IEEE at work on revised Li-ion battery standard
Yeah, we're trying to hold back the snickering too. It seems the IEEE has chosen now as the time to start looking over those (previously innocent) battery protocols, and the timing couldn't be any more convenient. Rather than buckling down and getting a finalized 802.11n standard out the door, the task force is being silently forced to take a good, hard look at battery criteria. Currently focused on IEEE P1825 -- the designation for lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer batteries used in digital cameras and camcorders -- the crew is hoping to set more uniform regulations for the "design, production, and evaluation" of said cells. The update is supposedly aimed at revising "design analysis, testing and qualification checks" to ensure those QA reports filter out any, um, potentially explosive misfits, and while the project is scheduled to be completed "within 18 months," we know how quickly these folks let their deadlines slip. But the force isn't letting those increasingly-concerned computer manufactures get too much of a head start, as the IEEE 1625 is also slated for a (very necessary) revamp -- which makes perfect sense considering its label: "laptop battery standard."
