My Life and Times

January 6, 2005
Power Users, Ready for a RefillBy MICHEL MARRIOTT
MIHOKO HAKATA, a freelance illustrator and recent art-school graduate, ducked into a coffee shop in Midtown Manhattan last week, desperate for a jolt of energy.
She had work to do. But as she removed her materials from her backpack, it became clear that the energy she was seeking could not be found in a cup. She had a more pressing need: to find a power outlet for her laptop computer, whose battery had died.
"I realized they have this," said Ms. Hakata, a 29-year-old Tokyo native, as her hand slipped beneath a table to deftly plug her I.B.M. ThinkPad into a wall socket.
Before Ms. Hakata, who lives on a drafty boat on the Hudson River, could settle into her work, a young man clutching a dying cellphone rushed in.
"I just have to charge it," he said, asking Ms. Hakata if he could share one of the two power outlets under her table. She smiled politely and nodded.
Every day, millions of people are finding themselves scurrying about in search of wells of electricity they can tap so their battery-powered mobile devices can remain mobile. Dependence is growing on laptops, cellular telephones, digital music players, digital cameras, camcorders, personal organizers, portable DVD players and the latest hand-held gaming devices - most of which operate on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries - and finding available electrical outlets away from home and office has become more urgent.
Starbucks and other establishments catering to wired customers appear to do little to discourage or regulate customers who plug in, either to work on AC power or charge up. In large part, the power seekers seem to negotiate their needs among themselves with cooperative grace, following a series of unspoken rules.
Chief among them, some say, is never to use more than half of the sockets in a wall outlet. If an outlet provides four sockets, electrical etiquette dictates that you can plug in, say, your laptop and your cellphone, but not the iPod, too.
Those who disregard this courtesy may find themselves the targets of grumblings and harsh stares.
"It's better not to hog all the outlets, of course," said Zyphus Lebrun, a graduate student in journalism at Columbia University. "It's like when you go to the Laundromat and there is one person using four dryers."
While some devices, like a dying cellphone, require only a few minutes of charging to regain short-term use, most devices, like laptops, take much longer. It is not uncommon for users of electronics with more ravenous appetites to camp out for hours near an electrical outlet. In some cases, those staking a claim do so by plugging in a device - even a $2,000 laptop - only to leave it unattended while fetching a $4 coffee.
Much of the mounting quest for power stems, some hardware manufacturers say, from battery performance that has generally not kept up with the rapidly expanding capabilities of today's consumer electronics.
In turn, some battery makers blame hardware makers for adding power-consuming extras like larger, brighter display screens on laptops and bigger hard drives in digital music players. The result is devices that can operate for little more than four to six hours between charges.
As a consequence, knowing the location of a well-placed (and unused) electrical outlet may be considered more vital than knowing the closest public bathroom.
"It has become part of your lifestyle," Ralph Bond, the consumer education officer for Intel, said of the continual challenge of taking advantage of the widening offerings of digital electronics but not becoming a slave to the socket. "I can give you a guided tour of the two concourses for United Airlines in Chicago O'Hare." He then rattled off a long list of airports where he knows the whereabouts of obscure but accessible electrical outlets. "I can show you where the very valued and highly prized electrical outlets are for frequent travelers that need to juice up," he said.
Stories abound about people going to extraordinary lengths to secure outlets to feed an energy-starved gizmo. Sneaker-clad teenagers sprawled on the tile floors at airport gates charging their laptops and Game Boys are a common sight. Well-dressed professionals, like Mr. Bond, can be found seated among them, juicing up their laptops before takeoff.
Sean Spector, a vice president and founder of GameFly, an online video game rental service, said he tries to book flights that have power adapters near the seats so he can plug in his electronic gadgets. He said it is not unusual for him to travel with a laptop, a cellphone, a digital camera, a Palm organizer and his new Nintendo DS portable game console.
"I'm starting to see them more and more" at the base of seats or beneath the armrests between seats, he said.
At a cafe in Berkeley, patrons draw power from an extension cord plugged into the ceiling. At Jackson Hole, a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, a regular diner used to plug his laptop into an outlet hidden behind a large framed picture.
"We finally got rid of that painting," said Anna Kalogeras, the restaurant's manager. "We definitely don't have a problem with people coming in using our electricity like that. It makes the place look busy."
Like many managers of restaurants, cafes and practically anyplace people gather to work with and charge their electronics, Ms. Kalogeras noted that patrons seldom ask her for permission. "Once in a while people ask us if they can charge their phones," she said.
But some months ago at Amy Ruth's, a Harlem breakfast spot, a diner was loudly admonished by a waitress for plugging his laptop into a wall outlet near where he was seated. "Who told you that you could do that?" she asked, sternly but rhetorically. "Somebody's got to pay for that electricity."
The electricity costs of patrons charging up are negligible, many business owners said. In fact, some places, including airlines and commuter trains, are busy adding electrical outlets for customers' convenience.
The phenomenon is probably no more visible than at the thousands of Starbucks coffee shops that dot the United States. Starbucks is famously accommodating of coffee drinkers who slog their laptops along, sometimes working for hours with their computers and cellphones plugged in.
Starbucks does not monitor the number or use of power outlets at its more than 6,000 locations in the United States and some 2,500 more internationally, said Nick Davis, a company spokesman. But he acknowledged that Starbucks does encourage customers to use their Internet-connected devices in the coffee shops. More than 3,200 of the 4,346 Starbucks stores directly operated by the company have T-Mobile Hot Spots to give customers with specially enabled laptops and personal organizers wireless Internet access, Mr. Davis said.
"Having available power outlets is part of our wireless plan," he added.
Amtrak's high-speed rail service between Boston and Washington, the Acela Express, offers power outlets at every seat. On many of Amtrak's regular lines, however, seats with outlets are less common, making those that do more coveted than window seats.
"It is almost as if people see the outlets as public property," said Mr. Lebrun, the Columbia graduate student, who lives in Brooklyn. On Columbia's campus, students freely plug in laptops and cellphones wherever they are, he said, even in classrooms during lectures.
"It is part of the culture," said Mr. Lebrun, 27, who finds it necessary to charge his cellphone in the classroom because its battery can manage little more than three hours of talk time. "I use my cellphone so often to get calls on my assignments," he said. "I have to make calls to my friends and family, and it will run out if I don't charge it during the course of a day."
Mr. Lebrun said he has learned a few tricks to extend his cellphone's battery life between charges. "I noticed that the batteries drain faster if I keep my phone on vibrate," he said.
Similarly, Mr. Bond of Intel said his 20-year-old daughter recently discovered that her iPod Mini's battery lasts longer if she limits the use of the backlight on the L.C.D. screen.
Help in the form of innovation is on the way, Mr. Bond said. Intel, for example, is developing laptops that can eke out eight hours of operation on a single charge, possibly this year, he said.
Mary Koral, marketing communications manager for Sanyo Energy (U.S.A.), a maker of rechargeable batteries, said incremental improvements in battery capacity would continue but that major breakthroughs - like widespread use of micro fuel cells - are "a long way off."
In the meantime, Bridgett M. Davis, a Brooklyn-based novelist, said she recently learned how important it was to keep her personal electronics charged while on a tour promoting her book, "Shifting Through Neutral."
"It was vital that I charge my technology in the hotel at night," she said. "I would stay plugged in as much as I could while handling business."
But back in Brooklyn, alone with her laptop as she writes a new novel, Ms. Davis said she had come to a reassuring realization. The faltering battery life of her aging computer now dictates the length of her daily writing sessions: two hours.
"It shapes my writing intervals," said Ms. Davis, an English professor at Baruch College in Manhattan. When her computer's display goes dark, she doesn't search frantically for a free outlet. Instead, Ms. Davis said matter-of-factly, "I know it's time to stop."
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