Fuel Cell Laptop announced by Toshiba 187
Steve writes "Following on from the Fuel Cells approved for airline cabins story a week or so back, it would seem there will soon be a need for that approval:
Toshiba has announced a fuelcell powered laptop for 2004,and possibly a PDA."
Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
A 'Standard' battery form factor (AAA, AA, C, D)
or
A small doohickey I can plug a standard AC mains cord into.
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
With the popularity of wireless networks, it has become a pain to have to plug in the laptop to the electric outlet while you spent that money to set up a wireless entwork so that you could stay on the net without any wires.
Although network technology is much newer, it seems it has managed to progress faster than battery technology sofar.
Apple is one company who has done all they could to extend battery life (the G3 processor uses so little juice it helps a lot), but every company is still at the mercy of the limits of the battery companies.
Re:Just like printer cartridges (Score:5, Insightful)
This troubles me (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Ethanol? (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to not have to have batteries at all so you just pump it up with some butane/methane whatever every now and again. This is a HUGE upgrade, not having to replace/recharge PDA batteries every couple hours of use could improve screens and processor power. And to top it all off, means that the manufacturers will make more money selling NEW things.
You can bet that this is only the first of a coming shift in consumer electronics.
Re:Fuel cells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: He's a moron.
Re:Finally (Score:2, Insightful)
If you look at the increase in computing power, speed, screen size, etc. over the last 10 years, it's a wonder that we get any more than
Re:Probably missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Consumable costs will be the killer (Score:5, Insightful)
Although wholesale costs for methanol are $0.33 per gallon. I'd be hesitant to pay five bucks to "recharge" my laptop once, OTOH I'd be willing to pay $2.50 for a gallon of methanol that's probably good for forty charges even though it might involve a bit of a hassle to transfer the liquid into "refill" containers.
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
Hit the snooze until you find a laptop that takes batteries in standard form factors. Heck, many PDA's now have built-in or custom fitted batteries.
Re:Old and new (Score:4, Insightful)
New industries, once they take off, nearly always progress much more rapidly than established ones. People (Bill Gates for one person) say stuff like this comparing airlines and computers: "If airlines had improved as fast as computers in the last X years, we'd be traveling from New York to California for a dime in three minutes." Not a fair comparison.
Similar progress lines showup with you too. Learn to play tennis or something. At first you suck, but if you're trying at all you can get basic strokes and so on down quickly -- you'll get better pretty fast for a while. Then you hit a sort of lull, where you level off and it's frustrating how little progress you seem to make. Every now and again you'll get a little burst of progress for one reason or another -- often sparked by an external source like a new racket or something -- but there's no way the rate of change will go back to that early one. Ask a pro tennis player how much work it takes to dramatically improve her game at that level. There's a point of diminishing returns thing going on.
Re:Doubt it (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Probably missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
This is exactly why I am non-plussed by this news. All we need is for every manufacturer to start selling the 'custom fuel mix' required for their device, or the 'custom fuel injector' or whatever.
As another poster said, a universal wall-wart replacement would be ideal for laptops and largeish devices, and standard formfactor batteries would be ideal for smaller devices.
Sure, there are plenty of applications for the integrated custom battery/fuelcell, but why should every product be saddled with the additional design and material cost of having the power source integrated when it can easily be handled by a portable universal device. My baby's vibratey chair eats C batteries for lunch, but I'm only going to use it for less than a year or so - Why should the cost of the thing go up to build in the refillable powersource.
Of course, once the fuelcell is sufficiently inexpensive, like a mass-producable nanotech 'chip' that can be stamped out for a few cents, your idea is good, but until then, I think replacing current form factors is the way to go.
Re:Battery Life Could be Better Today (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you fial to grasp how laptops are use din the workforce. Everyone I have eveer worked with who used a laptop used it both as their travel AND primary PC. Get back to the office, popup a mouse, plug in to monitor, plug in ot network, and you're good to go. All your files are always there, ready for use. Most people do not have both a workplace desktop and a laptop, they just use the laptop for both. saves them time and hassle and the company money.
Now with that out of the way, how "useless" is your CDROM, floppy drive, x86, and video hardware now? SUre, the smaller screen arguement is valid, but totally ditching the CDROM or floppy isn't. Most laptop manufacturers allow you to swap out your CDROM or floppy for an extra battery when on the road already anyways.
was:and... slashdoted... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm... most cars are 12v now days...but anyway..
I could think of many places where fuel cells would definately be more readily available than AC outlets... As another poster already mentioned, on planes unless your in the buisness class most dont have any type of outlet. In other countries, risk frying stuff using a voltage adapter and figuring out which settings and plug adapters to use? nah, just go to the nearest liquor store and get some grain alcohol. Hiking/working in a wilderness area w/a laptop for whatever reason, be it simply to download pics off a digital camera, keep a journal, view maps, chart some native civilization etc. Recharging the fuelcell might be easier than finding an AC outlet nearby, most civilizations have alcohol in some form. Then again you could just drag around a solarpanel...
TM
Re:Battery Life Could be Better Today (Score:2, Insightful)
There are also notebooks that have 3D hardware, a gig of ram, 15" screens, and last 10 minutes on a battery, because some people want fairly portable "workstations" and never intend to run them for long times on battery.
Re:Yawn (Score:2, Insightful)
Not many devices use a single battery. If they do then chances are they aren't exactly the type of device that needs extended battery life. For anything else that uses 2,4,6,8 batteries it might be a good solution for at least some of those devices with standard battery arrangements (boom boxes with 6 D's in an odd config won't be helped) to make a fuel cell pack. That is a single unit the size and general shape of say 2 AA's that would fit inside the standard compartment for say your current CD or MP3 player. They could offer both side by side and head to foot versions.
Or of course there is the option for a fuel cell power pack that is say maybe voltage selectable and has all the common DC plugs just like todays voltage adaptors. Or you could have the option to buy one that is single application specific.
but another poster also has the point right that another benefit to the industry is the ability to immediatly make completely (well slightly) redisigned products that take advantage of the higher power density; thus small form factor. Then on the slightly longer scale time frame they can start making portable products that were simply not possible with current power sources. Consider how much cell phones are held back because of power requirements. How much portable music devices are held back (in both power, size and quality) because of power requirements. PDA's, laptops, etc.
so making the statement, wake me up when you can get a fuel cell in AA AAA etc is just a red herring designed to sound more clever than everyone else by being contrary (can I acutally use that as a verb?)