“Most personal-computing and communications technologies doubled their performance every 18 months in the 1980s and every 12 months in the1990s. Only power sources for portable hardware lagged this meteoric pace—until now. Direct-methanol fuel cells (DMFC) can finally free us from the last wire in the “wireless” device.”
Portabe Design magazine highlights some new technologies in fuel cells which could bring much greater battery life to handheld devices.
Bringing Fuel Cells to market will likely begin with power-pack expansion packs that snap onto the back of specific PDA’s like the Samsung i700 below. This will allow more flexibility since the user could still swap out the LiIon battery at times.
The increase in power capabilities could be about 5 times as much as a LiIon battery of similar volume.
Originally published on Pocketnow on August 17, 2004. More Smartphone News articles from the Pocketnow archive.