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In our "Weekly Innovation" blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form.

Hikers and campers can now keep their cameras charged with FlameStower, which uses heat from a campfire, stove or even candles to charge any device powered by a USB connection. While this can seem superfluous — powering up while getting away from it all — creators Andrew Byrnes and Adam Kell says the device can also bring power to people in developing countries where wireless technology has leap-frogged others, places where people have cell phones but not electricity.

Byrnes and Kell were both studying materials science at Stanford University and at first they thought about a generator wired to a toaster, but quickly dismissed that idea. They spoke to a business school professor, who told them something that's been their guiding principle since — build something that can cook a pot of rice and charge a cell phone at the same time.

The technology is fairly simple. The FlameStower has a blade that extends out over the fire, while the other end is cooled by a reservoir of water. That means one part of the blade is hotter than the other. The temperature difference generates electricity and semiconductors amplify the voltage to a useful amount. It gives you the same charge as connecting your phone to a laptop. The Mars Curiosity Rover uses the same technology, though its heat source comes from decaying radioactive materials.

This phenomenon of heat to electricity is called the Seebeck effect, and it doesn't generate a lot of energy, which means it wasn't that useful until people started walking around with cameras and smartphones.

"Now you have these tools that are insanely powerful, and increasingly are stingy on their energy use, so that value of the low amount of electricity is getting higher," Byrnes says.

He and Kell want to bring the FlameStower not only to stores in the U.S., but to developing countries as well. Kell recently returned from a trip to rural Kenya and Ethiopia to refine the FlameStower for users there, because around 65 percent of people in Africa have cell phones, but only 42 percent have electricity.

"(The cell phone) has been the first technology that people in rural villages are actually buying," Kell says.

Kell says products sold in developing countries are usually made to be cheaper than their counterparts in the U.S., with the exception of energy, which is much more expensive and less reliable.

Kell and Byrnes aren't the only people to come up with something like this. The BioLite CampStove and PowerPot are both pots that will charge a device and cook your food or boil water at the same time. But Kell says they weren't as successful in developing countries because people there often want to use their own pots, so the FlameStower founders made something that can work on any stove or fire.

At the moment a FlameStower costs $80, and the project is being funded on Kickstarter until late October.

Alan Yu is a Kroc fellow at NPR.

A Lao Airlines flight from the capital Vientiane crashed into the Mekong River on landing approach. There was no word of survivors among the 49 passengers and crew, The Bangkok Post reports.

The twin-turbo ATR, with 44 passengers and five crew aboard hit the water short of a runway in Pakse, in Champassak province in southern Laos, the newspaper says.

Witnesses quoted by the Post said they saw dead bodies at a makeshift emergency ward set up at a Buddhist temple near the crash site.

A statement from the Lao Ministry of Public Works and Transport says:

"Upon preparing to land at Pakse airport the aircraft ran into extreme bad weather conditions and was reportedly crashed into the Mekong River. There were no news of survivors at this time," the statement said.

"Lao Airlines is taking all necessary steps to coordinate and dispatch all rescue units to the accident site in the hope of finding survivors and at the same time informing relatives of the passengers," it added.

The Associated Press quotes a Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying everyone aboard – including five Thai nationals – were killed in the crash.

Spokesman Sek Wannamethee said "the flight from the Lao capital of Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos crashed at about 4 p.m. Lao time [5:30 a.m. ET]."

"He said the flight crashed 7-8 kilometers (4-5 miles) short of the international airport at Pakse. Reports by China's official Xinhua News Agency and Thai media said the plane crashed in the Mekong River."

Senate leaders say they're optimistic of an eleventh-hour bipartisan agreement on Wednesday that would avoid a government default after their House colleagues failed to produce a plan that could pass muster.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were set to pick up the pieces from the fractious and fruitless night in the House that accomplished little more than running down the clock.

"Given tonight's events, the Leaders have decided to work toward a solution that would reopen the government and prevent default," Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said in a statement. "They are optimistic an agreement can be reached."

Their effort to forge a deal acceptable to both parties to restart the government and renew its authority to borrow was given urgency on Tuesday by a warning issued by Fitch Ratings, the third-largest credit rating agency, which said the debacle in Washington meant it was placing the country's long-term credit rating under review for a potential downgrade.

If you haven't been following every twist and turn, here are the latest events from each chamber:

In The House:

On Tuesday evening, House Republicans tried and failed to produce their own plan for ending the stalemate, but in the end it wasn't Democrats who scuttled their efforts, but divisions among GOP lawmakers.

In the early evening, the House had crafted a plan to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling in exchange for some changes in the Affordable Care Act, which has been a key stumbling block throughout the weeks of negotiations. But when Heritage Action for America, a lobby group affiliated with the conservative Heritage Foundation weighed in against the plan, what little resolve that might have existed Republicans quickly evaporated.

As Politico writes of House Speaker John Boehner:

"[Battered] from three years of intra-party battles, [he] was caught between at least three different GOP factions as he tried to craft a compromise agreement: Republicans who didn't want to slash government health care contributions for Capitol Hill aides, members who thought repealing the medical device tax was a giveaway to corporate America and conservatives, who thought Republican leaders were too soft on Obamacare.

Boehner was unable to craft a deal that would satisfy all of the groups, forcing him to shelve his plan and show the world — again — just how hard it is for him to rule the raucous House Republican Conference.

No amount of political gymnastics would help him reach the crucial 217 vote-level to send a bill to the Senate. GOP aides said that Boehner was — at a minimum — 20 to 30 votes short of the target."

Senate leaders say they're optimistic of an eleventh-hour bipartisan agreement on Wednesday that would avoid a government default after their House colleagues failed to produce a plan that could pass muster.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were set to pick up the pieces from the fractious and fruitless night in the House that accomplished little more than running down the clock.

"Given tonight's events, the Leaders have decided to work toward a solution that would reopen the government and prevent default," Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said in a statement. "They are optimistic an agreement can be reached."

Their effort to forge a deal acceptable to both parties to restart the government and renew its authority to borrow was given urgency on Tuesday by a warning issued by Fitch Ratings, the third-largest credit rating agency, which said the debacle in Washington meant it was placing the country's long-term credit rating under review for a potential downgrade.

If you haven't been following every twist and turn, here are the latest events from each chamber:

In The House:

On Tuesday evening, House Republicans tried and failed to produce their own plan for ending the stalemate, but in the end it wasn't Democrats who scuttled their efforts, but divisions among GOP lawmakers.

In the early evening, the House had crafted a plan to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling in exchange for some changes in the Affordable Care Act, which has been a key stumbling block throughout the weeks of negotiations. But when Heritage Action for America, a lobby group affiliated with the conservative Heritage Foundation weighed in against the plan, what little resolve that might have existed Republicans quickly evaporated.

As Politico writes of House Speaker John Boehner:

"[Battered] from three years of intra-party battles, [he] was caught between at least three different GOP factions as he tried to craft a compromise agreement: Republicans who didn't want to slash government health care contributions for Capitol Hill aides, members who thought repealing the medical device tax was a giveaway to corporate America and conservatives, who thought Republican leaders were too soft on Obamacare.

Boehner was unable to craft a deal that would satisfy all of the groups, forcing him to shelve his plan and show the world — again — just how hard it is for him to rule the raucous House Republican Conference.

No amount of political gymnastics would help him reach the crucial 217 vote-level to send a bill to the Senate. GOP aides said that Boehner was — at a minimum — 20 to 30 votes short of the target."