Batteries that travel: USBCELL batteries recharge through your USB.

Moixa Energy's latest innovation is one of those slap- your-forehead, why-didn't- I-think-of-that ideas that simultaneously makes sense and makes us feel good to use: a traditional AA battery that recharges itself while plugged into a personal computer's USB port.

The humble USB port is becoming more and more useful. First came the memory card with built-in USB plug, now comes the USB-charged battery.

Moixa, a British company, began offering its USBCell in September and, while executives won't disclose how many they have sold, it is clear that the product is a winner, igniting a low-energy hum among the technorati.

Moixa Energy have developed the USBCELL as an environmentally-friendly alternative to normal AA batteries. The top of one side flips up to reveal a USB connector, and the battery simply plugs into an open port.

But before I recite the reasons why this is a brilliant idea, let me disclose two drawbacks: The batteries are pricier than both regular AAs and other rechargeables. And because some of the physical space of the battery is taken up with a USB connector, the energy volume it packs may be a little less than others before needing a recharge.

The first batteries available are AA sized, but Moixa plans to unveil a full range standard formats, as well as phone and camera batteries.

Nevertheless, like a previous breakthrough from Moixa — it licenses the technology behind the Stowaway foldable keyboard sold by Think Outside — it is a winner.

USBCELL batteries recharge through your USB.

The feel-good part of the USBCell is this: Besides the advantage of all rechargeables — you aren't adding toxins to landfills by tossing the batteries in the trash after use — you are also taking advantage of an existing energy supply, your plugged-in personal computer, and are not wasting power.

It takes five hours to charge one of the cells if it was fully discharged; each battery has a capacity of 1300mAH.

Simon Daniel, chief executive of Moixa (axiom spelled backwards), said that the company intended to pursue other consumer-oriented energy solutions that take us "off the grid" by weaning consumers away from central power utilities.

No, they're not the latest USB Flash drives in a fancy casing - Moixa's USB Cell products are real batteries, charged using a spare USB port. Which, if you think about it, is genius: no cables, no special adaptor just plug 'em into your computer every so often.

"Most of the products consumers are buying today are low-power devices. In order to charge them, we connect them into the AC circuit using an AC-DC converter," he explained.

USBCELL batteries recharge through your USB.

Moxia wants £13 inc. P&P for a pair of AA batteries, which isn't cheap, but works out better value than disposable alkaline batteries in the long run. Moxia also has a 9V block battery in the works, along with a set designed to match the power packs of popular mobile phones - again, all recharged using a USB port.

"That's an inefficient, last-millennium technology which loses about a third of its power in taking a 110-volt circuit and bringing it down to the 1.5 volts required to recharge" a mobile gadget.

USB Cell has released to give more and more power, Moixa has release such a cell. What’s really exciting though are Moixa’s mobile designs. They’ll fit in your phone, with a handy USB connector so you can charge up whenever there’s a PC, PS3, Wii or Xbox around.

In fact, he argues, "The whole power supply designed to be sent remotely to the home to power things like washing machines is not actually the power supply we need in this century, which needs to be much better at low-power and can use local sources like solar panels."

USBCELL batteries recharge through your USB.

Until now, rechargeable batteries have never been all that portable because they have to travel with a charger. "Our solution is to build the charging ability into the battery," Daniel said.

Moixa says it’s working with mobile manufacturers so the final designs will be co-branded and optimised for specific phones.

The USBCell battery is for sale online at sites, like Amazon.com, where you can get two AAs for about $20 — about 30 percent to 50 percent more than regular rechargeable batteries. USBCells are also in a few retail stores in the United States and Europe (and soon, Asia).

It means you can kiss goodbye to travel chargers, and don’t have to worry about your phone’s MP3 or video player sucking away at talk-time.

USBCell versions of AAA and 9- volt batteries are due out soon. But Daniel is more excited about bringing the technology to batteries used in mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 players. He said the company is in partnership talks with handset manufacturers and expects to announce deals later this year.

Never run out of power when you need to upload your photos. Continue typing on that Blackberry. Or just keep on playing portable game devices.

He sees a lot of potential there. "Phones, especially those with very good cameras or very good MP3 players, do not usually have very good batteries to support the extra features," he said. "The gadget makers are forced to design and make their own batteries, and they're not battery companies."

Simply remove the back cover of your phone and charge from USB. No need to remember or carry a phone charger or adaptor.

Daniel said that a few small devices like the Apple iPod Shuffle had been taking advantage of USB's ability to transfer power. But the technology to reduce the charging apparatus to the size needed to fit it into a AA battery was too expensive to mass market even a year ago, he said.

Moixa, a private company, has a few other innovations up its sleeve that Daniel won't disclose. "We tend to think about things fundamentally differently about how to solve usability problems," he said. "Sometimes it is a matter of rethinking how something is done and coming up with a slight change that in some sense in hindsight is obvious."

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Batteries that travel: USBCELL batteries recharge through your USB.

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