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Motorola Makes Gasoline Powered Cell Phones
Wister285 writes "Well, now that PDAs are integrated with cell phones, you'll need some extra juice to power that thing. Motorola seems to think that the next generation of cell phones needs to be powered by gas (fuel cells). Supposedly these cell phones can last for a whole month without needing to be recharged. Batteries are not being eliminated since the "power plant" of the phone is located on the user's belt. Seems interesting. Gives a whole new meaning to "Fill 'er up!""
The first paragraph of the article (which is all I bothered to read, but that's still more than CmdrTaco) clearly says "methane gas-powered", not "gasoline powered".
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Great. As if it wasn't bad enough to share the road with people trying to hold on to a cigarette and a cell phone more than they are hanging on to their 3+ ton SUV. Now they are going to be catching on fire too.
Could this be the "Killer App" for fuel cells?
They won't get cheaper untill there's a mass market, cell phones could be the answer.
Get the EULA T-shirt
The way i understand it, it works as follows:
1. You buy the fuel cell powerplant which is slightly smaller than a standard battery
2. You keep using you phone as usual - recharging the normal battery when it goes flat.
3. If you are out in the fields with no electricity or in a hotel without your charger, you hook up the phone with the flat battery to the fuelcell to recharge the normal battery
4. After charging the devices are disconnected from each other and you keep using your phone like you are used to...
I kinda like the idea, but hope for flexibility in the fuelcell device. It sure would kick ass if i not only could "refuel" my cell but also my PDA, MP2 player or whatever gizmo is currently hungry.
+++ath0
I was at the Sprint PCS store the other day looking at the Kyocera and Samsung Palm phones. Pretty cool. I have a Palm VIIx with Palm net, but to have a PIM, a network appliance, AND a phone would just be cool. Anyhow, Palm.net charges not by TIME, but by BIT...and this makes sense, as the data services are low-bandwidth and bursty. Just as it should be for a handheld device. Well, just to prove that they JUST DON'T GET IT Sprint PCS charges by the minute. You check your email and there is none: 16 seconds, 110 bytes, $0.39. I can go a whole month on Palm.net for $12, checking my email several times per day. I figured I'd rack up close to $50 on Sprint--and that's not allowing for actually GETTING any mail. I checked in with AT&T, they charge the same.
Apparently, the Kyocera and Samsung phones actually use a digital modem and connect to an ISP, rather than simply talking to the "network" like Palm.net. So you are physically setting up a PPP session with an ISP and running an IP stack. What a bunch of idiots. Wireless data network my ass.
So does anyone know of any providers that actually have a cool phone/Palm/data network worth needing extra battery life--that don't charge by the minute?
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Methane doesn't stink. It's basically odorless.
Natural gas doesn't smell by itself. Distributors add methyl mercaptan to it in order to make it smell, so that leaks can be found. (Walk up and down the street in front of my house any day of the year and you'll smell it coming from the rather porous old Boston Gas/Keyspan pipes. They make repairs when their leak detector shows the concentration getting scary.) Mercaptan was chosen because it, well, has a strong and distinctive smell. Acetylene smell similar but is itself explosive.
This practice began after a very unfortunate incident in the 1930s. The public school in London, Texas had been heated by gas that was being, uh, skimmed off of a pipeline passing from a nearby well. The connection wasn't exactly professional. A leak sprang, and gas accumulated in the basement, reaching serious concentrations without being noticed. It blew the school sky-high, killing about 200 people, including most of the children, largely wiping the town off the map. (The town, near Tyler, was renamed New London; it now has about 900 inhabitants.)
People nowadays appreciate methane's properties a bit better. A little cartridge to power a fuel cell should not be a problem.
http://www.fuelcells.org/
Good introduction.
Strangely enough, I do recall the proposal to use gasoline for fuel cells, say in cars, for pollution control, etc. The idea is that you need to have a cheap source of hydrogen and oxegen. And you do not what to use tap water because of the impurities. (never mind that producing a system that could handle impurities would cut the legs from under the Oil Companies)
Any number of complex hydrocarbons could be used as a fuel for such a system. Methane is just one.
And the one that some people like is to derive the hydrogen and carbon from ordinary gasoline. Although this is a wild mix of things, it has the advantadge of that it continues to feed the Oil Companies, and it takes advantadge of the distribution system already in place.
Technology is partly based on the profit center, after all.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"