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Toshiba broke the news today that they invented the Gigabeat, “the player of the future,” a multimedia player that runs on fuel, not battery. The devices are powered by methyl spirit (methanol), one litre of which will let the prototype device run for 1,000 hours.
The players come with equipped with what I’ll call a fuel gauge, a little indicator that detects the amount of methanol juice is left. Just like a car, it needs to be refueled, which the user can do on their own simply by hooking up the player using its frontal socket. On the back a tap evaporates the used methanol.
Using methanol as fuel is a lot more energy efficient than using alkaline batteries, and in the future, could also become a lot more affordable.
The news was unveiled at Tokyo’s CEATEC 2007 exhibition.
As the portal Techon.nikkeibp.co.jp informs, the principle of work of the fuel element DMFC (direct methanol fuel cell) is constructed under the production of electricity as a result of chemical reaction of interacting methanol, water and air. The development of the new power supply had been conducted during several years. As the Company said, the manufacture of the component could have been adjusted in the beginning of year, however from industrial use the company was constrained by the dearness of the manufacture, and also by the interdiction on methanol transportation onboard planes. At present these problems have been solved, that's why in the Company they hope, that soon the manufacture of fuel elements will go on an industrial level. The company plans to begin manufacturing of the new player in 2008. It is still necessary to add, that besides playing music and video, this “player of the future “is equipped with TV-tuner of 1seg. standard.
(topnews.in)
References: topnews.in
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