Microsoft is researching on how to expand battery life on laptops and smartphones. Instead of making huge battery packs, they came up with the idea of the OS adjusting to the users' habits.
Batteries have now become the traffic jam of mobile use and the new fascination for designers. Being able to propose battery life cycles that surpass more than a day, with the same extent of computing usage and power, and without bulking up the console, is sort of like the trend these days. While many producers and scientists are exploring new types of batteries and resources, Microsoft researchers have a different notion, which is to use the same batteries and let software do things.
Mobile devices, computers, and laptops all use batteries in almost the same way. The amount of power used up naturally depends on the usage, but that is all but commanded by the hardware. When the processor is heating up, it will swallow up more energy. When it is on standby, the power is reduced to only a drip. Microsoft researchers think that it is not an efficient way of power management. Being a software company, Microsoft logically holds that software is the factor.
The battery that Microsoft researchers are waged on is a battery system made up of different types of batteries, with diverse capabilities and altered output rates. In theory, the operating system will command which kind of battery is used. If a task requires more energy, it will shift to using the high rate batteries. Basic tasks can be transferred to lower productivities that have longer battery life. These are composed of two sets of high-performance but energy-starving cores and energy-proficient but low-performance cores.
Microsoft also sees potential applications of machine learning. The OS can discern user habits and regulate how to best assign battery life in the future based on the adjustments. It can make certain that a laptop would not be depleting too much battery just before frequently scheduled meeting demonstrations, for example. Or, the application will know that you love catching up on Facebook or twitter on your way home and makes sure there is just enough energy left for users to do that.
Another thing that makes Microsoft Research's resolution distinctive is that it does not rely on still unverified new battery resources. It can simply reuse the prevailing lithium-ion batteries. It typically depends on the software use. Intrinsically, the idea can also be used not just for laptops and mobile devices but also in cars, airplane computers, and anything else that runs on batteries.
