Apple rethinks battery approach

 

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By Dawinderpal Sahota

Posted on 9 Feb 2009 at 11:14

Apple is preparing a new recharging system that will allow gadget batteries to communicate with, and charge, each other.

A number of wireless connection standards, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ultra-Wide Band, already allow mice, MP3 players, monitors and mobile phones to communicate with each other.

However, Apple has filed three patent applications aimed at putting these technologies to much better use.

While Macs can already display battery warnings for Apple's wireless Mighty Mouse, the company is now aiming at developing a system which will allow an entire network of Apple gadgets to alert each other when their batteries are running low.

Another patent describes a standardised system for charging batteries. The patent outlines plans for laptops and desktop PCs that have slots for inserting and charging batteries around the size of an Apple Remote.

It's not clear from the filing what devices these batteries would power, but the computers contain technology to adjust how quickly they charge, and therefore would be able to manage how much of the computer's own internal battery they drain.

According to Apple's plans, each computer could also communicate with others on the network, to find out which has the best reserve for charging up batteries from other devices.