It may be one of the worst feelings in the world. Some might even say it’s scarier than watching the latest horror movie. We’ve all been there before. Typing that really long text message to someone, all while hoping that 1% or 2% will be enough to send the text without our phones dying. It’s happened way too many times than I can to remember. Our phones, tablets, and other mobile devices use a lot of battery life. Some activities will drain the battery a lot quicker than others obviously. If you are constantly streaming video or updating your Facebook and Twitter accounts, then obviously your mobile device is going to lose its battery life pretty quickly. There is no real way of stopping that aside from upgraded batteries from the company. Charging our devices may be a different story however.
Imagine the ability to have your phone or tablet die and NOT freak out. Doesn’t that sound amazing? We live in a world where our smartphones and tablets may as well become additional appendages to our bodies. We need our phones to survive these days. They are our life lines to the internet, our closest friends, and our families. While some may see a dependency on technology, the fact remains that you can walk down the street and even see some of the elderly using iPhones. There’s a reason for this. The landline is all but dead. We live on our phones. We live on social media. We live through texting. As sad as that may seem, it’s a fact. Because of this, we constantly need our phones or tablets charged. It’s all based off of connection and communication with others. One student from California, now a freshman at Harvard University, has been working to make something that may give us all a bit of comfort.
One Eesha Khare is using her intellect and Intel powered devices to help create a super capacitor charging device. By working with nanotechnology, Eesha has been able to create a carbon fiber with particular metal oxides that allow for a larger surface area to be covered when a device is hooked up to charge. This is smart people talk for, “This device is going to charge your other devices really, really, really fast”. How fast you may be wondering? Try less than a minute. When I charge my iPhone from death, it normally takes at least a solid 2 hours or more for it to reach a full charge. With Eesha’s new device (which is still currently in the developmental process), we may soon be able to charge our phones in less time than it takes to listen to a song. With as much as connectivity is important to us in our daily lives, having this device may become a necessity to us.
Eesha came up with the idea when her phone died, needed to contact her parents, and then had to learn to use a payphone. Needless to say, this is a prime example of how we take technology and its connective purposes for granted.
We live in a world that needs to stay connected. Thankfully Eesha is doing her best to help make that happens. Some battery lives are longer than others, and until this super capacitor energy storage device is able to be utilized properly, it may be a wish idea to invest, or at least rent, tech that holds longer battery life with sustained use.
