NTT DoCoMo is planning to buy a slice of a Japanese venture company that has made some promising advances in fuel-cell technology.Japan’s largest cellular telephone company will acquire 36.5 percent of Aquafairy for an undisclosed sum, NTT DoCoMo said Monday. Aquafairy is based in Osaka and was spun out of Japan’s Nitto Denko to work on fuel-cell technology.Aquafairy is developing polymer electrolyte fuel cells, in which water is injected into a cartridge and converted to hydrogen by a catalyst. The hydrogen is sent to an anode where the ions and electrons are separated and the electrons flow to the cathode, creating electricity. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe NTT DoCoMo has been working with the startup for some time on a micro fuel-cell recharger for use with cell phone handsets. Such a device could recharge a cell phone battery without having to plug it into an electrical power outlet. It’s seen as an intermediate step toward the ultimate goal of a fuel cell small enough to be integrated into the cell phone handset itself. A prototype unveiled by Acquafairy in July was a quarter the size and twice as powerful as one NTT DoCoMo developed with Fujitsu Laboratories and displayed a year earlier. The latest recharger has an output of 2 watts, measures 24 millimeters square and 70 millimeters long, and weighs 45 grams.-Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau) Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Fireside Chat between Tata Communications and Tata Realty: 5 ways how Technology bridges the CX perception gap By Tata Communications Sep 24, 2023 9 mins Emerging Technology feature Mastercard preps for the post-quantum cybersecurity threat A cryptographically relevant quantum computer will put everyday online transactions at risk. Mastercard is preparing for such an eventuality — today. By Poornima Apte Sep 22, 2023 6 mins CIO 100 Quantum Computing Data and Information Security feature 9 famous analytics and AI disasters Insights from data and machine learning algorithms can be invaluable, but mistakes can cost you reputation, revenue, or even lives. These high-profile analytics and AI blunders illustrate what can go wrong. By Thor Olavsrud Sep 22, 2023 13 mins Technology Industry Generative AI Machine Learning feature Top 15 data management platforms available today Data management platforms (DMPs) help organizations collect and manage data from a wide array of sources — and are becoming increasingly important for customer-centric sales and marketing campaigns. By Peter Wayner Sep 22, 2023 10 mins Marketing Software Data Management Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe