No Outlets
Literally… Medium is my metaphoric outlet
I work a lot out an “office”. Something about being in an office makes we want to talk to people or fear I’m missing out on something. Being around strangers in a coffee shop, cafeteria, court, or hospital, I don’t have such an inclination to chat so I just focus on working and avoid social interactions.
There is one limiter to working anywhere… power. Maybe it’s time to upgrade my phone and one of my laptops as their batteries drain too quickly. I’m often left scurrying for an outlet. And where is there an outlet? Usually not close by.
I don’t think we’ll see a huge difference in this problem in the next five years. Lithium/nickel advances are slower than those on silicon. Batteries are still getting lazy after 2–3 years (or somewhere between 400–1200 power cycles). Maybe 5–10 years, we’ll start to see better power electronics that can leads to several day use on a single charge.
Wireless power seems to be in its trough of disillusionment and maybe we’ll see 3-foot capability in 10 years from now. Maybe there’ll be a backlash against difficult-to-replace batteries so that we don’t end up with a corded phone we have to replace after a few years of use.
