In the handheld device is still in the black and white monochrome display of the times, a pair of ordinary 5 alkaline batteries can let it support weeks or even months; and with the machine processor speed is getting faster and faster, the screen is more and more rich in color, the screen brightness is getting higher and higher, and today's handheld device batteries are already difficult to bear the burden. No matter how powerful, feature-rich, and enjoyable a handheld device may be, when it runs out of battery on the go, it's not only a bummer, but you may also lose important data. In order to keep the weight and volume of the device unchanged or even lighter, how to improve the battery life can be said to be all kinds of portable devices **** with the face of an important bottleneck.
Fuel Cell
People have proposed a number of ways to power the future of portable devices, most of which are still just ideas. Among them, however, is fuel cell technology, which has recently taken a big step forward and is now one of the most interesting, realistic, and considered one of the most promising solutions (Figure 1).
Fuel cells work by reacting a liquid fuel, methanol, to produce exponentially more power than a conventional battery of the same size, thus providing continuous use of a handheld device for days, dozens of days or more. In the early stages, consumers will be required to charge the fuel cells themselves with fuel bottles on a regular basis, though disposable fuel cells are likely to become available as applications become more widespread.
The technical challenges facing fuel cells have recently been overcome, with the biggest problems in the past being size and weight. Now some manufacturers have successfully developed fuel cells for laptops and even cell phones. Another challenge is how to better handle the water produced during the methanol reaction process. Recent fuel cell prototypes store the water back into the original container that holds the fuel, which can gradually dilute the fuel concentration and affect the battery's performance, but progress has been made in controlling the fuel concentration.
The real stumbling block for fuel cells, I'm afraid, is not the technology but the policies of countries around the world. Because methanol is a flammable liquid, it has been designated as a banned substance on some occasions, and in particular is not allowed to be carried on airplanes. Some experts believe that "the government's response has been very slow, and even if it receives attention, the relevant policy for lifting the ban will take until 2007 at the earliest". If fuel cells and related equipment cannot be carried on airplanes (a place frequented by businesspeople's laptops and other handheld devices), their promotion is bound to be y affected.
Handheld devices
Laptops
Figure 1 Portable devices using fuel cells
Micro-engine
Besides the fuel cell, one of the more interesting power solutions is the micro-engine technology. This is a technology developed by a research group at the University of Birmingham in the UK, which generates more than 300 times the power of a normal battery through a micro-generator that is much smaller than a normal battery, powered by liquid fuel used in cigarette lighters. It may seem sensational at first, but it's true. Dr. Kyle Jiang, the project leader in charge of the technology's development, optimistically predicts that the technology will replace the traditional batteries currently used in all handheld devices by 2010.
Silver Polymer Battery (Silver Polymer Battery)
In the quest for long-lasting power, people are resorting to both emerging technologies like fuel cells and microgenerators, as well as the development and utilization of traditional technologies like silver and zinc batteries.
The biggest difference between silver polymer batteries, developed by Zinc Matrix Power, and the lithium-ion batteries commonly used in today's handheld devices is that the former can contain a higher density of chemical reactants in the same size volume, and therefore produce more power. Alternatively, in handheld devices that need to be downsized, silver polymer batteries can give up a lot of physical space while maintaining the same amount of power. According to the manufacturer, silver polymer batteries can produce 2kW of power per liter of fuel, which is many times that of current lithium-ion batteries.
Silver-zinc batteries have been used in the military for more than 50 years, although there are still many obstacles to their commercialization.Zinc Matrix Power's technology, which is claimed to be able to bring silver polymer batteries up to the level of diffusion, has already attracted the interest of a number of hand-held device makers who are interested in collaborating on their technology.
Bacterial battery (Bacterial Power)
This is a fuel cell, micro-generator than the concept of fresh battery technology, not only because it only recently appeared, but also because it uses the fuel that is not methanol, and not a lighter used in the liquefied petroleum gas, but a very common food - sugar. -sugar.
In the future, when a handheld device with a bacterial battery runs out of juice, it will be recharged by adding just the right amount of powdered sugar. The sugar is converted into carbon dioxide by a bacterium called Rhodoferax ferriducens, which releases electricity. The battery was invented by Swades Chaudhuri and Derek Lovley*** and their prototype sample is claimed to have an 83% efficiency in converting electricity. In addition, they claim that the battery is inexpensive to produce and can be used in temperatures as cold as -40 degrees and as hot as 80 degrees. They are currently working to further commercialize the technology to make it small enough to be used in handheld devices.
In addition to the above, scientists are also looking for other types of new battery technologies, as well as new charging technologies, such as batteries that can be curled up, direct-to-device charging, and wireless charging. In addition, more and more handheld devices are tending to change the embedded fixed battery design to a removable (replaceable) battery design to provide exponentially more power to the handheld device in a more flexible way.
When entering small amounts of information on a handheld device, on-screen handwriting or a small keyboard can be used. However, when a large amount of information needs to be entered, or when the input needs to be fast, a full-size keyboard is necessary. Handheld devices that do not offer full-size keyboards are often not very useful in these situations. There are some folding keyboards on the market today, but they come at the expense of the portability of the handheld device. Is it possible to develop a technology that enables full-size keyboard input while maintaining the original form factor of the handheld device?
Virtual Keyboard
An Israeli company called VKB has already made this vision a reality with the development of a virtual keyboard technology that is in the process of being refined (Figure 1).
The virtual keyboard uses a laser beam to project a full-size image of a keyboard onto any relatively flat surface, and the user "taps" on the projected "keycaps" to achieve input similar to that of a real keyboard. The virtual keyboard has been exposed by media around the world two or three years ago, and the technology itself is still evolving. Many people are optimistic about it because of its novel concept, attractive prospects, and unique technology.
But just as handheld devices with near-eye displays will retain their traditional displays, it's unlikely that emerging input technologies like virtual keyboards will ever completely eliminate traditional input methods like handwriting, and the two will complement each other in different applications when they appear on the same device. For example, handwriting may be useful in mobile environments where you can't find a flat projection surface.
External projector
Built-in projector
Figure 2 Handheld device with virtual keyboard
Holographic keyboard
VKB's laser-based virtual keyboard is convenient, but the fact that it requires the keyboard to be projected onto a relatively flat surface seems to make it a bit too "virtual". It's not "virtual" enough. It took the use of holography to bring a completely virtual keyboard to a handheld device.
HoloTouch has invented a holographic keyboard that projects a 3D image of a keyboard into the air in front of the user, and an infrared detector recognizes keystrokes by scanning the holographic image of the keyboard (Figure 3).
It's clear that this 3D holographic keyboard is even more convenient than VKB's flat virtual keyboard, because it doesn't require a projected object with a relatively flat surface, and projects the keyboard image directly into the air, which virtually makes its applications unlimited. Both keyboards also have the advantage that the size of the projected keyboard can be varied at will, virtually regardless of the size of the hardware.
This holographic keyboard is not a theoretical myth; InfoPerks has licensed a patent for the technology from HoloTouch and is using it in information display terminals in public **** places like sidewalks in New York. Of course, it's still very large, and it will need to be continually improved for use in handheld devices, which may take a few more years.
Mobile phone keys in a moving car
Displays in an operating room
Figure 3 Holographic keyboard projected in the air (Figure: Holographic Keyboard 1~2.jpg)
Inductive Pen Sensing
Virtual keyboards, though fast, are still a long way from reality. Traditional handwriting input is still the main method for a long time to come. Improving input accuracy, recognition rates, and other technical features is also a viable way to solve the input bottleneck in handheld devices.
Currently, the majority of handheld computers, smart phones used in the touch screen, although in the brightness, contrast, the number of colors and other display qualities have made significant progress, but the touch input characteristics are still at a more primitive level, Wacom is successfully used in Tablet PCs have been the introduction of inductive pen input technology to the handheld device.
On the very surface of a traditional touch screen, there is a layer of flexible pressure-sensitive film, underneath which is a translucent analog-to-digital converter that samples the pressure sensing, with an air gap between the film and the converter. Whenever the stylus or finger touches the film, the film is pressed down and touches the converter below, thus generating an input signal. This traditional pen input method has a number of drawbacks: first, the analog-to-digital converter is placed on top of the screen, making it susceptible to physical damage; and second, the analog-to-digital converter is covered by the display panel, which, despite being semi-transparent, impedes display quality.
However, with a pen-sensitive input screen, a sensor is placed at the rear of the display panel, which senses the stylus's input at a distance of 14mm. Since the sensor is located at the rear of the display panel, obstruction of the display panel is removed and the analog-to-digital converter is protected. In addition, the sensor eliminates the need for multiple layers of protective film on the screen surface, which helps make the device lighter, and the inductive input is more accurate than conventional pressure-sensitive input.
This type of inductive input requires a specialized input pen, which can't be replaced by other hard objects or even a finger, as was the case with touchscreens in the past. It should be noted that this specialized pen does not require batteries to keep it working.
Wacom has claimed that it is working with Symbian on the technology and expects to bring it to smartphone products as soon as possible.
For monitors, the larger the display area, the better, naturally, in pursuit of a better display. So, whether it's from desktop PCs, laptops, or to PDPs, LCD TVs, and rear-projection in home theaters, mainstream display sizes are getting bigger. Handheld devices are likewise no exception, as consumers by nature expect them to provide as open a display area as a desktop PC. In reality, handheld devices are essentially limited to a very small body size and weight, making it virtually impossible to realize this ideal under traditional methods.
Near-Eye Display
A new technology called Near-Eye Displays solves this paradox. These are physically tiny displays that provide a full-size desktop PC-like display within close proximity to the observer's eyes. The most typical application of this display is to be embedded in one of the lenses of the glasses (the other lens is blank), thus allowing the wearer to watch the display with one eye and the other eye to observe the things around them. A research organization has conducted a trial of these eyeglass-type displays in a number of populations, and it is claimed that the trial participants generally reported good comfort levels (Figure 4).
Connecting a near-eye display to a handheld device via Bluetooth or other wireless technology could result in a mobile computing device that frees up both hands. Of course, there are other technical prerequisites for this idea, namely the development of an entirely new command (and data) input mechanism to replace existing input methods such as screen touch (and handwriting) or mouse.
While it's not entirely certain that such displays will abound in the near future, and they certainly won't completely replace the current on-screen displays that are common to handheld devices, we can expect this type of eyeglasses-type display, which offers superior convenience, to become very popular, as the popularity of another similar device -- headphones -- has contributed to the popularity of this type of display. The popularity of another similar device, the headset, has been a successful model for the popularization of these glasses-type displays.
Figure 4 Display embedded in eyeglass lenses
RotoView
Even the largest handheld screens have far less display area than a desktop computer's display. Of course, designers can use software that allows the small screen of a handheld device to virtually display a large screen similar to a desktop display, but only a portion of it can be displayed, and if you want to see all of it, you need to keep sliding the horizontal and vertical scrollbars, which is a pain in the ass to do.
Innoventions has come up with a virtual large-screen display called RotoView that makes this kind of scrolling very easy: Users only need to gently raise any side of the display (front, back, left, or right), and the display will slide toward the lower side as if it were subjected to gravity, allowing users to easily navigate to any part of the full screen from the front. This allows the user to easily navigate to any part of the complete screen. This feature can also be locked when the user does not need to scroll (i.e., when only the full screen is displayed).
Innoventions has begun licensing the technology and is continuing to work on the hardware technology that will enable the display to be used in future handheld devices. For the display to be used in handheld devices, sensors will be needed to determine the tilt of the screen and generate a corresponding screen slide, so further development of the software technology is also important.
Curlable displays and devices (Flexible Handheld)
Sony's Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory is dedicated to researching the human-computer interface of future computers. Among its research projects is a handheld device that can be rolled up.
The device is presumably based on so-called e-paper display technology, but it can roll up not just the display but the entire body. Scientists not long ago showed off a pilot sample called Gummi and used it to demonstrate a video played in Quicktime. Its pressure-sensitive device and touch panel are built into the body, and its manipulation doesn't rely on a stylus or buttons, but rather a variety of different curling and folding motions.
The Gummi is far from usable, as it's more of an information-display terminal and doesn't yet have an effective way to enter text.
The consumer electronics boom is on the rise, and handheld devices will be the future of computing. More and more cutting-edge technologies will be accelerated in various types of handheld devices, and a variety of functional designs will be tested by the market. The development of mobile computing and handheld devices will be endless.
Random Movement Printing Technology (Random Movement Printing Technology)
The printout of handheld devices has long been an inconvenient weakness. On the one hand, interface standards make it difficult to connect handheld devices directly to ordinary printers; on the other hand, even if the interface problem is solved, it is not practical to carry a full-size printer in a mobile environment. The development of printing technology specifically for mobile computing is imperative.
PrintDreams launched the RMPT (Random Movement Printing Technology) technology, can realize this dream of mobile printing at will. This company accordingly came up with the conceptual design of the PrintBrush printer, which became the world's smallest printer (Figure 5). Through Bluetooth, this printer wirelessly receives text or image files from a handheld device, and the user only needs to use it to slide across the surface of any type of paper (regardless of what thickness, size, shape) to complete the printout on the spot. If the output area is large, a print is not finished, you can take PrintBrush in the appropriate location of the paper continued to slide through, until the print is complete. According to the manufacturer, the development of this printer process, taking into account a variety of possible human factors caused by the interference, such as sliding direction to go oblique, sliding speed fast and slow.
The PrintBrush printer is only the length of a ballpoint pen, about the same thickness as a cell phone, and weighs only 350g, making it suitable for a shirt pocket, and is said to be even lighter in the future.PrintDreams is in the midst of an OEM rollout of the RMPT technology, and products are expected to hit the market in 2005 at the earliest.
Figure 5: Printer in the palm of your hand
Tiny Hard Drive
The vast majority of handheld devices in the past have used semiconductor flash memory as their primary storage medium. Even with the current popularity of MP3 music players (or media players that combine MPEG-4 video, MP3 audio, and WMA audio playback) that use Tiny Hard Drives as a storage medium, semiconductor flash memory is still the storage technology used in the vast majority of handheld devices. However, with the expansion of handheld devices on the image, audio and video and other media applications and in-depth, micro hard disk capacity, fast read and write speeds, low storage costs and other advantages will increasingly come to the fore. Semiconductor flash memory is currently the mainstream capacity of only 256MB ~ 512MB, while the iPod such as music players used in the micro hard disk capacity can be as high as 40GB. of course, to make the PDA, cell phones and other compact handheld devices built-in micro hard disk, the need to further improve the integration of micro hard disk. Toshiba and other manufacturers in this field is relatively leading, has been able to produce a diameter of 0.85 inches (only in the size of a coin), the capacity of 2GB ~ 4GB of products. Such hard disks are expected to appear in handheld computers and smartphones in 2005.
Figure 6 Miniature hard disk about the size of a coin
Multi-purpose software radio
Software radio is likely to be a hot technology for future handheld consumer electronics devices, but it will take at least five years for products to become available.
All current wireless technologies (including a wide range of wireless communication devices, from FM radio, CDMA or GSM cell phones to Wi-Fi laptops) are hardware-based, meaning they are defined by hardware. Software radio technology, on the other hand, is completely contrary to these, i.e., the functionality of the device is determined and regulated mainly by the application of software. For example, there can be this same a handheld computer: its screen is arranged on behalf of Word, Excel, FM radio, CDMA calls, GSM calls and other functions of the icon, the user only need to gently click on the relevant icon, the device will automatically select the relevant radio frequency band to work. Software radio will therefore produce such a beautiful picture of the future: people only need a handheld device, you can enjoy a variety of kinds of wireless networks around the world on any kind of "big book type" of wireless services.
While it will be some time before these technologies become truly ubiquitous in the handheld space, there is a growing body of exciting news. For example, manufacturers such as Toshiba and Fujitsu have introduced fuel-cell-equipped laptops, and some have even prototyped fuel-cell samples for handhelds; eyeglass-type displays are getting lighter, smaller, and more comfortable as scientists continue to work on them; and virtual keyboards are rumored to be being bugged by vendors to fit more applications.
This article focuses on the development trend of handheld devices from the perspective of individual hardware technology bottlenecks and corresponding countermeasures. In fact, all kinds of handheld devices, functional design, appearance process, software and application mode of change will be equally intense and wonderful. 2004 early summer, in the United States by the MIT Media Laboratory and the Consumer Electronics Association hosted a symposium on the handheld consumer electronic devices on the functional design of the discussion presented an unprecedented warm scene. Many experts agreed that: the development of emerging handheld electronic devices has far exceeded the speed of similar television sets, MP3 players, such as "traditional" equipment, and like the automotive industry will bring a lucrative market cake. So extremely popular products, should pay more attention to ease of use and usability, to solve the simple and easy to use, more portable, interconnectivity, rich functionality and so on the contradiction between a number of points of demand, will be the mainstream development direction of the handheld consumer electronics equipment.
Lastly, let's simply envision the role that handheld devices will play in the future: it is a PDA in charge of almost all commonly used personal information; it is a media player that can play music and movies; it is a cell phone and Internet access device that can seamlessly roam under 3G, Wi-Fi, WiMax and other wireless networks; it is an FM radio, microwave digital TV and even GPS receiving terminal ...... Even, it will be your electronic key and electronic wallet!