Toshiba battery charges to 80% in one minute

From InfoSyncWorld:

Battery recharging woes may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new battery developed by Toshiba. According to an announcement made today, Toshiba has improved on its existing Lithium Ion battery technology through the implementation of nanoparticles which aid in preventing the rapid disassembly of organic electrolytes witnessed in current batteries, allowing for rapid charging and a massive improvement in battery capacity loss over time.

Toshiba claims its new battery is capable of obtaining a charge of 80% in as short time as a minute, and also produced test results showing that following a test cycle of 1,000 charges and depletions, the decrease seen in battery capacity was a mere 1%. Aiming to commercialize the technology in 2006, Toshiba did not comment on whether pricing levels for batteries based on the new technology would remain similar to current battery pricing.

This would be nice, but they could also do everybody a favor and make the average battery life a lot longer. A story in the NYTimes in January ("Power Users, Ready for a Refill") talked about the scarce resource of power outlets in Starbucks and other cafe-type places of business -- more and more people are using battery-powered devices constantly, and battery life needs to keep up. And we have yet to see the wire-free recharging pad come to market, first mentioned in 2002 coming from MobileWise.