Is there a word for the feeling you get when your laptop's low battery warning pops up, you've got another two hours' worth of work to get done, and there isn't a power outlet in sight? "Screwed" comes to mind, but that doesn't quite capture the sentiment underlying that horrible sinking feeling-- the bitter conviction that technology has failed you. Because while it's a terrific thing to be able to work untethered via the modern miracle of the battery, it's really just an illusion of freedom, since within a few hours you'll be dead in the water unless you hook back up to the grid. It's kind of like being under house arrest, with one of those leg cuff thingies that pops you with a couple hundred volts if you wander past the threshold of your living quarters.

Sure, you can carry an extra battery or two, but they're heavy and expensive, and you always have to make sure that they're charged before you leave the house-- and then you're still living on borrowed time, you're just extending it a little. Nope, with the possible exception of AtAT's own invention, the Really Long Extension Cord™ (we'll be filing for a patent just as soon as we finish coiling up the prototype-- we started in 1997), there just isn't a terrific solution to the laptop power problem. Yet.

According to the Naked Mole Rat, Apple is looking to sink some serious cash into a company developing laptop-friendly fuel cell technology. Fuel cells take in hydrogen (from a replaceable supply, such as a tank or cartridge) and oxygen (from the air) and combine the two in an exothermic reaction that produces energy (to power, in this case, the laptop) and water. The upshot is that you could run your PowerBook for days without plugging it in, provided you keep feeding it hydrogen-- and hydrogen carts are likely to be a whole lot lighter and cheaper than additional batteries. As for where the water goes, well, in a well-designed laptop like those made by Apple, we figure it'll probably be collected in a reservoir in the hydrogen cartridge and discarded as you swap the used one for a fresh one; in a laptop made by some company like Gateway, the water will probably just leak out the bottom and make you look like you have a serious bladder control problem.

So if the Gay Blade is to be believed (and he almost always is), Apple's looking to invest in a fuel cell company to guarantee availability of the technology for future PowerBooks, kind of like how that investment in Samsung was supposed to keep Apple neck-deep in LCD panels at any given time. So hot for the technology are our buddies in Cupertino that they're reportedly willing to design a PowerBook around a fuel cell, instead of requiring that the fuel cell fit into an existing PowerBook. There's just one problem: Apple isn't the only company looking to hook up with a fuel cell company. Word has it that Intel is shopping around for the same deal-- and that it refuses to do business with any fuel cell company that also agrees to work with Apple. (Awwwww, is widdle-biddy Intel a widdle bit scared of the Big Bad G5?)

Regardless of how the money and the politics all shake out, it does sound like the future of laptop power will be fuel cells in one form or another. Now, much as the idea of wearing a utility belt stocked with hydrogen cartridges appeals to some of us down here at the AtAT compound (much to his guidance counselors' chagrin, Jack's sole career goal until his sophomore year of high school was to be Spider-Man), we imagine that for a lot of people, the good ol' battery would actually be preferable; if you only need to work unplugged for short periods at a time, the battery in a current PowerBook is far more convenient than having to buy and insert hydrogen carts all the time. Why do we get the feeling that Apple will either leave the power source technology up to the buyer, or better yet, stick a fuel cell system and a traditional battery into future PowerBooks? Fun for the whole family!