Fuel Cell Laptop announced by Toshiba

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."

Comments

Yawn

[rschwa]

Wake me when I can get a fuel cell in either:

A 'Standard' battery form factor (AAA, AA, C, D)

or

A small doohickey I can plug a standard AC mains cord into.

Re:Yawn

[aero6dof]

How many D cells does your laptop take?

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:Yawn

[Jumperalex]

As far as AA and AAA go I would think along these lines:

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?)

Finally

[jeffasselin]

It's time the batteries finally caught up to the way we want to use our laptops.

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:Finally

[PB-MX]

Finally?!
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 .5 Hours from our laptops. The fact that you get the same amount of time now as when we were using the 8" Black and White, 286 POS is astounding!

Re:Just like printer cartridges

[ackthpt]

I'm concerned that you're right. Low Methonal solution souldn't be a problem, as you can pick it up for a few dimes a bottle, however, it seems likely they'll hold you to the warrantee with some certified/proprietary mixture (then get someone to add reverse-engineering fuel mixtures to the DMCA) which you can only buy with their quality name on it, or from licensed moonshiners.

This troubles me

[surfimp]

A fuel cell -powered laptop seems like a bomb waiting to happen, but maybe I'm just reactionary and ill-informed.

Re:Ethanol?

[name_already_in_use]

You joke, but this could happen to you if you take your laptop to somewhere like Saudi Arabia :)

Probably missing the point

[DougJohnson]

The idea isn't to "upgrade" your old equipment to use feul cells. The entire tech industry desperately needs something to sell some new products. How many walkman's do you need? (or should that be walkmen?)

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:Probably missing the point

[klevin]

Unless you're the battery industry. In which case, it would seem like a good idea to come up w/ fuel cells that fit into standard battery form factors. That way, you don't get completely cut out of the action.

Re:Probably missing the point

[rschwa]

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.

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:Fuel cells?

[GooberToo]

He violated federal law that was in place prior to 9/11. Deserved what he got.

Translation: He's a moron.

Consumable costs will be the killer

[Billy the Mountain]

One manufacturer is proposing to supply a 120 ml cartridge that last 10 hours on a laptop. The price is going to be an estimated $3 - $5 per.

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:Old and new

[ianscot]

Although network technology is much newer, it seems it has managed to progress faster than battery technology sofar.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, shut up. You're not as smart as you think you are. Of COURSE they're not knowledgable about all that. All they did was go to a another company and say "we want a refillable fuel cell that fits in this form factor and provides 15000mAh at 12v." They'd be stupid to attempt to develop this infant technology themselves. It's called comparative advantage. Do what you're good at, buy the rest. Somebody never took econ in high school did they? (I say high school because no respectable college/grad school/doctorate graduate in the real world would spew such knowledge in an attempt to impress a bunch of people he's never even seen in person. Did you do some little senior physics project on fuel cells? Those look like bullet points from a high school research project....

Re:Battery Life Could be Better Today

[brunes69]

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...

[Tmack]

And finaly, eletrical power is so cheap that most people don't mind if you just plug your stuff in. When I bring my laptop just about anywhere, I can feel confident I'll be able to find an outlet to plug it into. I could even get an adapter for my car (actualy, an 9vdc->120vac to plug my 120vac ->12vdc power brick, but hey it works :P)

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

[Proc6]

Are you trying to be insigtful? You just read off the definition of today's subnotebooks, like the Sony Picturebook? Most any subnotebook now a days use external CD/Floppys, integrated video with no/little 3D hardware, and small screens. You won't have any problems finding all of your specs above in a single notebook.

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.