Finish mobile phone company Nokia have filed a patents application with the US authorities that could eventually give us mobile phones that self charge whilst we’re on the go.
Just think, no more will we be unceremoniously cut off whilst in the middle of an important conversation, no more being stuck somewhere with no means to call home, and no more having to plug our phones into the wall for a few hours in preparation for leaving the house.
It isn’t just phones that could use the new technology either, we could see the same type of self charge battery used for mp3 players, games consoles, hand held devices, or basically any electrical gadget that needs a battery to operate.
The “Piezoelectric Kinetic Energy Harvester” is “actually a cell phone battery contained with a first frame that is coupled to a second frame by one or more piezoelectric elements” reports the Finnish Times.
We’ve no idea how long it will take for the patent to become a reality but if and when that day comes, our phones will use natural kinetic energy that is created as we move about so if we carry our phones on our person, as we usually do, our phones will be constantly recharging.
The UK Times claim to have seen Nokia’s patent application and report that in the proposed design “the heavier components of a phone, such as the radio aerial and battery, are supported on a strong frame. This frame can move alongside two sets of rails. One rail allows the frame to move up and down, the other from side to side”.
At the end of each rail piezoelectric crystals generate a current each time they are hit by the frame so basically all our movements and gestures, even the simple act of walking, would create electricity that can then be used to charge up the device.
According to the Times, a spokesman for the Finnish firm said: “Power management has been an important topic since the early days of mobile communications and so continues to be one of the areas for research, but we cannot comment on whether or when inventions described in patent applications may eventually appear in products.”
Hope it does though, and sooner rather than later, who wouldn’t welcome new technology that would bring an end of those bulky mobile phone chargers that are always getting lost or broken and which pollute the planet when they’re finally disposed of.
