Digital Home Thoughts: Canon to Develop Fuel Cells for Printers, Cameras

"Japan's Canon Inc. (7751.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it has developed tiny fuel cells that it hopes will start replacing conventional batteries to power some of its digital cameras and printers in three years. Canon will join a small army of companies, including Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., that are working on the development and commercialization of fuel-cell batteries for the next-generation of consumer electronics. Fuel-cell technology mixes hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and is considered a promising replacement for today's lithium-ion batteries, which are widely used to power a range of mobile products from notebook PCs to mobile phones."

This is awesome to hear. Canon had already announced that it is developing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays to replace the liquid crystal displays (LCD) in its current cameras. So it is nice to hear that Canon is investing quite a bit for future cameras and printers. I just wish they gave some sort of dates about when they estimate this technology will be available to the mass market. We have been hearing about fuel cells for years now and I would love to see an actual product make it to market with fuel cells in it.