I love laptop computers. My first x86-compatible system, way back in the dim recesses of time, was a 4.77MHz portable from Radio Shack with two 720K 3.5″ floppy drives and a sixteen-grayscale CGA LCD monitor that flickered very visibly. The battery, a huge nickel-cadmium brick that made up a good portion of both the size and the weight of the machine, lasted about an hour and a half with a full charge, if I remember correctly.

Since then, laptops have gotten better and better, but battery life always seemed to stay between an hour and a half and three hours. My current machine (a dual-core beauty that cost me an arm and a leg, and was worth every penny in my opinion) sports an extended-life battery, giving it about five hours of juice if I turn the backlight to it’s lowest setting and I’m careful not to stress the CPU or use the CD/DVD drive — great for writing e-mail or code, but try compiling it even once and watch the meter drop visibly.

That’s why this story interested me so much. Between this technology, Intel’s promise to boost CPU power-per-watt in every chip over the next ten years, LED backlights, and the perpendicular-recording notebook-sized hard drives that are just now coming out (which mean higher densities, and therefore faster data speeds at lower RPMs), we might actually get some darn good battery life out of a system eventually. Of course, manufacturers will keep loading the systems with the latest technology, which will eat more battery power too, but maybe the battery will finally be able to get ahead of the demand.