Charge It Up!

Maybe you remember the brouhaha over exploding laptop batteries earlier this year. Well, since then there's been a renewed commitment to making better, safer batteries.

One company to watch is Sonata from Boston-Power, Inc. The company is promising a "next generation" lithium ion battery. Boston-Power says its batteries will use slower chemical kinetics, improved current interrupt devices and thermal fuses, unique pressure relief vents, and safer pack configuration—all yielding a safer battery. Not only will they be safer, says the company, but they'll charge to 80 percent of their capacity in about 30 minutes. (Compare that to conventional notebook batteries, which can take one to two hours to get to 90 percent capacity.)

According to Sonata's Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud, most laptop users need to replace their battery three times over the course of their laptop's life, but Sonata will work for the lifetime of the laptop. That makes them good for the environment, too. Best of all, the new batteries can be plopped right into existing laptop battery compartments. The first notebook computers to use Sonata batteries are expected to ship this summer. Watch a demo from DEMO 07.

A very different sort of improvement from eCoupled promises to charge your devices without having to fuss with cables, wires, and outlets. All you'll need to do is place your device on a specially created desk that will charge your device. The technology is based on a way to transfer the power through a shared magnetic field. Fulton Innovation, Visteon, Motorola, Herman Miller, and Mobility Electronics are working jointly to commercialize solutions in the portable consumer electronics arena in furniture and autos. Pictured is Fulton Innovation's wireless charging station.