Pelican Products launches the Marine smartphone cases at CES 2016-- the first waterproof iPhone case line from the company promising protection from drops, snow, dirt, dust and, of course, water.

The maker claims the Marine cases feature 5 layers of military-grade shock protection, while a scratch-resistant screen protector helps users avoid display damage. The case should also allow one to submerge the iPhone in up to 2m of water for 30 minutes, as well as protect against the elements.

MIT researchers develop electrochemical-based batteries able to harvest power from a wide variety of human motions and activities-- in other words batteries one can charge by running or even walking.

Motion-charged batteries already exist, but these are based on the tribolectric effect (the principle behind producing sparks by rubbing a balloon against a wool sweater) or piezoelectrics (crystals producing a small voltage when bent or compressed). Such principles work well with high-frequency motion sources, but are limited by regular human motions. The required materials can also be quite expensive, and have high electrical impedance and bending rigidity.

On the other hand the new MIT-developed batteries promise to be inexpensive to produce at large scale while demanding less motion to actually produce power. The technology is actually similar to lithium ion batteries, since it consists a porous polymer soaked in liquid electrolyte sandwiched between 2 thin lithium alloy electrodes.

BenQ PC gaming accessories get a rebrand with ZOWIE, a name the company says "will continue to show its commitment to gamers by providing eSports athletes with premium professional gaming products."

The ZOWIE brand is not a new one-- it has actually been making eSports-focused gaming gear, including mice, mouse pads/gaming surfaces, keyboards, headsets and other accessories (such as "skatez" replacement mouse feet) since 2008. But following what appears to be a substantial investment it has become the BenQ gaming brand.

Taiwanese accessory maker Cougar presents the Attack X3-- a mechanical keyboard promising to cover the essentials "purist gamers" demand, namely quality, functionality and durability.

Featuring Cherry MX switches (in Red, Brown, Blue and Black options) in a brushed aluminium design, the keyboard promises tunable polling reaching 1000Hz, 1ms response time and N key rollover capabilities. It offers 10 programmable keys (with on-board memory), on the fly mode switching and dedicated media keys, with Cougar UIX software macro handling editing, storage and sharing.