Digital Camera Powered By a Fuel Cell

An anonymous reader notes a development from the world of photography that could spread to notebooks and cell phones. Canon has filed for a patent on a fuel cell-powered DSLR. The fuel cell would power not only the camera body but also all accessories attached to it, doing away with the need to power flashes (for example) with AA or other batteries. The patent covers other electronic devices generally, but is clearly directed toward DSLR cameras, given the diagrams and examples used. "Canon continues to push its fuel cell development by devising a method for powering not only the internal DSLR body electronics, but also external components such as lenses and hotshoe flashes."

Comments

Re:Powering the hot shoe?

[bugs2squash]

I am not a patent lizard...

But it seems to me from a quick read of the patent that this is exactly what this is.

It is more than an assertion that "although fuel cells can be used to power things, a camera is not a thing, hence this crap is patentable !"

It seems that some other manufacturer saw that a camera might supply power to or control and monitor the power within various strap-ons, like flash, power drive.

Canon seems to have added the idea that the camera body might also supply the fuel and monitor fuel cells within these strap-ons.