Samsung plans to sell fuel cell for laptops this year

January 2, 2007 The major drawback of the laptop computer at this point in its short history is battery life and with battery technology the subject of massive global R&D, and the promise of fuel cell technology for laptops in the short to medium term, we are drawing ever closer to being able to survive off-the-grid indefinitely. Accordingly, it was heartening to see Samsung’s announcement last week that it intends to commercialise its fuel cell technology for laptops before the end of 2007. The announcement was in Korean, and some tech blogs (notably Playfuls, engadget and akihabaranews) have had a go at translating it, so if you want the original guff, maybe try it yourself with machine translation from Google, Babelfish or WorldLingo. The pictured Samsung is using a fuel cell dock which will apparently run a laptop for a month, though a smaller version is planned for commercialisation.

(c) www.gizmag.com

Samsung pimps out 18K gold YP-Z5

In today's "because they can" moment, Samsung has decided that in order to truly celebrate the 1-millionth YP-Z5 DAP sold, they must take 10 of them, dip them in 18K gold, and then auction them off to people who like shiny things. As you probably know by now, this blingification isn't anything new in the consumer electronics biz. The units come with interface designer Paul Mercer's signature on the back and arrive in gold-leafed boxes. You may remember Paul Mercer from such interfaces as the iPod (he defected to help with the YP line). According to Samsung, these ultimate extravagances are expected to net at least 120,000 Yen ($1,040) each. Yepp.

[source: www.engadget.com]