Can't Get Longer Battery Life, So How About Faster Charges? from
the next-best-thing dept One of the biggest issues holding back
portable technologies is the battery life question. While
computing power seems to increase rapidly, battery power has
been unable to keep up. While there are many efforts underway to
improve battery life, most don't measure up (unless you want to
increase the risk that your battery might explode). Fuel cells
don't appear to be the answer either. However, just because you
can't increase battery life, it doesn't mean other improvements
can't be made. Decreasing power consumption is one area that is
getting plenty of attention, but the rechargeable nature of
batteries is another interesting space. Toshiba has announced a
new technology which they claim can charge batteries much
faster. They claim this technology only requires a one minute
charge to get a battery up to 80% power -- which could go a long
way to solving certain battery life problems. If you can just do
a quick "power up,