Short answer from article: Use a standard USB->battery charger IC. There are a bunch of them on the market. Two extra tidbits: 1) Most (all?) of these ICs are

Short answer from article: Use a standard USB->battery charger IC. There are a bunch of them on the market. Two extra tidbits: 1) Most (all?) of these ICs are surface mount only. Come to the 21st century you through hole barbarians. 2) The article implies that drawing more than 500mA will shut down a USB port. This would be nice, but consider that the people who designed your laptop/desktop/whatever can save $1/unit by leaving out the USB overcurrent protection. They probably did.