Scosche’s new ReviveLite II is barely bigger than any other iPod charging brick, and manages to pack in a flip-down iPod holder along with a glowing night-light. It is also $10 cheaper than v1.0, which had the additional handicap of being big, ugly and covering up not one, but two power outlets thanks to its side-saddle design.

The design is ingenious and simple. Plug it in and flip down the maw to reveal a shelf with a single projecting tooth: the dock connector. The nightlight is a glowing white LED which is housed inside the lip of this mechanical mouth, and can thankfully be switched on or off at the press of a button. Scosche also thought to include a USB port on the side (cheek?) for charging most anything else, and if you do overload things. the lamp will flash in warning.

ReviveLite II is small enough to almost disappear behind an iPod nano, but also large enough to accommodate an iPhone. And best of all, $ 25, is less expensive than Apple’s charger, which has none of the extras, and still requires an awkward cable.

On Thursday, Central Michigan University initiated its first mobile device application.

CMU Connect is a free application that enables mobile access to news, events, sports scores and information from another university that is now available for use with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

“It is a hot commodity,” said Ryan Battishill, assistant director of social media and news from CMU. “Our intention is to develop connectivity for our students, alumni and prospective students.”

In mid October CMU partnered with Straxis Technology of Oklahoma to create the interface and content delivery and capacity utilization,

The university has more than 180,000 alumni, 27,000 current students, prospective students, and athletic fans, and “there’re 81 million iPhone and iPod Touch users,”said Battishill.

Log CMU will provide mobile access to the latest news, events, videos, sports scores and information from other universities. It also will have weather information.

“This is an excellent starting point for us,” Battishill said. “We will be adopting other facets and continue to evolve.

“It’s CMU at your fingertips.”

“We are seek to develop with new modules,” Battishill said.

“We’re going to keep adding more and make it more dynamic.

“Some key features to make it easy to use are the scrolling mechanism or a list view for people to use while they are on the go.”

Battishill said that he used his iPod Touch to get Thursday night’s CMU basketball scores.

CMU Connect is available for use with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad at the Apple iTunes Store.