IEEE accelerates new battery standard

It's not often that a standards body moves quickly on anything, so when one does, you had better take notice. Spurred, no doubt, by a summer full of exploding laptop batteries, the IEEE has decided to accelerate the schedule for its Standard for Rechargeable Batteries for Portable Computing. The group working on the standard met for the first time last month and announced that a new standard would be ratified within 18 months--they've since revised that estimate to twelve months. That would put the IEEE on track for having a new standard ready by the end of 2007. "About 50 people from 30 companies attended, representing the entire global supply chain for batteries used in portable computing from cell manufacturers to OEMs, including third-party test and certification bodies," reported Dell's Bill Kabele.

For more on the new standard:
- see this Ars Technica article