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Hot Topics In The Mobile Computing Industry
Battery Related Issues in
Mobile & Wireless - An Overview
Battery is one of the most important
and yet neglected components of wireless solutions. It is important
for the following reasons:
- Mobility and portability
inherently requires a source of electricity that does not depend
on conventional wired power.
- Our requirements for battery power
in mobile devices are running ahead of the improvements in
battery capacity.
- While we are making advances in
lower consumption of power for the same function, we are
demanding more powerful functionality.
- Security technology like more
powerful encryption are demanding on battery power.
- Battery runs out rather quickly in
most handheld devices. More data you send or more you voice
messaging you use, more you run down the battery. The faster is
the data rate you want, faster is the rate at which battery is
depleted.
Recently some attention has been paid
to advances in using non-electric methods of charging e.g. solar
energy or fuel cells.
Trends in Improving Battery Life
for Handheld Devices
There is an ongoing progress in
reducing consumption of power and increasing battery life for mobile
devices. This progress is centered on following initiatives:
- Reducing the power requirements of
chips and processors
- Superior power management
techniques
- Better batteries based on
conventional technology
- New battery technologies like fuel
cell, as described below
Yet, according to Yankee Group analyst Roger Entnerone,
power requirements of new power-hungry applications are growing
faster (some say @ 15% annually) than improvements in battery power
(improving @10% annually).
Fuel Cell Technology for Mobile
devices : In fuel cells, hydrogen mixes with oxygen to generate
electric current through water. Technology problem is that hydrogen is
flammable. One startup company with a solution to this problem is
Energy Visions. In its implementation, they separate hydrogen from
methanol.
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