socialmedian: Nokia develops phone that recharges itself without mains electricity

Add News Flash

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

Nokia develops phone that recharges itself without mains electricity

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Jun 10, 2009

Summary

Phone harvests radiowaves from TV, radio and other mobiles

Standby mode is often accused of being the scourge of the planet, insidiously draining resources while offering little benefit other than a small red light and extra convenience for couch potatos. But now Nokia reckons a mobile phone that is always left in standby mode could be just what the environment needs.

A new research prototype phone from the company is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radiowaves – the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us. The power harvested is small but it is almost enough to power a mobile in standby mode indefinitely without ever needing to plug it into the mains, according to Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who developed the device at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, UK.

This may sound too good to be true but Oyster cards used by London commuters perform a similar trick, powering themselves from radiowaves emitted by the reader devices as they are swiped. And similarly old crystal radio sets and more recently mod

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment