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Title: Wearable Computing

(Powerful Change Part1- Batteries and Possible Alternatives for the Mobile
Market)
Author: Thad E. Starner
Link to PDF:
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/scimag/get.php?
doi=10.1109/mprv.2003.1251172&downloadname=
Summary: 24-04-2016

It is observed during past decades the mobile, laptop and other portable device
users buy more than one battery during the devices life span. It is because the
battery technology changes slowly, there is possibility of change them once they
fail and consumers desire towards the superior performance products. As a
result of this there is a need that companies have to protect their battery with
various designs and utility patents to survive in the competitive market. Power
supply become serious issue especially in case of portable devices, so innovative
measures must be taken to make alternatives to batteries.
Studies in the past decades revealed that the computer technology became
matured a lot than in the early days, though the battery energy density saving
factor improved in a mini scale value compare to other technological aspects.
So it become a must note procedure to define the battery technology first, then
design devices electronics around it. Mobile devices by their name defines the
wireless connectivity, so the designers are need to ensure the availability of
wireless connection and make sure the devices function properly in offline. In
case of data transmitting over mobile devices, consumption of power is rise to
the fourth power to distance, it is need to caching Internet content for mobile
surfers rather than interconnected vi power expensive wireless networks.it is
observed that storing information on a cellular phone in the form of a flash disk
rather than obtaining them from web server, saves large amount of powers.
As an alternative mean to the wired charging for batteries, we can use the
mechanical physics to run low power electronics. Similar to the self-winding
system that store energy due to vibration in wrist watches, we can use magnets
instead of solid asses to generate power. There is self-powered controller system
in which when the button press send sound waves to the MCU where the wave is
decoded for further execution. By sensing the pressure applied when typing or
using track pads or touchpads, low power electronics can be run properly.
Another possible way of generating power by pedalling. The mechanical input
given to the pedal system can generate enough amount of power. Apart from
human interaction can use environmental feature. Solar cell in the calculators
are typical one. But they are more brittle and need a specific location to receive
enough light energy. So currently scientists examining on the power cells that are
flexible and reduce the battery dependence as much as possible. Since the
battery technology is crawling like a snail even in this century, there is a much
needed work to find innovative means to reduce the dependency of wearable
devices on battery power.

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