Boston Power's Sonata batteries
Lithium-ion batteries are constantly degrading; the technology isn’t good enough for one to reliably hold a full charge for several years. Better gadget power is on the horizon; the question is how long we’ll have to wait. A few alternatives could arrive as early as this summer, but others are decades away.
Auxiliary chargers
They’re not exactly a giant step forward in portable power, but auxiliary chargers can be useful. Voxred International’s Turbo Charge ($20) uses one double-A battery to charge an assortment of cell phones. It’s been on the market since January 2006 in a variety of locations, from Best Buy to JCPenney. Sony’s Energy Link uses rechargeable double-A’s for gadgets with USB ports. It ships in the summer of 2007.
Boston Power's Sonata batteries
Boston Power claims that its cells are faster-charging, longer-lasting, and safer than current lithium-ion batteries. It has reengineered the lithium-ion battery from the ground up. Hewlett-Packard plans to ship laptops with these novel power sources this year.
Fuel cells
Fuel cells create electricity by forcing a chemical reaction between hydrogen, ethanol, oxygen, and other fuels. The army already uses fuel cells instead of some large batteries; analysts say we may be using them to charge our lithium-ions in five years. MTI Micro created a prototype for Samsung’s cell phones and has a development partnership with Duracell.
Virus batteries
Nanotechnology developed at M.I.T. could make for incredibly dense and powerful batteries. Professor Angela Belcher uses viruses incorporating inorganic materials to form tiny charged wire. Her lab has already created a virus-assembled battery, and she hopes to create batteries the size of those used in hearing aids—and eventually as small as grains of rice.
Wireless chargers
Eventually, perhaps, we’ll never have to plug in a cell phone again. Marin Soljacic of M.I.T. has been working on a technology, based on a process called evanescent coupling, which allows a charger to beam electromagnetic waves to devices designed to recognize them.
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