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Booster recharges battery while phone is in use

NEW YORK-Suppose you are on the go, on the phone and the rechargeable battery needs a boost.

Electric Fuel Corp., headquartered in New York and Bet Shemesh, Israel, believes it has an answer to this problem, Yehuda Harats, president and chief executive officer, said April 10.

Within a few months, the company plans to expand the market for its ZincAir disposable batteries by putting them to work as re-chargers for rechargable batteries of up to 3.6-volts. The target market consists of carriers, distributors and mass retailers.

Electric Fuel’s booster pack is comprised of four of its 3300 milliamperes hour ZincAir batteries. Customers will be able to buy the battery pack separately or in combination with an adapter designed to fit their brand of phone, said Robert Erlich, chairman and chief financial officer.

Even while the phone is in use, the booster will completely recharge the battery, typically within an hour, company executives said.

The universal battery pack, which weighs less than three ounces, will provide three-to-four complete charges, Erlich said. In subsequent releases of this product, Electric Fuel plans to build in an alert to let users know when the recharging pack itself has run low on available power, he added.

ZincAir disposable batteries capable of running Wireless Application Protocol and Internet-enabled handsets are also in the planning stages, Harats said.

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