Digital Divide? Try "The Electrical Divide"

So I'm in the New Orleans Airport trying to get back to DC after the NTC.

A funny thing happens when a technology conference winds down and all the participants start flying home. Finding a free electrical outlet in airport terminals becomes more difficult than sniffing out truffles. Everyone is jacked in, amp'd up, and charging away before the battery draining flight, and if you're not 2 hours early, you're out of luck barring a window seat and a solar powered trickle charger.

Of course we had this same problem at the conference itself, every breakout session was a rush to find the available electrical outlets and their adjoining seats -- live-bloggers furiously tapping away on their keyboards whilst long tendrils coming from their laptops snake their way half across the room to sole outlet in the room.

One of the smartest travelers I've encountered lately at an airport politely asked me if I minded being unplugged briefly so she could introduce her own multi-plug surge protector into my circuit. Smart girl. But really this is only a band-aid on a larger festering problem that I can only imagine is going to get much, much worse: there isn't enough electricity to go around when you aren't at home or the office. Blame it on battery life, aging power infrastructure, or just an increasing number of people who need to be constantly connected to a device that allows more substantive interface than their two thumbs.

The answer? Clearly people aren't trending toward using less gadgets. Battery life is getting better, but not fast enough. Give me something that supports four plus hours of hardcore gaming on it before it craps out and I'll be happy. As it is I can barely coax 2 hours of light web browsing out of my own laptop before it starts warning me of impending data loss due to uncontrolled shutdown.

So I say, let's offer people more electricity at public venues. Let's make it easier for people to plug in by offering more outlets in more convenient places. Something tells me outlet placement on airport concourses was laid out more with vaccuum cleaners in mind than laptop useage. I understand that current electrical systems may not be able to support everyone plugging in, but surely we could at least double the amount of plugs in a given area without rewiring and incurring a lot of cost.

And like anything else, it would be great if access to electricity was built into facilities in a modular fashion, so outlets and power sources could actually be moved around according to need. They already do it with lighting setups at IKEA, how hard could it be to scale up? Imagine if there were central electrical tracks running throughout a building that could be tapped into easily and safely by small outlet boxes that could be moved from place to place according to demand? Furniture could also tap into the tracks and could be outfitted so there were plugs in every armest.

Easier to make better batteries? Probably. But even if they last for 24 hours at a time, chances you'll be running out of juice on your last charge a good hour before they start boarding your flight. And then you'll be walking around the airport, hunting for a spare outlet like the rest of us electricity starved travelers.