Critical Temperature Switch tackles overheating batteries

A Korean company has developed an electronic switch to prevent the overheating of batteries in mobile devices. ETRI's Critical Temperature Switch employs a Mott Metal-Insulator Transistor to prevent batteries from swelling and exploding in a violent discharge triggered by overheating. The device has characteristics that enable it to act both as a transistor and as an insulator, reports TelecomsKorea [via Engadget]. ...more

Company shreds documents over the Web

Here's a good one for a Friday afternoon, one to file under 'only in America'. A recycling company will shred your documents for you. Nothing unusual there, you say. ...more

XHTML Basic makes the Web more mobile

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - the body that sets the standards for the Internet - has issued XHTML Basic as a W3C Recommendation. It's a subset of XHTML that lets smaller mobile devices join the Web content party. Based on a combination of XML and HTML, the specification covers a set of features for creating rich Web content for a wide range of devices. ...more

Yahoo! to launch its own blogging service

Internet portal Yahoo! has finally announced its long-awaited move into the blogging arena. The company says that it will be making a version of its Yahoo! 360 'Web log and social networking service' to a restricted number of users from March 29th. At the moment, the name of the game with Internet portals is to integrate a number of existing services into a compelling single package. ...more

Last-minute commuting dot com

Tube trials real time train info for capital commuters. Londoners look likely to be able to take the guesswork out of catching the tube and cutting out platform waiting thanks to a new service being trialled by the Tube. The ETA real time train information web site offers train information on arrival times and destinations of tubes at a given station. ...more