Lithium-ion batteries are already close to the 20-hour life promised back in 2007 for laptops, but Lithium-sulphur batteries being worked on at Stanford University may improve battery life by 300 per cent. More

At least in the parts of the internet I frequent, pet pictures have been enjoying an unusual popularity as of late. FujiFilm’s Finepix Z700 has technology that snaps a photo when your furry friend smiles. Talk about capturing the zeitgeist. More

Zoom is kind of like Mitsubishi — it sort of does it all . Months after shipping one of the greatest pocket audio recorders every known to man, the company is now hitting back with none other than a pair of guitar effects pedals. The G2Nu and G2.1Nu boards both feature 100 preset guitar sounds, 20 of which have purportedly been given the almighty thumbs-up from Steve Vai. If you’re curious about differences, the latter adds a built-in expression pedal for additional control, but frankly, the expected capabilities aren’t what we’re interested in. Both devices sport integrated USB ports that enable them to operate as audio interfaces; in other words, axe slingers can record directly to their computer through this box, and the 1.9-inch display helps you keep track of what’s going on.

Wired is reporting that Slacker Radio has secretly been prepping an on-demand music subscription service that will give users unprecedented control over streaming radio. More

In today’s Remainders: sights! Visit Paris in your browser with a magnificent 24 gigapixel photograph; behold America, circa 1972, in the EPA’s 15,000 photograph Documerica project, and more. More

How do we know we’re years away from a final resolution to the Nokia / Apple patent lawsuit? It’s been six months since Nokia first filed its complaint , and the two parties are just now starting to argue about which specific substantive claims they’re eventually going to argue about. Let’s do a quick refresh: at the heart of the lawsuit is a conflict over Nokia’s wireless patents , some of which are almost certainly essential to how cell data and WiFi operate. As a member of the ETSI and the IEEE licensing groups which oversee GSM and WiFi, Nokia’s required to license its patents to anyone who asks on fair terms, but those terms aren’t set in stone — Nokia can negotiate separate licenses as it sees fit, and it apparently wanted Apple to cross-license its touchscreen patents as part of the deal. Apple said no, and now we’re all in court, with both sides alleging patent infringement in three different lawsuits (one of which is on hold ) and Apple claiming that Nokia is also liable for breach of contract, because it promised fair licensing terms and didn’t deliver. Got all that?

Are you real? You may seem real and solid, but you are mostly made of empty space. To demonstrate it, someone enlarged an electron to the size of one pixel , proportionally showing its distance from a equally scaled proton. More

Feel like your broadband’s not living up to how they’re advertised? Here’s your chance to prove it: the FCC’s introduced a Consumer Broadband Test that’ll let you know exactly how good a connection you’ve got. More

PadNotes, an upcoming iPad app, offers a very simple, very useful function that the iPad seems to lack: You can type and draw on any PDF. Watch the video and you’ll understand, the possibilities are quite impressive. [ 9to5Mac ] More

It used to be that jailbreaking your iPhone was a long, involved process , but worth it for the freedom . We’ve reached a new age, though, where emancipating your phone is as simple as plugging in an iDongle. Liberty! More