Toshiba, who wears the belt for world's smallest methanol fuel cell, has now developed two fuel-cell powered MP3 player prototypes. A flash-based player measuring 1.4 x 4.3 x 0.8-inches is said to run for 35 hours on a single 3.5ml charge of highly concentrated methanol while a hard drive based player swells to 2.6 x 4.9 x 1.1-inches and runs for about 60 hours on a single 10ml charge. Those dimensions are pretty sweet (the 60GB ipod is 2.4 x 4.1 x .75 inches by comparison) and will certainly get smaller once optimized for production. The players will be on exhibit at CEATEC Japan starting October 4th. Could this mean actual product by Christmas 2006?



[Thanks, Roamerick]