Whether it’s a busy workday or an international adventure, one thing’s pretty much guaranteed: your phone will be dead or dying when you need it the most. Here are some easy ways to power up fast and preserve battery life.

We all know the feeling: you’re lost, or bored, or observing an adorable moment. You pull out your amazing smartphone to get directions, play a game, or snap a picture, and you hear the dreaded beep. A beep that tells you your battery is on its last bar. You need power, and now! What do you do?

Smartphones add features almost faster than the market can keep up, but the feature that hasn’t really improved that much is battery life. Depending on how many bells and whistles you have running at any given time, your smartphone is likely to become real dumb before the day is over.

Thankfully, there are some tricks to extending battery life, and charging quickly when your phone is needed immediately. Study them well and share liberally–you’ll be the hero of your airport gate crowd.

1. Switch to airplane mode when charging

Switching to airplane mode disables all of your phones transmitting functions–no internet, no apps. This means all available power heads directly to the battery. You won’t be able to get any calls or texts during this time, but you’ll get the biggest charge out of the few minutes you can stay connected to the outlet.

2. Turn off radios you aren’t using

If you can’t go completely incommunicado, just disable GPS, Wifi, and Bluetooth functions (most advanced smart phones make it easy to pick and choose). On the iPhone this is in the Settings menu under Location Services. Lots of apps are constantly using GPS to determine your location, even if you’re not actively using the app. Disabling these functions ensures you can still get a call or text, but you’ll preserve power and charge faster.

3. Dim your screen

Most new phones come with the screen brightness cranked up high because it makes images on the screen look amazing. Unfortunately, that much light takes a big bite out of your battery. Set your screen’s brightness at half-mast or below. You’ll still be able see calls and emails, and your battery will thank you.

4.  Limit notifications

Do you need to know every time someone likes a picture on Facebook or makes a move on Words with Friends? Limiting or disabling app notifications, especially those that update often like Twitter or email, can slow battery drain and reduce the amount of times a day you turn on the screen to find out which app is alerting you. Set them to only ping once (in the case of email or text) or not at all.

5. Pay for apps

That’s right. Research suggests that free, ad-supported apps drain battery life. In one case, 75 percent of an app’s energy consumption was used just to power the ads! That’s enough to turn anyone into an Angry Bird. If you know you’ll be using an app frequently, shell out the  buck or two for the add-free version. Your battery will thank you.

Image: ishane

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The electric blue is kind of cool. White’s got the Apple look going for it. Black is still the new black. No comment on the sea foam green.

The iPhone 4 accessory wagon continues its quick ramp-up with this new solar-powered battery charger/case available from SimeniBiz. (Read: “Direct Wholesale from China.”) It comes in not-exactly-rainbow colors, but its non-toxic, protective soft silicone sheath is “environmentally friendly” – whatever that means these days. I’m also digging on their marketing line: “Free solar power.” Um, okay. Thanks!

The “high-power” solar panel on the base of the case and built-in 1500 mAh Li battery is where you store the electric stuff. I know, mAh is a “what’s that?” term for me too, but 1,500 of ’em is a pretty healthy storage capacity; enough to “top off” your charged phone, says EnviroGadget. This is a good thing for those of us who get all nervous when the percentage charged icon falls below 98 percent.

The deal is that its battery charges when it’s left in the sun, with or without the phone in it. It can also be charged with an AC adapter, car charger, or USB charger via a 5-pin cable. The “dash” is simple enough for me, with three light indicators for capacity – 25, 50 and 100 percent – and an ON/OFF switch. Yep. Can do.

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When you’re curled up on the couch, sniffling and shivering, with a pounding headache and aching body, it’s hard to imagine any such thing as a good virus. But according to scientists, many viruses have the potential to help, rather than hurt, humans. Over the years, this has been proven time and again. For example, in 1952 Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey used viruses to help establish that DNA, rather than protein, forms the basis of heredity.

And now, some MIT researchers have figured out a way to genetically engineer common bacteriophage viruses (that is, viruses that infect bacteria but are harmless to humans) and put them to work building rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in the form of a plastic film. The result – a new generation of batteries that would have the energy capacity to power personal electronic devices such as iPods and cellphones and might even be powerful enough to be used in plug-in hybrid cars.

As described in the April 2nd online edition of Science, these new batteries could be produced cheaply and be nontoxic to the environment. A prototype of the battery was taken to the White House last week when the MIT president met with President Barack Obama to discuss federal funding needs to help advance research and production of new clean-energy technologies.

Image: dawnzy58

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