Tuesday, Dec. 03, 2002

Mobiles Take Charge

By JENNIFER L. SCHENKER

It's one of the great ironies of the wireless era: in order to get free of wires, you need to juice up with wires. (Where is my power adapter?) An innovation from one of this year's Tech Pioneers should make it easier to provide uninterrupted power to cell phones and personal digital assistants. Robert K. Lifton, the 74-year-old American Chairman and ceo of New York-based Medis Technologies, is using military technology and a team of Russian-Israeli scientists to develop a mobile power unit that uses micro fuel cells, powered by ethyl alcohol, to recharge conventional mobile batteries. Medis' Power Pack allows a user to operate her phone while simultaneously recharging a depleted battery. Each fuel cartridge has enough juice to charge a battery twice or handle six to nine hours of talk time. After that, the user discards the spent cartridge and powers up with a new one. Lifton says he expects the Power Pack to cost no more than $15 to $20, with each refill costing $1. Plans are to get the Power Packs in stores no later than 2004. When the Power Pack arrives, there'll be more cool mobiles around. One is designed by Danger, a Palo Alto company co-founded by Tech Pioneer Andy Rubin, 39. Danger's oval-shaped mobile device, called the hiptop, combines a camera, a gsm phone and a Web browser. Already on sale for $199 in the U.S., as the T-Mobile Sidekick, it should launch in Europe in the first quarter of 2003. Also coming is the use of mobile phones as digital wallets. If Tech Pioneer Raomal Perera, the 40-year-old ceo of Ireland-based Network365, has his way, we'll soon be using his secure technology to buy everything from tickets to chocolates via our cell phones.