Fuel Cells Give Laptops 8-Hour Charge - IBM

IBM and Sanyo Monday said they are about to release a prototype of a methanol fuel cell that will power IBM's ThinkPad notebook computer for as long as eight hours.

The two companies said in a statement that they jointly developed the fuel cell and that it would be compatible with current ThinkPads without the need to redesign the devices. In addition, IBM said that the fuel cell even includes a place to include a supplementary power source such as a battery.

"We do not focus simply on the 'wow factor' of fuel cells -- we see it as a powerful enabler that could support a wide variety of business applications," Peter Hortensius, vice president, IBM Personal Computing Division, said in a statement. "These companies are collaborating to help carry ThinkPad notebooks to the next generation of power supplies, while supporting the highest levels of business productivity."

The companies did not say when the technology would graduate from prototype to being commercially available.