Phone battery flat? Charge it up again - with water!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 15:44

Opinion and Analysis

The article states that: “The new fuel cell could power a handset for ten hours, twice as long as rechargeable batteries.” Wow. Water – and the hydrogen power within – can do that? I want it now!

But sadly, Samsung’s Oh Yong-soo noted that the water-powered handsets aren’t “expected to hit the market until 2010”.

Oh Yong-soo then said that: "If the user uses the phone for four hours a day on average, they would have to change the hydrogen cartridge about every five days. Later handsets will be developed that don't need the hydrogen cartridges to be changed, and would only need to be filled with water."

There seems to be a bit of confusion here, perhaps something was lost in translation, as Oh Yong-soo starts talking about ‘hydrogen cartridges’, only to explain that ‘later handsets... would only need... water”.

But maybe he’s talking about upcoming hydrogen fuel cells, the ones that have been promised to arrive way back in 2003, then 2004, then... you get the picture.

Whatever happens to those hydrogen cartridges, it’s clear that they’ll be obsolete when water power fuel cells that can extract the hydrogen are perfected, and they’re promised for two-and-a-half years away.

What a great time to be alive, eh? The impossible becomes possible, and science fiction becomes science fact.

All I need now is a water powered fuel cell for my notebook computer – surely they’ll develop one of those too.

Now, I definitely wouldn’t say I’m getting wet just thinking about it, or breaking into a sweat. But it’s one development that is very, very cool indeed, and a clear sign we’ve left the 20th century behind, and are making the technological advances we all expected the 21st century would deliver!