The company, led by M2E President David Rowe, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army’s special forces, is focusing initially on devices that convert motion to energy as a way to ease the load of modern soldiers whose many electronic devices such as starlight scopes, used to sight weapons at night, require them to carry heavy batteries. The same technology, however, could be used by civilian road warriors to recharge iPods and mobile phones and in larger applications such as electric cars and wind turbines.

Regan Rowe, director of business development and wife of Mr. Rowe, said the company has partnered with General Dynamics because of the military’s “high pain point on mobile electronics.” Civilians could see a backup pocket charger for iPods, digital cameras, or mobile phones as early as 2008, she added, noting that the cell phones of about one in five users lose power at least once a week.

M2E, based in Boise, Idaho, has partnered with General Dynamics to develop its military applications and has adopted a strategy of designing and developing products that can be licensed to manufacturers. The company has filed six patents on its technology, originally spun out of Idaho National Laboratory. That technology applies the Faraday Principle—which notes that when magnets are passed through coils electricity is created—in new ways and form factors.

Gerry Langeler, managing director at OVP and a board member of M2E, said that although the company’s first customer is the military, its future will be centered on civilian markets.

“The long-term potential is on the consumer side,” he said. “The military is driving initial adoption because their needs are so great. They will stress test the products in a way that will make it better ultimately for the consumer market.”

Part of the company’s potential lies in its ability to apply its technology in many sizes and shapes, said Rob Day, principal at @Ventures.

“They’ve reached the stage where they’ve proven this really does work,” he said. “Prototypes are in actual D-cell or A-cell batteries. This isn’t like some other investments where it requires people to change what they do.”

Those battery-sized prototypes use the motion technology to generate energy while storing it like a conventional battery.

“They can accommodate just about any kind of form factor, any kind of shape,” he added.

Mr. Langeler said that the same technology in theory could be scaled up for larger applications like a wind turbine or a hybrid car.

“You might make the cars increasingly electric or lower the weight of the car by not having as big a generator,” he said.

M2E hopes its miniature generators will be in mobile phones in two to three years, said Ms. Rowe. The company’s system could replace standard phone batteries and, for an average user who is moderately active, would not have to be recharged.

The M2E system has great potential in parts of the world where electricity is scarce or unreliable, said In-Stat analyst Allen Nogee.

But at a 20 percent price premium over standard rechargeable batteries, M2E might be a hard sell to consumers in the developed world, said In-Stat analyst Bill Hughes. People have grown to expect longer lasting cell phones without having to pay for it, he said.

Last year about 1 billion new phones with the same number of batteries were sold worldwide. Add to that the other devices that could someday use M2E technology and you have an enormous potential market.

The question is whether consumers will value not having to recharge their phones and PDAs enough to accept the higher retail costs.