Building a Better Battery

Batteries, long the poor cousin to computer chips in research-obsessed Silicon Valley, are now the rage.

The next breakthrough smartphone, or maybe the one after that, might not have a traditional battery as its sole source of power. Instead, it could pull energy from the air or power itself through television, cellular or Wi-Fi signals.

Engineers at Apple even tried for many years to build a smarter battery by adding solar charging to iPhones and iPods, a former Apple executive said. And they have continued to experiment with solar charging, two people who work at the company said.

By BRIAN X. CHEN and NICK BILTON

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/technology/building-a-better-battery.html?hpw&rref=technology&_r=0