What if you could run your laptop for 18 hours before recharging? It may be possible sometime soon with fuel-cell technology.

Jadoo Power Systems Inc, the leading supplier of portable fuel-cell power systems, will introduce products that will make fuel-cell energy easier and more portable (though still not quite practical for everyday laptop users).

Fuel cells use a chemical reaction that converts hydrogen and oxygen into water, releasing energy in the process. This kind of energy is efficient, long-lasting, and environment-friendly. Unlike batteries, which simply store engery, fuel cells produce power.

Jadoo already supplies fuel cells to broadcast companies for use in cameras and to law enforcement for surveillance devices. One fuel cell canister (shown at left) can provide up to 360 watt hours of energy, which means it can power a professional broadcast camera for up to 18 hours. The canister completely recharges in around one hour.

The company's new expanded product line has longer-lasting fuel canisters, more portable refill stations, and a desktop base for office use. The new products are aimed at mobile professionals, such as broadcasters and emergency responders, who cannot plug devices into a wall to recharge them. The canisters can be used as backup power sources for field-ready laptops, emergency response radios, and more.

The line will be introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow in Las Vegas (April 22-27) and will be available online by April 24. The complete system costs $999 and will ship in late May.

Want to know more about fuel cells? Check out extremefuelcells.com

As a New Yorker without a car, it isn't often I get to test out new GPS systems. That is why PC Magazine has a GPS expert (and car owner) like Craig Ellison do most of our GPS reviews. Still, I had the chance to try out the Sony nav-u ($599.99 list) in a ridiculously priced rental car on a trip up to the Hudson Valley last weekend. Programming my destination took a little doing with the touch screen, but once I did that I appreciated the big picture view of my journey and the firm spoken reminders not to miss turns. The clinical, but not cold, female voice of the nav-u served as a nice buffer between me and my wife. "But honey, the nav-u says we're heading the right way."

Not only did the device help me find my way to Rhinebeck, NY and back without getting stuck in traffic, it may have saved my life. I was hiking in the Shawangunk mountains and I wanted to test out how the device worked off-road. After a few hours of hiking on dubiously labeled trails, I took out the nav-u and used it to determine my location relative to a nearby lake. I am sure I would have found my way out eventually, but this took some of the guesswork out of the process.

You can check out Craig's full nav-u review here.

We just got one of the first HD-DVDs in, a copy of the cult sci-fi film "Serenity." Unfortunately, we're still trying to get hold of an HD-DVD player; they're pretty hard to find. But the box set us salivating, especially the bit on the back that promises "1080p" resolution -- more than one thousand lines of progressive goodness.

Taking the disc out of the box, we found that HD-DVDs are shinier than regular-def DVDs -- our regular-def DVD of "Shrek" was golden on the back, but the HD-DVD was pure silver. The HD disc is exactly the same size and width as a regular disc, though. Unfortunately, when we popped it into an iMac, the computer didn't recognize the disc at all.

Want to see more photos? Check out our Serenity HD-DVD gallery page.

"Serenity" on HD-DVD is available for $24.49 at Amazon. HD-DVD players, on the other hand, are almost impossible to buy.

I took a bunch of photos of "Serenity," one of the first HD-DVDs, so you could get an idea of what this new format looks like. Click on any of the images to blow them up.

The box, shrink-wrapped.

The HD-DVD branding is prominent along the top of the box.

The handsome library edge of the box.

The back of the box.

1080p. How sweet it is.

Open up the box to find an HD-DVD promotional flyer - no real liner notes - and the disc, which looks just like a regular DVD.

OK, maybe not quite like a regular DVD. The regular-def Shrek DVD on the right has a somewhat more golden color, where the HD-DVD is more silvery.

Antec, maker of PC cases, cooling fans, power supplies, and other equipment for the Do It Yourselfer has released the Antec Performance CPU Cooler.  If you've built your own, then the name Antec should be familar to you.  Many DIY buffs (yours truly included) have used Antec cases in their first foray into system building, since they are readily available at big box stores like CompUSA, Circuit City, and Best Buy.  Many mom and pop system builders also use Antec components in their Build to Order systems.

The Antec Performance CPU Cooler is notable becuase it is designed for the thermally extreme AMD Athlon 64 FX and Socket 478 Intel Pentium processors.  Using copper heat pipes, a plethora of aluminum radiator fins, and a 70mm fan blowing horizontally, the CPU cooler can handle today's hot processors.  It's designed for AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754, 939, and 940 as well as Intel Socket 478 (including Core Duo), but not Intel LGA 775.  Even though you can't use it with Pentium D and Pentium EE processors, the other 5 sockets cover the majority of what's left.  I like horizontally oriented coolers, since they can channel air out along with the case fan or power supply fan.  The downside is the cooler takes up a lot oroom in the case, and you may need to check for clearance if you have tall memory like Corsair memory with LED lights.

After a quick websearch I found the CPU cooler at Radio Shack for $19.99.

This Reuters story about Nokia's excellent first-quarter financial results got my gander up, because it shows how the world's #1 cell-phone manufacturer continues to treat North America as somewhere lower than Zimbabwe on its priority list.

Here's the paragraph that really drove me nuts: "The Finnish company [...] benefited in the first quarter from strong sales of its N-series multimedia phones, such as the N70 model, the top revenue generator for the company in the quarter."

The N70 is not available in the US. And the only one of Nokia's high-end N-series phones available in the US, the N90, isn't sold in any carrier's stores, where the vast majority of US handset sales happen. Yes, Nokia announced phones for us recently, but they're all relatively bland, midrange models. They'll sell -- the midrange Nokia 6101/6102 (at left) are apparently burning up the Cingular and T-Mobile sales counters -- but they don't push technology forwards. (Neither does T-Mobile's announcement that they'll be selling the Nokia 8801, which is cool but much more design-oriented than feature-heavy.)

This is not all Nokia's fault. Picky carriers hold back phones in the US, and US consumers are much more interested in design and price than they are in features. But still, as the world's #1 manufacturer wonders why they're #4 in the USA, not getting high-end, high-margin phones into carrier stores must be part of the equation.

Are you looking for the hottest new Xbox 360 accessory? The Nyko GameFace 360, a customizable faceplate kit for your Xbox, is hitting stores this week.

For $19.99, you get a kit with a snap-together clear faceplate, six pre-printed skins, and 15 customizable blank templates. The pre-printed designs are fine, but the cool part is making your own. Download a program from Nyko's Web site (if you can get on—it's popular) to design your own skins using photos, Web graphics, drawings, or anything that you can whip up in Photoshop. Then print it out. The skin fits right into the kit's clear faceplate. Voila, you're done. If you get bored with one design, just open up the faceplate and stick in a new creation.

Make your faceplate look good enough, and you just might distract your opponent enough to win your next Halo match.

Check out a review at PCMag.com.

So that's where our old floppy disks and diskettes have gone to! Acorn Studios, located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, collects different types of electronics and recycles them into unique creations.

The newest items on their site are the Floppy Disk Notebook ($9.95) and the Diskette Notebook ($6.95). The Floppy Disk Notebook holds 80 pages of plain white recycled paper and is made from 360KB floppy disks (hard to believe that's all they carried, eh?). The Diskette Notebook is a bit smaller and holds 50 pages of paper, held together by old 3.5-inch diskettes. Includes a free pen made from recycled paper, wood, and plastic.

If you're into jewelry, try the Internecklace/Bracelet ($9.95): It's made by cutting a computer mouse's cable to reveal colorful wires inside. Available colors are Sea Breeze, Sun Fire, Dracular, and Rainbow Sky.

Make sure you check out their other creations, such as a Circuitboard Coaster set, Sparkly CD Clock, and Circuitboard Mouse Pad.

[via PopGadget]