Rather than traditional batteries, a future iPhone or Mac might be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Apple on Monday received a patent for a fuel cell that might be used in future devices. The goal is a device that can go days or weeks without needing to be refueled.
Intelligent Energy is a company with a mission: It wants to get fuel-cell battery technology in smartphones everywhere to dramatically improve battery life. Today, it signed a joint development agreement with an anonymous smartphone manufacturer to put that plan into action. The two will work together on embedded fuel-cell technology, which would be capable of delivering a staggering seven days of battery life to smartphones.
Apple may be interested in putting hydrogen-powered batteries in future iPhones, extending battery life up to 7 days per charge. Best of all? You’d charge your iPhone through the headphone jack.
The iPhone 6 isn’t expected to get a huge battery upgrade, but in just a few years your next iPhone might be able to go weeks on a single charge.
Apple and British fuel-cell firm Intelligent Energy have supposedly been working on a secret partnership, according to The Daily Mail, that might bring embedded fuel cells with weeks of battery life to Apple’s armada of MacBooks, iPhones and iPads.
I live in a part of the world where the permissible alcohol levels for drivers is very low. Now I’m not condoning drinking and driving, but I will say that many folks in my area – especially restaurant owners – have been particularly critical of these levels because what it’s done has caused patrons to not order anything to drink at all to have with dinner. Not even a small glass of wine or beer. Why? Because they’re afraid they’ll “blow over” the legal limit, even though it’s possible that they’ll be well below it.
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According to new plans filed with Catawba County, Apple is building a second data center near an already begun facility in Maiden, North Carolina.
The planned 21,030-square-foot data center will store server clusters, with a total cost of the 11-room building targeted at a little over $1.8 million. The permits filed include the installation of 22 air conditioners, five fans, 14 humidifiers, six electric heaters and heating ducts.
While we may not have jetpacks or flying cars, the future is here. Lilliputian Systems, originally part of the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), is releasing a new fuel cell external battery pack that they promise can charge smartphones like your iPhone up to fourteen times per single charge.
Apple has been granted its first patent related to Liquidmetal, a space-age metal alloy. But the patent isn’t for a new iPad enclosure or iPhone antenna, as experts have predicted. Instead Apple’s Liquidmetal patent is for an internal component of a fuel cell.
Apple’s new patent describes “amorphous alloy” collector plates for fuel cells, an electrochemical battery that uses hydrogen to generate electricity. Although the patent doesn’t reference the Liquidmetal trademark, the material is an amorphous alloy or “metallic glass.”
Last year, Apple signed an exclusive agreement to use the Liquidmetal Technologies’ IP in consumer electronic products. But of course, the ever-secretive company hasn’t hinted at its plans for the material. The possibilites are endless. Liquidmetal is a super lightweight, high-strength, scratch-proof metal that NASA says is “poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century.”
Scientists who helped develop Liquidmetal have previously predicted that Apple will use it to build the next iPhone. So why is Apple interested in fuel cells?
