Smartphone battery life could dramatically improve with new invention
Sept. Smartphone battery life could dramatically improve with new invention - ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A new "subconscious mode" for smartphones and other WiFi-enabled mobile devices could extend battery life by as much as 54 percent for users on the busiest networks. University of Michigan computer science and engineering professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang will present their new power management approach Sept. 21 at the ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking in Las Vegas. The approach is still in the proof-of-concept stage and is not yet commercially available. Even when smartphones are in power-saving modes and not actively sending or receiving messages, they are still on alert for incoming information and they're searching for a clear communication channel. The researchers have found that this kind of energy-taxing "idle listening" is occurring during a large portion of the time phones spend in power-saving mode—as much as 80 percent on busy networks.


