Crammed Up
October 6th 2006 17:06
It doesn’t have built in Bluetooth, it doesn’t have a 1 gigabyte mp3 player, it doesn’t have a camera built in, nor does it come with a full colour LCD display, but damn well does it tell the time! I am, of course, talking about my watch.
To think I could have been talking about anything then, from a mobile phone to a house. Why do they insist on cramping so much technology (usually in a redundant manner) into everything? Right now, I love my watch, it doesn’t use batteries and tells the time to within a second for ever 36 hours it runs, which is an added bonus.
It might not have all those wiz bang features of ‘modern’ watches, but at least its battery life is as long as my own shelf life. What's the point of a watch that needs to be charged every six hours anyway?
Do people really need to have so many features stuffed in so little space? Do people even want it?
The real problem with all this is battery power, batteries are simply not advancing at the same rate as other pieces of technology. Sure, we have 2 mega pixel cameras, even 3 mega pixel ones stuck to our mobile phones, but they are using the same Lithium Ion batteries that even older mobile phones which didn’t even have cameras are using.
In the past a mobile phone could last a week with one charge, nowadays it can sometimes barely last a day, who knows, soon we’ll be carrying spare batteries to power them. Laptops are another great example, nowadays they can barely run 5 hours, if they do it’s an accomplishment, back in the day you’d expect them to go a full day at least.
There are numerous ideas to circumnavigate the problem with batteries, some include the idea of using methanol powered batteries I read about a few years ago (if it means anything they were supposed to be put into use by 2006), to more recently the idea of jet engine batteries.
I think the only real solution to our battery power woes is by not over featuring things. My watch as I said doesn’t even use a battery, it basically uses kinetic energy to wind itself up, it literally will continue to tick so long as my heart ticks. Do I want it to play mp3 files and take pictures while simultaneously display a movie in 16:9 aspect ratio in HD? No I don’t.
Sure it isn’t as clear cut, with mobile phones for instance, but why do people insist on a camera built into them, Bluetooth and a massive colour screen, do people actually need that massive colour screen and how often do they use the camera and Bluetooth?
To think I could have been talking about anything then, from a mobile phone to a house. Why do they insist on cramping so much technology (usually in a redundant manner) into everything? Right now, I love my watch, it doesn’t use batteries and tells the time to within a second for ever 36 hours it runs, which is an added bonus.
Yes... but does it tell the time?
Do people really need to have so many features stuffed in so little space? Do people even want it?
The real problem with all this is battery power, batteries are simply not advancing at the same rate as other pieces of technology. Sure, we have 2 mega pixel cameras, even 3 mega pixel ones stuck to our mobile phones, but they are using the same Lithium Ion batteries that even older mobile phones which didn’t even have cameras are using.
In the past a mobile phone could last a week with one charge, nowadays it can sometimes barely last a day, who knows, soon we’ll be carrying spare batteries to power them. Laptops are another great example, nowadays they can barely run 5 hours, if they do it’s an accomplishment, back in the day you’d expect them to go a full day at least.
Stick one of these suckers into your battery powered appliance and all your power problems are solved
I think the only real solution to our battery power woes is by not over featuring things. My watch as I said doesn’t even use a battery, it basically uses kinetic energy to wind itself up, it literally will continue to tick so long as my heart ticks. Do I want it to play mp3 files and take pictures while simultaneously display a movie in 16:9 aspect ratio in HD? No I don’t.
Sure it isn’t as clear cut, with mobile phones for instance, but why do people insist on a camera built into them, Bluetooth and a massive colour screen, do people actually need that massive colour screen and how often do they use the camera and Bluetooth?
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Comment by Harmony Rocks
head for threads
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Harmony's Forum For You
What you said about the energy consumption should have been obvious to the manufacturers long ago. At least the battery companies should have started to work on something to accomodate the massive need.
Great post
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
the concept of a jet engine laptop battery is actually really in development, which really is saying something...