[singular]

Wow, that's quite something.

I really feel the tech around batteries needs particular focus, as the one thing computing technology seems to lag on is battery life - I dream of a time where I can charge my laptop once a year and not have to worry about it otherwise.

Perhaps 3D printing of batteries will offer easier iteration on new ideas?

[InclinedPlane]

Battery life only sort of bugs me, the real issue I have with modern batteries is longevity.

Once a typical Li-ion battery is a few years old it might as well be worthless, it will hold only a fraction of the original charge it could when it was new and that amount will continue to drop over time. If we could build batteries with even 80% of the storage density of Li-ion but would retain 90% of that capacity over 10 years I'd be pretty happy.

[jmpe]

That's for a large part due to the charging speed itself. If you charge at the maximum allowed current your battery will have the shortest longevity. Most chargers advertise on the capability to charge fast, but for a lot of battery chemistries it comes with that trade off. If you have the habit of charging over night I'd suggest to buy a slow charger or trickle charger. The slowest (optimum longevity) are typically "40 rate" which means (I'm simplifying here) the charge current is 1/40 the Max capacity current and takes about 40 hours to charge.

Note: don't go cheap by buying Chinese crap for battery chargers, especially Li chemistries. Best case: works as advertised. Worst case: electrocution or house goes up in flames.

[bane]

More likely, they'll be able to build unique shapes for batteries that will allow cramming more battery into awkward spaces.