My camcorder never leaves the house without a spare, since its "smart" batteries tend to claim they have many minutes of headroom left just seconds before they go dark.

FORBES: Spare Batteries

Renewable resources to batteries and smart grid systems to store that -- and transmit that energy, to technologies like advanced lighting that help conserve energy.

WHITEHOUSE: VP Biden Announces "Retrofit Ramp-Up" Awards

Energy markets have created many new employment sectors like solar, wind, biofuels, batteries, sensors and smart grid technologies.

FORBES: Alternative Energy: Creating Non-Exportable Jobs

With the smart grid, buildings can become batteries, and industries can dramatically cut costs and achieve the same output.

FORBES: If America is the New Saudi Arabia, What Does That Mean for Our Energy Future?

Users could feasibly place their iDevices (and Smart Covers) near an iMac to recharge their batteries.

FORBES: Apple Developing A 'Smart' Way To Wirelessly Charge Future iPads

Improvements and cost reductions in EVs and their batteries will parallel the advances in recent years of smart phones, which were originally written off by many as too costly and insufficiently robust.

FORBES: 'Dying' EV Industry Set for Growth

And some small but significant percentage of this group is going to take a one-way slide to the bottom, where the compulsion to use their smart phones is so strong that they can only hope their batteries last long enough to text a cry for help.

WSJ: Addicts of the Information Age

For sensors expected to last months or a year on batteries, though, such as those used in security applications like window openings and motion detection, Bluetooth Smart is developing into a competitor to other low-power radios.

ENGADGET: Switched On: The roads to home automation