I know plenty of iPhone users out there that constantly run out of juice… and by juice, I mean battery life.  But what if Apple didn’t come out with a patent for a “self-charging” phone or “mobile device”?  What if Nokia did this first?

From the past few weeks of lawsuits surrounding generic patents from Apple vs. HTC, the first company to have this patent approved is going to revolutionize portable electronics as we know it.  It is like those wind-up flashlights in your car’s glove compartment or was it the shaking flashlight.  In the end, it is almost the same technology, only smaller.

From the patent: A battery for an electronic device is contained within a first frame that is coupled to a second frame by one or more piezoelectric elements. The second frame is coupled to a device chassis by one or more additional piezoelectric elements. In response to translation and/or rotation of the electronic device, portions of forces induced by the battery mass are transferred to the piezoelectric elements. Electrical energy output by these piezoelectric elements is received in a power controller and can be applied to the battery. Additional device components can also be contained within the first frame so as to increase the total mass that induces forces applied to the piezoelectric elements.

[TreeHugger via Digg, and New Scientist]

Take a quick look at this video. You’ll notice a fairly ergonomic tablet with a multi-touch capacitive screen and a camera that rotates 180 degrees to take pictures of you or of someone else! Not only that, the screen uses far less power (280mW vs. 2.4-2.8W now), increasing battery life and it even supports Flash since it runs on Android. It has 3 USB ports, headphones, and even HDMI out! The screen even adjusts to sunlight, making the screen monochrome so that it is easy to read no matter what light conditions are available. Battery gives 24 hours with Wi-Fi on, 10 hours if you are outputting to an HD TV which is extremely impressive. In comes Notion Ink! It has nearly everything the iPad doesn’t have, except for that exterior sexy sleek look, but it is the performance that counts!

Hit the bump for a video, spec sheets and links on the Adam disassembled.

One thing to note, the touchpad on the back of the tablet is supposed to be used for finer, more precise “clicking” on hyperlinks or objects rather than pulling an FFS or Fat-Finger Syndrome (I have some long fingers and I tend to mash keys a lot). It is slated to come out in 3Q2010 and if it enters at the same or less price point as the iPad, I will be sure to pick this up.

Engadget has the device in its naked-ness here.

Full specs with Pixel Qi display here.

Full specs with touch screen only here.

I picked up some Panko bread crumbs at the local Ocean State Job Lot and got some haddock that happened to be on sale. So I got to experimenting!

Ingredients
1 pound of Haddock
1.5 cups of rice flour
2 tbsp seasoned salt
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 tsp onion powder
2 cups Panko bread crumbs
1.5 cups egg whites
1/2 cup cream (half & half)/milk
Extra virgin olive oil
Vegetable oil

Preparation

Stations
Line up 3 containers, each of which will give you enough room to batter your fish in both solid and liquid. Line them up from left to right: flour (seasoned with salt, paprika, garlic salt and onion powder), egg whites and cream gently whisked, and Panko bread crumbs.

Fish
Normally, the fish should be fairly flat, but I find it best to slice the fish into thin wedge slices to maximize crispy tasty fried-ness, almost like fried fish nuggets! Take your fish slices and dredge them in the flour mixture. Make sure it is very thoroughly coated. Next, dip the floured fish into the egg mixture and once the fish is wet, quickly transfer to the Panko crumbs. Once the fish is coated, you have 2 options: Let them rest for 10 minutes or you can repeat the process for double coatings!

Cooking
I live in an apartment. That means no deep-fryer. So I improvised. Since I cut my fish slices thin, I don’t need much oil. So I used a non-stick pan, and used a ratio of 3/4 vegetable oil and 1/4 extra virgin olive oil. I added enough oil so that the entire bottom of the pan was covered (and some). Heat the pan, add your oil mixture and place your fish pieces into the oil. Once the bottom of the fish pieces have been browned, flip and repeat.

It is that simple! It should be crispy, full of flavor, and much better than the fried fish you’d get at some local chain. As for tartar sauce, some mayo, capers, salt, fresh ground black pepper and you should be good to go! Cheers!

I’m still sick… it has taken me a lot longer to get over this horrid head cold but I’m still cooking!  Here is what’s up for the week:

Breakfast Yogurt.  I’ve removed the breakfast burrito in place of yogurt and some nuts to reduce calorie count

Lunches are a la carte [Yes again] but will probably be sandwiches, soup, salad, etc. with some type of veggies and/or fruit!

Dinner: Monday-Thursday:  Leftovers of Salmon or Pepper, Onion, Bacon Turkey Burgers; Friday – ???

It is coming… and Steam will be the first one to port its games over.  Read it over and think about this… I’m still trying to comprehend gaming in OS X.  Stay tuned, I’ll have a wonderful detailed write-up soon.

No recipes this week but I wanted to give Nantucket Off-Shore some props. I’ve used a few of their products and I need to say, they make some awesome spice rubs. Not the barbecue spice rubs, but the herbal spices. The best part is that they provide the flavor without any added salt. Please check out their site for their different selection of rubs. I personally love the Renaissance Rub (The essence of Italian: a combination of oregano, rosemary, garlic, sesame seed, red pepper, sundried tomatoes, and lemon zest) and the St. Remy Rub (An herbs de Provence blend of rosemary, basil, savory, marjoram, fennel seed, and lavender). Both go great with grilled/baked/pan seared chicken!

Another session of “You Ask, We Answer” brings us to laptops.  More specifically, Dells.  I was asked to find a nice decent laptop that can replace 2 computers that are both 7 years old: a laptop and a desktop.  Price point?  Around $1000 (give or take a couple hundred).  What did I come up with?  There are 2 options.  Hit the bump for the deets!

Dell Studio Series Laptops
Option 1

• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
• Laptop cover design
• Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
• 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
• 500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
• Get a $50 Promo GiftCard with 3 Year Advanced Service Plan
• 15.6” Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
• Intel© Centrino© Advanced-N 6200
• Back-lit Keyboard
• 56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
• Internal Mobile Broadband not included
• 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
• My Accessories
• Microsoft® Works 9
• McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months
• Dell Remote Access, free basic service
• Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
• Also Includes
• Studio 15 Laptop
• 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
• No Touch Software
• High Definition Audio 2.2
• Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9, Multiple Languages
• 1Yr LoJack for Laptops Theft Protection

Final Price: $1367 – Dell Studio 15

Option 2

• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
• NEW 2010 Intel® Core™ i3-330M 2.13GHz (3M cache)
• Get a $50 Gift Card with 3 Year Advanced Service Plan plus Lojack – Florda
• 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
• 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
• Intel© Centrino© Advanced-N 6200
• 56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
• Back-lit Keyboard with Number Pad
• 17.3” HD+ (900p) Bright LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera
• 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
• High Definition Audio 2.0
• Intel® HD Graphics
• No Internal Mobile Broadband
• Laptop Cover Deisgn
• My Accessories
• Microsoft® Works 9
• McAfee Security Center with VirusScan, Firewall, Spyware Removal, 15-Months
• Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
• Also Includes
• Studio 17 Laptop
• No Touch Software
• Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0

Final Price: $1200 – Dell Studio 17

Pros (Dell 17):  17inch widescreen; Back-lit number pad along with keyboard
Cons (Dell 17): Integrated video card will use up memory (RAM)
Pros (Dell 15): Quad-core processor much faster than dual core; Full 1080p resolution with dedicated video card
Cons (Dell 15): $170 more; 1.4 inch smaller screen

Final Verdict: Dell Studio 15. With a better processor and a dedicated video card, the computer will use less resources to power the video on the 17inch laptop. Therefore, it will be significantly faster (esp. with the bigger CPU cache).

Notes: I added the 3 year accidental damage and protection warranty since it is a laptop. I can not stress how great this warranty is. You might run into some problems with phone support, but once they figure out what’s wrong, they replace it for you! Remember, this is for information purposes. If you are really interested in buying , please request a consultation for the best results.

I’m sick… that means not much cooking for me this week. Lots of soup for me for dinner…

Breakfast small breakfast burrito.

Lunches are a la carte [Yes again] but will probably be sandwiches, soup, salad, etc. but cherry tomatoes and/or pirate booty and/or yogurt are also the daily staple!

Dinner: Monday-Tuesday: Eggplant Parm; Wednesday-Friday: Grilled Chicken Thighs