Quite interesting. In time these might be able to power cameras and such. Either way, it's going to change a lot of things in the future.

E

http://engineering.missouri.edu/news/stories/2009/nuclear-battery-outstanding-at-conference/index.php

Nuclear batteries are nothing new , they have been around for a long time . Doubt they will ever be a common thing due to disposal problems .

We are very close to mass marketting of miniature fuel cells. I think that will be the next step for cameras.

They are available for some flashlights and as cell phone chargers, but are still hard to find and expensive. They are coming though.

I wouldn't say "very close"

If you read the paper and subsequent coverage you'd catch the bit about how it would take 40-million of those batteries to power a cell phone (though it would stay powered for 5,000 years). A little digging shows that nuclear batteries were used in pacemakers in the 1970s, and all of the batteries outlived those they were implanted in (one is still running the pacemaker 34 years later). These pacemakers were designed to withstand a bullet shot-- and cremation once the patient died. But they were phased out for lithium-ion batteries for a number of reasons.

In any case, we're a long way from nuclear powered cameras. The military uses nuclear powered mobile batteries for certain applications (like radios), but they are bulky.

Fuel cells seem promising (as they have seemed for the last 15 years), but I'd place my bet on lithium polymer and incremental increases in more current technologies covering us for the next 5 years.

Check this out.....

http://www.photographybay.com/2008/08/10/canon-fuel-cell-dslr-update/


http://www.engadget.com/2005/10/25/canon-develops-fuel-cell-prototypes/

http://pcworld.about.com/news/Oct272005id123250.htm

Don't know if I'd want to hold a fuel cell close to my face...

Check this out...

Fuel cells are interesting, and applicable already in certain devices. But their use in handheld, consumer products aren't there yet. They don't look very convenient at the moment!

http://www.engadget.com/tag/fuelcell

By the time they make it into the market I would expect the user to see very little difference in outward appearance between a battery and a fuel cell. Major size or appearance differences would make them less likely to be adopted and the manufacturers probably realize this.

If you look at the places where fuel cells are being used now, the aesthetics are not very important. That is not the case with phones, laptops, cameras, etc.

nuclear batteries are commonly used for long-distance space probes, where they would be too far away for solar power. Pioneer 10, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2 are all still operating on their nuclear batteries. I doubt we'll ever see them in consumer items though... disposal / terrorism potential would be too much of an issue...