Charge your iPhone – with your body

If you get frustrated with the short battery life of your multiple gadgets and wish a) someone would invent a phone battery that lasted longer than a day; b) that you could charge it up without having to leave it anchored to the wall – your time has come.

Researchers are working on a technology that would let you charge up your phone – or other batttery-powered gadget – with your body.

Dr. Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology has been creating nano-chargers. They are little magic zinc oxide nano-wires that generate energy when you flex them. These wires are tiny and could be embedded in a whole range of fabrics or materials.

This way anything that moves or flexes, such as your shoes or your trousers, would be a potential source of power and you could – through means not yet elucidated, then plug your phone into them and charge it up. Possibly through a battery in your t-shirt. Or your hand. Or whatever.

“Our nanogenerators are poised to change lives in the future. Their potential is only limited by one’s imagination,” said Dr. Wang about his invention. So let’s not stop at the trousers as battery idea – how about lacing a little network over your skin?

As geek.com speculate: “Imagine your body being implanted with thousands upon thousands of small nanotubes, in which ever palpation of your heart, every flex of your muscles, every breath you inhale or exhale is going right to your iPod’s battery”.

Well it would be good to know that all that energy you spend walking to Cafe Neros isn’t wasted,and to know that you could just jog around on the spot to rev your iPhone up when it’s battery starts to fail. Though it does make your iPhone into a kind of parasitic sub-being that feeds off your resources to survive.

Oh wait – it already does that with your bank account.

[via geek.com]