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Hurricane Sandy has left many people on the East Coast without power. As smartphones have been lifelines for many to family members, local authorities, news and other important information, those dealing with the aftermath are looking for ways to make their batteries last until power returns.

• Dim the Screen: Persistent display at the brightest level is a surefire way to put your Smartphone battery into early retirement. Reducing the amount of energy your phone uses on a regular basis will pay immediate dividends.
• Notifications: Pick a ringtone instead of vibrate, which uses more energy. Sometimes vibrate is preferable to a ringtone, but try to use it only as needed.
• Turn off those Apps: Turning off non-essential functions when they are not in use will go a long way to extending the amount of hours in a battery in settings. Among the biggest energy hogs are GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. All three continuously search for signals/location info whether you are using them or not, so while this is useful when you’re lost, it is not when you are found. Click on your Smartphone’s settings to see what apps are active.
• Try an Extended Life Battery: Still need more battery time? An extended life battery can provide several additional hours of use. Or, pick up a portable battery power pack. It’s an easy way to charge your phone on the go, allowing complete access to your phone as it charges.

The Disney-Lucasfilm deal also included LucasArts, a company with a storied history including hundreds of games, based on both existing Lucasfilm properties and original ideas.

Disney itself is no stranger to gaming, publishing everything from Warren Spector's Epic Mickey to mobile puzzler Where's My Water through its Disney Interactive label. Could the company put those same gaming resources toward reviving Star Wars gaming franchises like Dark Forces or the X-Wing games, or even the more recent Star Wars Battlefront? Not so fast. In a conference call following the announcement, Disney CEO Bob Iger noted that the company is "likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console," as far as Star Wars-based games go. "We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well-known they are, and the storytelling... they lend themselves quite nicely—as they've already demonstrated—to the other platforms." That bit about "social and mobile" may seem disheartening to fans of Star Wars strategy and shooter games, but there's reason not to get too gloomy. Iger specifically left the door open for licensing the property to other companies for other platforms, a situation that really wouldn't be a huge change from how the company has handled its Star Wars titles of late.

The United States will argue that cybersecurity mandates should be excluded from an international telecommunications treaty in a new set of proposals it plans to send to a United Nations agency.

Some countries are pushing to include cybersecurity proposals in the treaty that could lead to online censorship or put one regulatory body in charge of cybersecurity mandates, U.S. Ambassador Terry Kramer said on a conference call with reporters. He said "there is no one-size-fits-all text" that will provide the right solutions on cybersecurity, and for this reason, the upcoming treaty conference in Dubai this December is not the "proper venue" for discussing the national security issue. Kramer argued that including such regulations would be a "dead end" because countries need to be agile enough to respond to cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. He acknowledged that the threat of cyberattacks is a problem, noting that 67,000 malware attacks occur each day — double the number from 2009. Instead, the U.S. is advocating for a variety of organizations to guide countries on how to boost the protection of their critical computer networks and systems, foster international cybersecurity cooperation and cyber training.

By calling Nate Silver’s poll-driven journalism “overrated,” Politico reporter Dylan Byers has become a symbol of another view of journalism, creating a debate between practitioners and protectors of both types. Politico and Silver, who writes The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog, both specialize in making you feel like an insider. Both approaches serve news consumers very well. One lets you consume politics as entertainment. The other, politics as math. Entertainment is fun, and math is hard.