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Originally Posted by dmaul1114
Battery life is the biggest tech limitation we have right now IMO. And I don't think that will get better, it will be widespread wireless electricity etc. that ends up moving portable technology forward, rather than some breakthrough in battery tech IMO.
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Battery life is improving quickly. The problem isn't increases in battery life, it's that every time we get the slightest improvement in power or duration, all the machines shift focus to *use* that power to get the same amount of battery life.
It'd be incredible to put modern batteries in an eBookwise.
Wireless electricity is probably the next major breakthrough--but the utility companies have a vested interest in preventing that. (They didn't like it when Tesla came up with it a hundred years ago; they won't like it any better now.) And the first dozen devices that use wireless electricity will be awful, buggy novelties whose main purpose is just to prove they can do it.
Solar rechargers are probably what's next for most devices--making the the tech that works for calculators cheap enough & powerful enough to power a whole netbook in the sunlight, or allow leaving it out in the sun for a couple of hours to recharge the batteries. That wouldn't require any major breakthroughs; just cheaper components & more efficient energy transfers, and those are always being improved.