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At a trade show in Japan, Hitachi showed off a prototype of the first PDA to include a fuel cell. Hitachi created the device with Tokai, a company that specializes in, of all things, disposable cigarette lighters.

The implementation of fuel cell technology into handhelds has been one of the holy grails the mobile industry has been shooting for. A fuel cell is an electro-chemical device that converts the chemical energy of a fuel, such as hydrogen, ethanol or methanol, into electrical energy and water. This is a much cleaner technology than what's found in current batteries, and it also promises to greatly increase the amount of power available to users.

According to Hitachi and Tokai, the fuel cell that powers the prototype PDA uses a 20 percent concentration of methanol and is about the size of a AA battery. They claim it could run the handheld for six to eight hours on a single charge. This is the first time it has been demonstrated that a fuel cell can be squeezed down to the size of something resembling a mobile device.

The companies said they expect to hit a 30 percent concentration of methanol by the time they ship a commercially available PDA with a fuel cell sometime in 2005. Of course, the shipping PDA will have to shrink too. The current prototype weighs a hefty 20 ounces, which is more than double the largest PDAs on the market now.

Other Mobile Fuel Cells

Hitachi isn't the only company working on mobilizing fuel cells. A company called Medis Technologies announced earlier in the month that is partnering with Kensington Technology, a maker and distributor of computer accessories, to bring fuel cells to mobile devices such as cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, handheld gaming devices, PDAs and smartphones.

The first product based on this partnership will be an auxiliary power source for mobile devices called the Power Pack. When a device’s battery is running low or is discharged, Medis said Power Pack allows the continued use of the mobile device while at the same time charging the battery.

At CeBIT a couple of weeks back, Toshiba demonstrated a prototype of a fuel cell powering a PORTEGE M100, B5-sized sub-notebook PC. The DMFC runs on a methanol-oxygen fuel mix, and generates and supplies power directly to the laptop. Look for a smaller version of the company's fuel cell sometime next year for handhelds and smartphones.