Estari DC15: The World’s First Dual-Touchscreen Notebook

Category laptops | Permalink | 11. March 2007

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A jet-powered laptop may sound like the sort of gadget Q would give James Bond for his next adventure, but Professor Alan Epstein at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics has been working to make the concept a reality.

According to Epstein, a tiny gas turbine no larger than a quarter along with a fuel supply could replace the traditional battery in small, power-hungry portable devices like laptops, delivering five to ten times the endurance of a similarly sized battery pack. Espstein and his team are building the first engine using a sandwich of six silicon wafers that are bonded together at an atomic level, and plan to power it with liquid butane, the same stuff used in cigarette lighters, to avoid having the thing smell like an airport runway. As you might expect, the U.S. military has expressed plenty of interest, providing funding for the project, but don’t expect to be able to go full throttle on your laptop for about another five years.

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