According to this CNN article, IBM is first to market with a 15 hour notebook battery they will be shipping to several laptop makers, including Apple, later this fall.

The Electrofuel PowerPad, developed by the small Canadian firm Electrofuel, will sell to IBM's ThinkPad customers at $499. The PowerPad is essentially a huge battery that that will sit under a notebook. It weighs a hefty 2.2 pounds, but did power PC World's test laptop for an amazing 15 hours.

The below quote explains how the PowerPad packs so much power in its relatively small space:

Up to 22 percent of a standard battery consists of wasted space because of packaging and design requirements, he says. Electrofuel's super-polymer technology dedicates virtually all the space to the battery itself and dispenses with the usual metal package for supporting the battery cells, which can be as thin as 1 millimeter. A proprietary chemical process also helps increase energy density.

The article says IBM will make the PowerPad available to other laptop manufacturers in late September or October. Since the product just plugs into the AC adapter, Apple's PowerBooks will need no redesign to take advantage of the PowerPad. However, IBM is working on internal versions of the technology that could be used in future PowerBooks.

Written/Edited/Published by Doug B. Landry
Logo by Jon Iverson
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©1998 Doug B. Landry. All rights reserved. All or part may not be reproduced or distributed without prior consent.
Coded on a Apple Macintosh Powerbook G3 Series from Baton Rouge, LA