically Knut attached the solar cells to old rechargeable NiMH batteries and used contacts from an old camera to connect the negative pole to the photo voltaic cells. And just like that you have batteries that can sit out in the sun and store up energy.

Kensington recently introduced a new USB charger powered by AAA batteries. The gadget will compete with similar products from Energizer, Duracell and IOGear. The dual-function charger can be used to power your cell phone when you don’t have access to power outlets.

Just realize that the AAA batteries inside are not going to satisfy power hungry phones like the iPhone. It’s more for entry-level handsets. The device comes with adapter cables and two sets of batteries so you can rotate them. It’s great for wireless mice and keyboards and is a good gadget to have around for emergencies.

Energizer’s Solar Recharger looks like an odd device. It looks like it could be an iPod battery extender, a AA charger or even a Solar adapter. And it actually is all of the above. Mainly, it’s a battery charger for standard rechargeable AA and AAA batteries and is primarily powered by an AC jack that’s assisted by a flip-out solar panel. The USB port can power your connected gadget and the Solar Charger will act as an extended battery for almost any USB-powered device, like your iPod for instance.

The beauty of this device is that through the use of cheap rechargeable batteries, Energizer sell it for just $50, with 2 AAs included. Some other features include weatherproofing and a rotating solar panel.

Chances are you have quite a few spent AA batteries lying around. Probably because you played with your WowWee robots too much. Well, here’s an interesting concept for quick and easy re-charging of all your AA batteries.

The Febot is a design by Ji-yun Kim, Soon-young Yang and Hwan-ju Jeon out of Korea. It would be suction mounted to your window so it can catch the breeze and recharge your single AA inside. A pretty interesting solution. I have a feeling it may take a while though, unless you are in a hurricane.