Toolkit

Story: Dead iPod syndrome - no volt found?

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Kurt - no, at some point there'll be a nice standard battery technology that is lighter, cheaper, has a higher power density, is safer, less polluting, longer living and just plain better than anything else. At that point, there'll be no reason to do anything else.

We're at that point in some niches - watch batteries, for example, are a good enough match to their job that no alternative is needed. Ditto car batteries. But for most portable consumer electronics, some sort of compromise is necessary - and sometimes the compromises the designers make will not match the way the user would rather have things.

Until we reach the universal power nirvana, the interests of the consumer are best served by giving them as much choice as possible so they can be the judge of what's appropriate for them. It's very possible - I have a hand-held radio transceiver that has a lithium battery as standard, but will also take an AA battery pack that works with NiMH or alkalines. Is the lithium pack the best one? Most of the time, yes - but what when it dies for good and I can't get a replacement? Or I'm out of reach of a charger for three days?

Your technology will make better LiIon batteries, I'm sure (I wrote about a company called cap-XX a couple of years ago, which seemed to be doing the same sort of thing - are you related?): I was convinced by the cap-XX arguments, and I'm mildly surprised not to see product yet. But that doesn't solve the problem of what happens when the LiIon side dies and you can't get a replacement: a problem solvable by better design.

R

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