New carry-on battery rules shelved?

Beginning January 1, new Department of Transportation rules about lithium and lithium ion batteries in checked and carry-on baggage in airplanes supposedly went into effect. The announcement generated some fevered commentary at the time. This was in part because the rules were in the form of government writing commonly known as bureaucratese, leading a lot of people to think that they were far more onerous than they in fact are. dell vostro 1400 battery,dell vostro 1500 battery.

Well, I recently returned from a trip to California and there's no evidence that the new restrictions are being enforced in any way. No screening. No signs. No notices. Nada. When I arrived home I did some poking around on the Web and, as far as I can tell, nobody else has run across any noteworthy changes to battery screening procedures either. For example, under the new rules, loose batteries are now supposed to be placed in individual plastic bags or otherwise stored in a way that their contacts can't be shorted out. I've seen no evidence that anyone is paying any attention to this requirement.dell vostro 1520 battery,dell vostro 1700 battery.

Your mileage may vary, of course. Especially if you're transporting multiple large batteries for professional video equipment and the like (which is the sort of thing that the rule change really targeted), it may still be worth trying to get some clarification--for whatever good that will do. However, it certainly appears that the government has effectively shelved putting the new safety regulations into practice for the time being. dell vostro 2510 battery,dell GK479.

Inside details about Zune's battery life

Fresh from the informative-but-take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt Zune Insider blog comes some juicy details about Zune battery life. According to the insider (Microsoft employee Cesar Menendez), the Zune will get about 14 hours of audio battery life -- not amazing but not bad either.

Parameters of the drain: unprotected 128kbps WMA tracks on repeat with default volume, no EQ, and backlight on for 1 second, which is pretty standard (you should be able to play standard MP3s for a while longer).

Cesar later comments that because of DRM processing "Playing music you got from Zune Marketplace will knock down the above battery life, by about 30-60 minutes." Battery life for video or photo playback will be about 4 hours, which seems par for today's course.dell studio 1735 battery,dell studio 1737 battery.

Now for the juicy part. Apparently the Zune will last for 13 hours with the WiFi feature turned on. So while it looks like you won't decimate your battery life with WiFi simply turned on, we still don't know what battery life will be like if you "Zune" (ie zap, transfer, beam, or receive) DRM-wrapped music a few times in between charges.

Also gleaned from the comments: the equalizer presets will be: none; acoustic; classical; electronic; hip hop; jazz; pop; and rock, which are the same as the Portable Media Center-powered Toshiba Gigabeat S (the Zune's established cousin). There will be no custom EQ at launch.dell vostro 1000 battery,dell vostro 1320 battery.