Bluetti has taken portable power to absurd levels with its new Handsfree Backpack Power Stations. They’re available in big or bigger versions depending on how long — and how much gear — you want to keep powered in the great outdoors. 

They’re primarily aimed at outdoor photographers, but Bluetti also thinks they’ll appeal to hikers, rock climbers, campers, adventurers, bikepackers, and motorcyclists… any nerd that wants to move beyond the cubicle with their gadgets. A side panel in the backpacks provides access to all the inputs and outputs without having to first remove the solar generator. Those ports can also be managed and monitored over Bluetooth from the Bluetti app.

The $299 Handsfree 1 solar generator includes a 42L backpack and is capable of powering AC devices up to 300W with 268.8Wh of LFP storage capacity. That’s enough to recharge a DJI Mavic 3 (about 77Wh) or laptop about three times. The $399 Handsfree 2 bumps the battery to 700W / 512Wh inside a cavernous 60L pack. 

The solar generators themselves are tall and relatively thin, with five outputs (1x AC, 2x 100W USB-C, and 2x 15W USB-A). Both have XT60 solar inputs to help keep the batteries charged: 12V-28V / 200W max for the Handsfree 1 and 12V-45V / 350W max for Handsfree 2. The Handsfree 1 measures 11.3 x 3.7 x 11 inches (286.5 × 95 × 280mm) and weighs 11 pounds (5kg), while the larger Handsfree 2 comes in at 12 × 4.1 × 15.2 inches (305 × 105 × 385mm) and 16.5 pounds (7.5kg). 

The backpacks have tons of pockets to help organization all your gear, with Molle straps for external carry. They’re only water resistant, however, but Bluetti throws in a rain fly. There’s no weight given for the packs but they do look heavy.

The ruling, which Google has appealed, would force Google to distribute third-party app stores within Google Play, no longer require Google Play Billing for apps distributed via Google Play, and more, with many of those changes ordered to begin on November 1st — just over two weeks from today.

But echoing many of Google’s arguments during the district court case, which Judge Donato rejected as insufficient, the company now argues that the order “threatens Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and trusted user experience.”

“This wouldn’t just hurt Google – this would have negative consequences for Android users, developers and device manufacturers who have built thriving businesses on Android, writes Google’s Lee-Anne Mulholland, VP of regulatory affairs, in a fact sheet distributed to journalists.

The fact sheet is bulleted into five different sections, and the section headers give you an idea of Google’s objections:

To get a sense of Google’s actual filing with the court, here’s how it begins:

At the request of a single competitor, Epic Games, the District Court ordered extensive redesigns to Play that will expose 100-million-plus U.S. users of Android devices to substantial new security risks and force fundamental changes to Google’s contractual and business relationships with hundreds of thousands of Google partners. The court gave Google just three weeks to make many of these sweeping changes—a Herculean task creating an unacceptable risk of safety and security failures within the Android ecosystem.

You can read the whole fact sheet, and Google’s whole emergency motion, below.

When grief is overwhelming, hearing a loved one’s voice and seeing their photos can be just too painful. But when a bit of time has passed, it feels like a gift.

Win an iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence ($999 value). No purchase necessary. Enter now!

I want you to have that with your loved ones, too, and part of that is preserving the memories you have before there’s a glitch, your phone gets stolen or some other tech mishap.

AI SECTOR FRUSTRATED BY CONGRESS’ SLOW PACE KEEPING UP WITH THE ADVANCED TECH

Life’s little moments

What I’m really talking about here are those small, everyday moments of connection. Voicemails and text messages are intimate reminders of what our loved ones sound like, talk like and what they care about. You don’t have to wait until someone is gone to preserve those.

I won’t get into all the details here, but you can and should do this with VHS tapes, too. They degrade over time, so don’t wait until they’re unwatchable.

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Saving voicemails on iPhone

• Go to the Phone app and tap Voicemail in the bottom right.
• Tap on the voicemail you want to save, then tap the share button. It looks like a box with an arrow pointing out of it.
• You can now share this voicemail via AirDrop, Messages, Mail, Messenger or WhatsApp, depending on what you have installed.
• To save the voicemail on your phone, select Add to New Quick Note or Save to Files. You can access the saved message again in either app and play it back at your leisure. Both apps automatically back up the file to iCloud if enabled.
• To save the voicemail to your computer, select AirDrop, then tap on your computer’s name. Be sure both devices are connected to the same network. On your computer, accept the AirDrop and save the message wherever you want.

Saving voicemails on Android

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Keep in mind, your steps may vary based on your phone model. But you can still follow some general steps to keep those important messages.

• Open your Voicemail app or go to the Voicemail section in your Phone app.
• Tap (or tap and hold) the message you want to save.
• In the menu that appears, look for options like Save, Export or Archive.
• Select the storage location in your phone where you’d like to save your message, then tap OK or Save.

Have an old phone lying around? After you get everything you want off it, you need to wipe it the right way. Here’s how.

Saving texts on an iPhone

On an iPhone, your iCloud account holds lots of data, including messages. They’re updated automatically so you can see them across all your devices. That means if your iPhone bites the dust, you’ll be able to access your messages on a Mac, iPad or other Apple device with your Apple ID.

• To ensure your text messages are being saved, open Settings on your iPhone and tap your name.
• Tap iCloud and toggle on Messages.

Now, if you want to print your text messages, use the iExplorer app. It’s $39.99 to use on one phone and $69.98 for the family plan that covers five devices.

Saving texts on an Android

If you have an Android phone, a third-party app is your best bet to make the backup process easy. SMS Backup & Restore is a solid option.

DO THIS WITH YOUR FAMILY VIDEOS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

The app creates a local XML backup of the messages and call logs on your phone when you run it. You can do this manually or schedule recurring backups. You can then save that backup to your cloud storage.

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