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There's been a lot of talk for quite a while now about the next generation for mobile power supplies (aka batteries). This next wave of battery technology is in the form of fuel-cell batteries. C|NET reported on Toshiba's methanol powered fuel cartidge back in September, and today, Canon announced a fuel-cell technology that mixes hydrogen and oxygen to generate an electrical current. It all sounds like an episode of MacGyver to me and more than a little dangerous. However, the performance of fuel-cell batteries promises to revolutionize the consumer device market. Imagine not having to charge your Smartphone or Pocket PC more than once in a week! Sounds good, eh? Well, that's what fuel-cell is promising -- anything from 35 hours to 60 hours of use before refuelling. This could mean that in the not-so-distant future we could see a notebook/tablet PC that can run for a full work-day without being plugged into the mains.

Microsoft UK's Marcus Perryman enters a treatise on what it means to be a mobile application and why Microsoft is the mobile platform of choice.

In his closing statement, Marcus mentions that 3G-enabled devices are finally starting to offer an alternative to laptops. I agree with this statement to some extent but I don't think we will see a major (almost blanket) adoption of mobile platforms until 4G/WiMax networks are widespread and the cost of mobile bandwidth has dropped dramatically. For most, the pricing model of GPRS and 3G data services are just too expensive to make Smartphones and PDAs a truly viable alternative device for mobile workers.In this day & age when I can get a 8Mbps DSL pipe with an unrestricted bandwidth allowance to my home for less than £30 per month, 3G and GPRS suddenly look like very expensive.

Microsoft Mobile & Embedded Developers UK

Ian Thain, Tony Whitter and myself have created a new user group dedicated to Microsoft mobile and embedded development.

The group will cover a wider spectrum of devices and technologies, including Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, Smartphone, Tablet and Embedded devices, but concentrating on the key area of developing Mobile & Embedded applications, both in managed code and native code.

What we will aim to present to the members of the user group will be presentations from various enterprise hardware and software vendors, as well as cellular providers, that are key in this area as well as exciting presentations for developers. In conjunction with the meetings, a user group website (hosted by groups.msn.com) will be a place for members to ask question of their peers, exchange views and be informed of any relevant news in the area of mobile & embedded products. If this is a community that is of interest to you and you are based in the UK, then we encourage you to join the user group at the link above.

If you would like to speak at the user group, please drop me a line.