From ScienCentral:

As our portable devices get more high-tech, the batteries that power them can seem to lag behind. But Joel Schindall and his team at M.I.T. plan to make long charge times and expensive replacements a thing of the past--by improving on technology from the past.

They turned to the capacitor, which was invented nearly 300 years ago. Schindall explains, "We made the connection that perhaps we could take an old product, a capacitor, and use a new technology, nanotechnology, to make that old product in a new way."

Nanotube filaments on the battery's electrodes

Image:MIT/Riccardo Signorelli

Think this is the next Big Thing in portable technology?  Or is it destined to be a "great idea that never really caught on"?  Comment in the forums!