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About LinkBacksRead more.Apple looks at increasing battery life substantially with fuel cell technology.
Read more.Apple looks at increasing battery life substantially with fuel cell technology.
Finally apple doing something innovative... They might even be able to justify their crazy markup...
My concern is that patents will be so broad and obvious as "put a fuel cell in a laptop instead of a battery". The technology to make a fuel cell small and efficient enough to be used to power a laptop should be patentable. The idea of putting one in a laptop shouldn't... that'd bleeding obvious.
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watercooled (23-12-2011)
Good Point Steve,
Their current penchant for patenting the obvious could make things very interesting for other laptop makers.
Read the post and immediately thought the same thing...Originally Posted by Steve
Its a sad state of affairs when the first thing people think about a company is that they`ll use a new tech to strangle the rest of the competition out
A Macbook casing factory is forced to shut down due to pollution, something blows up in a sweatshop producing Apple products injuring 57 workers and less than a week later Apple feels the need to release a political greenwash diatribe alongside a 'green' patent for a highly speculative technology at least a decade in the future. Coincidence much?
What a pile of **** - already been done by other folks - 5 seconds with Google threw up a list including http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5016984.stm and that article (from May 2006) says:Two recently uncovered patent filings by Apple, entitled Fuel Cell Systems to Power Portable Computing Device and Fuel Cell System Coupled to a Portable Computing Device, reveal that fuel cells would extend the battery life of devices substantially.
And if that wasn't enough there's the UltraCell XX25 and - most damning of all - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10...ook_fuel-cell/ - which in 2004! was NEC showing a fuel cell powered laptop (albeit a really ugly one).Toshiba started fuel cell development for PCs about four years ago. It is working towards commercialisation next year, said Tomoaki Arimura of Toshiba's Methanol Fuel Cell Group.
Mr Arimura gave the BBC News website a hands-on demonstration of a pre-commercial version of its laptop fuel cell.
Love to know how Apple manage to get patents for other people's work so easily - what next, the wheel, fire?Unless Apple's patent brings something novel to the table - like the fuel cell runs on user sweat or tears of joy. (I'm getting really cynical now)
Er, no on both counts.
Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...
All things considered (what with Apples shenanigans over the past year or two) the first thing that sprang into my mind was - they're going to sue any poor bugger who puts a fuel cell into a computing device (claiming that this patent precludes anyone from putting such an energy source into any computing device bar them).
Mind you, with Apple devices having a certain (potential) propensity for bursting into flames having such a handy source of hydrogen close by should make for some interesting craters around the world.
This.
My issue with this is Apple patenting something that has wider reach than just computers and the likes, what if the next "prius" type car uses this amorphious metal collector technology, suddenly Apple can sue loads more people which just aint right...
No doubt Toshiba etc all have similar (if differently worded) patents.
It's just that Apple sneezes, and its a headline.
Much more interesting is Apple considering bidding for TV Premier league rights,
TV broadcasting is currently where the record industry was pre-itunes.
Last edited by mikerr; 04-01-2012 at 02:22 PM.
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