Someday, Charge Your Smartphone Simply By Walking

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thorkle

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Why not add this to everything mechanical? I see almost more use for this on things that move a lot more than a lot of people I know.
 

thomaseron

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I see two problems with this. One: americas cell phones would never be charged, unless plugged into the wall. Two: why do we have to invent technology that leads to our own demise? (spelling?)
 

house70

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Everybody keeps talking about it as if you can take, say, 20W of walking power and use whatever percentage of it to convert to electricity.
If one person burns 20W of energy to walk a certain distance, you will need additional energy to power up whatever it is you need to power up. Remember, those 20W were REQUIRED to do that amount of walking, and muscles will generate heat in the process, no matter what. The ONLY way you could make this work out of those 20W would be to capture and convert the heat (as a by-product of powering the motion) to electricity. because our bodies have a very good temperature homeostasis (look it up), we don't burn somebody if they tough us after a walk, the heat is dissipated by our entire body, not only our legs. That footwear device would be not converting or capturing the heat-dissipated energy, will just make walking a bit harder to generate the extra energy ,because:
- one will have to burn the 20W of power to walk PLUS some wattage to power up the devices. There is no way around it (look up thermodynamics). Any device that does that will inherently make walking harder to provide the extra energy (plus the losses in converting process).
 

BSMonitor

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[citation][nom]house70[/nom]Everybody keeps talking about it as if you can take, say, 20W of walking power and use whatever percentage of it to convert to electricity. If one person burns 20W of energy to walk a certain distance, you will need additional energy to power up whatever it is you need to power up. Remember, those 20W were REQUIRED to do that amount of walking, and muscles will generate heat in the process, no matter what. The ONLY way you could make this work out of those 20W would be to capture and convert the heat (as a by-product of powering the motion) to electricity. because our bodies have a very good temperature homeostasis (look it up), we don't burn somebody if they tough us after a walk, the heat is dissipated by our entire body, not only our legs. That footwear device would be not converting or capturing the heat-dissipated energy, will just make walking a bit harder to generate the extra energy ,because:- one will have to burn the 20W of power to walk PLUS some wattage to power up the devices. There is no way around it (look up thermodynamics). Any device that does that will inherently make walking harder to provide the extra energy (plus the losses in converting process).[/citation]

They are not talking about the heat energy created and used by our body. They are talking about grabbing the kinetic energy created by our movement. Every time you step, there is a force exerted on the sole of each foot. The heat energy they are referring to is the friction that is generated by your foot coming in contact with the ground.

"the two researchers describe a new approach of using kinetic energy to charge batteries"

"What has been lacking is a mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion technology that would work well for this type of application,"
 

CaedenV

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Americans dont walk, we drive. What would be really cool is if we could invent something that could charge our devices in the car....
Besides, the weight issues in america have nothing to do with activity (most people do too much, and do not suffer for lack of activity). The problem is almost 100% diet. When you are too busy you eat out, and fast food is crap. When you are too busy then you need caffeine and sugar, and then you drink too much soda. If we did less, and stayed at home more we would eat healthier and loose a lot of weight.
When I lost my job last year I also lost 50 pounds in the 3 months I was out of work. Sure I wasn't doing much, but I wasn't eating hardly anything because I want hungry. My current job isn't nearly as physically taxing, and I have the flexibility to bring in my own food and am keeping the weight off.
 

ronch79

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How about gassing up your car by walking? After all, it's like the saying, 'a penny saved is a penny earned', but just gets morphed a little bit to 'a drop of fuel saved is a drop of fuel dropped in the tank.'
 

Archean

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I wonder if they are targetting this at physically challeneged (read obese) people .... but then I could be wrong.
 

Srieya Devi

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Friction that can charge your cellphone Battery for more information

http://www.trendsor.blogspot.in/2012/11/friction-that-can-charge-your-cellphone.html

It is known to every one of us that some energy will be produced when we talk, walk, breathe and so some other things. But the concept is whether this energy can be used to charge the electronic devices? Also, when you jog or run a marathon, so much of energy will be produced and those will be wasted for no use. The researchers are thinking... -
 
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