Energy, in the form of battery life, is a vital resource for mobile computing. There is growing consensus that advances in battery technology and low-power circuit design cannot, by themselves, meet the energy needs of future mobile computers - the higher levels of the system must also be involved.

In this talk, Flinn will explore how applications can dynamically modify their behavior to conserve energy. To guide such adaptation, the operating system monitors energy supply and demand. When energy is plentiful, application behavior is biased toward a good user experience, when it is scarce, the behavior is biased toward energy conservation.