this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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A tiny radioactive battery could keep your future phone running for 50 years::A glowing horizon for phones

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ya know we keep these things in our pants right?

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 59 points 10 months ago (2 children)

No offense but it's a "I wasn't paying attention in high school physics" comment. It being beta decay with a half-life of 100 years should already indicate it's relatively safe. In fact someone else in this thread already already added the references showing how safe it is. If it's safe enough to power a pacemaker it's safe enough to sit in your phone that sits your pocket.

Personally I think that battery would have much bigger issues than safety, such as power requirements which are much harder to control with nuclear decay. Also obviously the device itself deprecating before the battery because tech will definitely advance a lot in 50 years, I imagine after a decade the phone will be useless. And finally the pricing considering Ni-63 doesn't occur in nature which means you need a specific process to create the materials necessary for the batter.

[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 26 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I imagine after a decade the phone will be useless.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'll concede, useless was a bit harsh. Let's say "no longer fit for the average user" considering the average lifespan of a mobile phone is 2-4 years and a company doing software and security updates for a decade is very rare.

You are very much the exception here.