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Solar and fuel cells outshine Picsel's dual score in Hitachi, Treo software wins

Picsel's user interface - easily the most intuitive pen-based way of driving a PDA - took a back seat to its PDF viewing and PC content viewing software, with both Palm's Windows-based Treo and Hitachi's W32H phone going for the Viewer.

But the excitement around the Hitachi phone this week seems to be the prospect of seeing genuine commercial fuel cells demonstrated with it. According to ExtremeTech, fuel-cell developer KDDI has announced its alliance with Hitachi and Toshiba will be demonstrated October 4th, at CEATEC Japan, in Tokyo..

The demo will show prototype mobile phones powered with fuel cells, apparently using methanol to generate electricity.

Slightly more detail from TelcomWeb, which reports that the fuel cell is claimed to produce "2.5 times the capacity of regular phones running on just a squirt of methanol," and speculating that it lasts for "a month or two" - without explaining what happens at the end of that period.

The official press release from KDDI speaks of two phones. "The fuel-cell mobile phone co-developed by Toshiba and KDDI is based on the au handset A5509T. The system used is a hybrid type, with power supplied by a compact fuel cell and fuel tank at the back of the handset, plus an internal lithium ion battery. It uses high-concentration methanol to achieve a battery capacity 2.5 times the conventional value with a single refill. This feature enables the handset to be used for a long time."

The Hitachi phone is the other one demonstrated next month: "The fuel cell co-developed by Hitachi and KDDI is based on the au handset W32H. The system used is a hybrid type, with power supplied by a compact fuel cell on the side with the LCD sub-display, plus an internal lithium ion battery. The concept is 'a fuel-cell handset of the near future,' and this prototype is compact, about the same size as the original W32H. One feature is that, whenever the fuel cell's capacity becomes low, it can be easily refilled from a compact cartridge."

That's about all there is about the fuel cells, although 3G.co.uk has managed to get a picture of the Toshiba (reproduced here with grateful thanks).

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