Anand
Parthasarathy
Indian engineers patent a technique to share battery power
Mid-air
refuelling: Intel India's Vishwa Hassan has co-invented a way of using one
computing device to provide power to another, 'on the fly.'
Bangalore: It's not just politicians who can work out power-sharing
arrangements: Personal computers can do it too - soon. Engineers at the
Bangalore development centre of the world's largest chip maker, Intel, have
developed a method which enables a laptop or handheld computer, which has run
out of battery back-up, to draw power from another computer, rather than having
to wait till one locates a source of mains power.
The patented technique will also work between dissimilar devices - that means a
small hand-held device - a smart phone on pocket computer - can be used to
temporarily power up a laptop.
The Hindu has obtained a copy of the patent documentation filed by Intel with
the U.S. Patent Office and on Saturday, the 'brains' behind the invention,
Vishwa Hassan, Director of Strategy, Architecture and Innovation at In tel
South Asia, Bangalore, explained the circumstances that triggered off this
technique:
it must be on the wish list of all connected 'road warriors' who have run out
of battery power just when they need to use their portable PCs for some critical
surfing. (Sandeep Bhatia, Mr. Hassan's co-applicant, named in the patent
application, is no longer with Intel.)
'Some three years ago, I was working, while on a long flight from Singapore to
Los Angeles, when the battery of my laptop ran down. My colleagues travelling
with me, had their own laptops - but there was no way for me to borrow a
battery pack because the machines were all of different makes and no two power
packs could be interchanged. It set me thinking how nice it would be if one
could connect a laptop which has lost its power and temporarily share power
with another laptop whose batteries were still working."
Out of that mini crisis, was born the invention that Mr. Hassan and Mr. Bhatia
put together: it enables the power available in one computing device to charge
the batteries of a second device.
In a second scenario, a device with a battery power source can provide power to
another device without a battery.
The patent document claims that this will work between heterogeneous devices -
notebook PCs, hand-held computers, games consoles, wireless devices,
audio-video players..
Mr. Hassan suggests that manufacturers who exploit the invention would not have
to change anything in the existing design of the computers or devices - only in
the external battery or mains power units. He also foresees that the connection
between 'donor' and 'recipient' machine, need not be a physical wire: with
technologies such as Wireless USB connectors, just announced, the link could be
wireless too.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/29/stories/2007072955261200.htm
With best regards
Syed Imran
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