Extend Battery Life: New Advances

From the basements of Pixel Qi comes the idea of improving one type of battery so, instead of a typical three to four hour battery life, consumers can get 20 to 40 hours from a single recharge. Isn't that amazing? You could work for one and a half days just off a single battery charge. But this technology is simply difficult to imagine for the average laptop; these special batteries are being made for the XO machine, the child's simple laptop. If you like to use the XO, do watch out for Pixel Qi, because they're dreams are very solid.

Sony Vaio currently offers a nice seven hours, but remember that this is for a simple computer, not your high-end m15x. Because of this, XO owners are hoping for a new way to power a simple machine. Seven hours aren't enough to make this friendly machine's battery friendly to consumers. Pixel Qi is working and racing against Toshiba, who also develops for XO Machine users, to create the longest lasting battery life for a laptop.

The XO machine, manufactured by Quanta Computer, originated with the campaign of One Laptop per Child, which aims to spread technology worldwide. Although the company and campaign hoped to start at $188 per laptop in 2006 and work towards $100 per machine in 2008, the prices at the ends of 2007 and 2008 were identical at $199. Without using a hard drive, the XO machine makes full use of it's battery life by utilizing the idea of flash memory. Low-power requirements extended the potentials for each battery, and now you have the ideas of 20 to 40 hours from a charge.

XO is called the Children's Machine for a reason. It took out the ideas of a hard drive, PC card slot, floppy drives (which aren't really used anymore), CD/DVD drive, and fans, leaving an SD slot, USB slots, and all nonmotor-driven parts. With major parts taken out, the Children's Machine has only what it needs to have. Yet, somehow, XO machines have the ability to use WiFi, as evidenced by the mesh network.

The XO machine is for a good cause, and is wonderfully built for it. For Pixel Qi and Toshiba to choose this particular laptop to advance technologically is a good sign that tech isn't all about lasting over 20 hours. It's sometimes about using the ability to research and develop in order to keep a good cause up and running.