Future Mac Portable Batterys?

flashgordon

You tech guys out there I have a topic for ya. Is it possible we will be seeing a new battery type in future Mac portables. Can the Lithium Poly battery tech in iPods be used in an iBook or are there other better battery types we may be seeing in the near future, I would like some serious battery life so I can watch 2 DVDs on a long flight w/o an adapter.

jcg

sometime in the distant future we may see fuel cell technology powering portable devices. This is probably 5 years off yet, but they are working on it for portable devices, automobiles, homes, and power station generation.

yevgeny

Sarium Krellide, of course <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

matsu

I vote for Potato power!

yevgeny

Small nuclear fission generators. You can have a heat sink for the CPU and a heat sink for the power supply. DOn't drop your laptop too hard though...

matsu

How'bout an anal methan harvester? You wear special underwear with an absorbing filter that channels the gas to be used in the laptop's fuel cell? Need longer battery-life? Eat more means or try to use your book in close proximity to a small herd of cattle. Rendezvous automatically detects ambient gases and seamlessly collects them for use, only possible with Jaguar!

ghost_user_name

[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

<strong>How'bout an anal methan harvester? You wear special underwear with an absorbing filter that channels the gas to be used in the laptop's fuel cell? Need longer battery-life? Eat more means or try to use your book in close proximity to a small herd of cattle. Rendezvous automatically detects ambient gases and seamlessly collects them for use, only possible with Jaguar!</strong><hr></blockquote>



You know, this thread had potential for actual discussion.



However, you, Matsu, decided to ruin it.



To keep with the mood,









this thread is locked.

carson o'genic

The Gay Blade over at MacEdition had revivied the fuel cell rumor:



The Blade isn?t the only Mac player throwing fuel on the fire these days, at least according to certain highly placed officials in the Rubinstein administration who maintain that Apple is in hot pursuit of fuel-cell technology for a veritable tsunami of future PowerBooks.



"According to the Blade?s beady-eyed moles, Apple is as aware as the next hardware manufacturer of the potential of fuel cells as a superior source of portable power to the charge-constrained batteries weighing down today?s laptops. They report that Apple has been feverishly seeking out fuel-cell companies that might accept their investment dollars ? and afford it a competitive advantage in this up-and-coming market.



Apple hardly has the field to itself. Most notably, Intel has been approaching most of the same players ? with the caveat that it won?t invest in any fuel-cell company that also deals with Apple. By contrast, IBM is reportedly more than happy to play nicely with La Pomme; besides looking to power its own Intel-based ThinkPads with fuel cells, Big Blue will gladly see the technology put at the service of future Apple laptops ? especially if they?re to be based on IBM?s PowerPC 970 (a k a G5) processor.



So serious is Apple about the potential of fuel-cell technology, sources report, that the company is willing to adapt its next-generation PowerBooks to accommodate a fuel cell instead of insisting that the winning supplier provide a fuel cell that fits into the battery compartment of current PowerBook designs."



Cool!

bunge

Quote:

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic



"Most notably, Intel has been approaching most of the same players ? with the caveat that it won?t invest in any fuel-cell company that also deals with Apple."

If this is the case, Apple should invest some with everyone, even a token amount, just so Intel looks stupid.

junkyard dawg

Matsu, I think those methane-harvesting undies wouldn't need a pad so much as a catheter. But you could add an iVibrator to them for added convienience.

matsu

When I look at the battery pack in the 12, I see a lot of wasted space. Whatever battery tech they move to, I'd like to see them use the largest cells that will fit. In the 12, that would easily be a battery of 30-50% greater volume. In real world terms that would produce true 5+ hour battery life and 6-7 hours when you stretch it.



Isn't this thread a blast from the past? Are we re-instating threads now? or is vB a little wonky?



PS, I've been noticing some strange behavior lately, but iDunno if it's something to do with the way Safari 1.0 handles cached pages, they don't seem to refresh automatically any more.

screed

I don't know if the feasibility of fuel cells is any better than batteries. Instead of a spare battery or a charger for that matter one would be caring around small vials of fuel similar to cigarette lighters. I don't think airport security is going to like that.



Screed

escher

Well, before we move to space-tech batteries, there are some simpler steps that Apple should consider. E.g. re-instating dual battery bays, like those used from the PowerBook 500 series all the way to the Pismo PowerBook G3, would be a good idea as well. There are many situations where two batteries are significantly more useful than one battery and an optical drive. OTOH, I like the added simplicity of a battery that is not intended to be removed all the time.



Another thing that Apple really needs to implement is sleep-swapping of batteries on the iBooks and 12-inch PowerBook. It's ludicrous that you can't sleep-swap the battery on the 12-inch PowerBook!



Escher

placebo

Quote:

Originally posted by Jonathan

this thread is locked.



[/B]

It is? I haven't noticed that yet.

paul

Quote:

Originally posted by Matsu

Isn't this thread a blast from the past? Are we re-instating threads now? or is vB a little wonky?



PS, I've been noticing some strange behavior lately, but iDunno if it's something to do with the way Safari 1.0 handles cached pages, they don't seem to refresh automatically any more.

any locked threads from before the vB transition became unlocked during the conversion



Safari v85 reads pages from the cache by default... refresh to see an updated version of the thread



brad has a better explanation... see the safari 1.0 thread in sw



solution: get rid of browser cache or use OW 4.5b1

jimdreamworx

Remember when the iBook first came out, the rumors about a windup battery on it, ala those portable radios?



Waiting for someone to make a battery charger like that...

carson o'genic

What's all this locked thread stuff. I saw the NMR report last night and it reminded me of some discussions I once read here. I searched Future Hardware for "fuel cell" and found this thread which seemed appropriate. Should I have started a new thread when we already had an old, but appropriate IMHO, thread?

der kopf

I look at it this way: if Matsu were to decide not to post again at AppleInsider, that would effectively mean a horrible loss for these boards.

escher

Quote:

Originally posted by Carson O'Genic

I saw the NMR report last night and it reminded me of some discussions I once read here. I searched Future Hardware for "fuel cell" and found this thread which seemed appropriate. Should I have started a new thread when we already had an old, but appropriate IMHO, thread?

Carson O'Genic: You did exactly what I would have done. It makes perfect sense to keep information regarding a particular topic in one single thread. That's true even if it means digging up an older thread. In this case, I think it was an omen, a positive sign, that the transition to vB unlocked the thread in question. Now we just need to keep it on topic to avoid the ire of the moderators.



IMO, the lower power requirements of the upcoming Motorola PPC 7457 (as opposed to Moto's current PPC 7455) will bring a handy increase in battery life. However, I agree that Apple needs to do even more on battery tech. The iPod has a nice high-density battery. I imagine the only thing that prevents Apple from using an iPod-quality battery in the PowerBooks is cost.



If cost is a concern, Apple should sell high-capacity batteries as an option. That's what PC makers do. I have no doubt that many PowerBook users would pay a 50% premium (or more) for a 50% increase in battery life.



Escher

yevgeny

Quote:

Originally posted by Escher



If cost is a concern, Apple should sell high-capacity batteries as an option. That's what PC makers do. I have no doubt that many PowerBook users would pay a 50% premium (or more) for a 50% increase in battery life.

I would so pay %50 more for %50 more capacity. My Dell has two batteries so that it can run for six hours (and get its weight up to ten pounts). Ideally, a laptop could work for something like eight to ten hours, but that is hard to do for the real world CPU loads that I will inflict on a laptop (100% twenty minutes at a time).

aquatic

Good call. With hi capacity batteries for sale why would we need two battery bays? Escher if you need a 2nd battery why not just bring it with you? Although the PBG4 12" can't switch batteries like the other PBs because it doesn't have a reserve battery IIRC, which sux poo.