Charge Your Cellphone In 20 Seconds (Eventually) 295
New submitter GoJays writes "An 18-year-old from Saratoga, California has won an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds. The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time. What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to the inventor Eesha Khare." This one in particular has been used so far only to power an LED, rather than a phone or laptop, but I hope in a few years near-instant charging of portable electronics will be the norm as supercapacitors grow more common.
Re:supercapacitors are cool (Score:2, Funny)
Re:little light on the science details. (Score:5, Funny)
did she have some new angle to the tech?
Yes, she did. She used a "led" as a demo device for her super battery.
Basically, a led is the equivalent a cell phone without a screen, without an antenna, without sensors, without memory (except for one bit), without a gps, without a speaker, without a microphone, without an amplifier, without a cpu, without a gpu, etc. Plus, it's a great device for simulating the power consumption of an actual cell phone.
A "led" is a also a great device to give your kids instead of a cell phone. It doesn't have a great range, may be just a couple of meters. And it needs to be in the constant line of sight of the person your kid is communicating with. But barring those two little constraints, it's a good tool for your kid to learn morse code (provided that "led" is the only piece of electronics/toy your kid has access to), it works great at night, it comes with uncapped/unlimited data, and it doesn't come with an expensive bill no matter how much your kids do texting with it.
Re:little light on the science details. (Score:5, Funny)
The problem is that Ubuntu touch doesn't support the 1x1 screen resolution. We need the inventor to release the specs so a Mir graphics driver can be written. I've tried an alpha version and personally find the scroll bars tricky, but then that's always been a problem with Unity. This is the problem with Canonical trying to get one OS to work every device.
Phillip.
Re:supercapacitors are cool (Score:5, Funny)
I think a better toilet-related analogy for slow intake and fast discharge would be someone at an all-you-can-eat taco buffet.
Re:supercapacitors are cool (Score:5, Funny)
and how much currency can it supply?
Are you suggesting any company that brings a viable solution to market is basically going to be printing money?