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I distinctly remember being told about "psycho-kinetic" watches...

What you actually heard was the phrase "Seiko Kinetic"; their advertisements clearly showed the mechanical parts of the charging mechanism, and made no reference to "psycho" power, whatever that might be. There's more info on it on Seiko's website.

Quite a few years ago I had a watch powered by the exact same principle. Merely walking around would generate the power it needed to keep itself running. Unfortunately as I got more and more into computers I found the watch holding less and less of a charge, until eventually it stopped working altogether. If I had to choose between movement and a watch or computers I would have to say I'm glad there's a clock in the bottom right corner of the screen.

You should look at this Seiko Kinetic set of watches, much more long lived, my dad has his original spring powered kinetic still after many years and my capacitive storage watch has lasted me 10 years and still keeps better time than my mobile.

I love my kinetic watch! Even though my old automatic was cool, the whole idea of a self winding quartz watch is even more cool and kicks solar ass. It even has a window on the back side where you can see the generator weight, gears, coils and capacitor, so you can show poeple how it works.

The only thing I don't like about kinetics is that there are virtually no options. They're all analog display. Why is it that the Casio G-Shock solar watches come in all sorts of flavours including a plethora of digital options and even 'atomic' setting radio, but none of this is available for kinetics, which seem to be a much more reliable power source? The fact that my ultra-cool Sieko kinetic watch requires manual changing of the date at the end of each month is pathetic!

What I want is an atomic, digital, kinetic watch with a few simple alarm and calendar functions, but nobody makes one. At this stage in our technological eveolution, a watch that you never have to wind, change batteries or set and has the capability of keeping track of the day of month shouldn't be too difficult, but seems to be almost beyond the capabilities of the marketplace.

P.S. Repost of Kinetics kick ass, but have no other cool options.

Make a tiny version and build it into a digital wristwatch, never change your battery again.

They already do that, its generally called a kinetic watch, not to be confused with the automatics that have been around for a while (automatics use kinetic motion to wind a spring)Kinetics use motion th run a small generator.

http://seikousa.com/Technology/TechDetails.aspx?te chnologyId=2

Give me a Palm Pilot anyday.

Here, here. I still get 2+ weeks per charge on my PalmV purchased back in 1999. Granted it doesn't have wireless networking or GPS but still... even my mobile phone can go 3 days of "always on".

The electronics item I love the most is my Seiko kinetic watch. 4+ years and I haven't had to change the battery.. because there is no battery!

I think you're talking about the Seiko Kinetic line of watches. They are still making these, in fact I own one that's about 6 years old now. I had to get the capacitor replaced once but otherwise it's been a very reliable watch. I also own a Citizen Eco-Drive watch which is powered by a solar cell in the face. I haven't purchased watch batteries in many many years.

How marvellously novel. I'm sure no-one has ever found a way to absorb energy from movement and store it for later use before, or turn that stored energy into electricity.

And on the subject of using the phone's own vibrating alert to recharge the battery: "Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!".

While the technology mentioned in the article is quite cool, it has relatively no application for cell phones. It is ridiculous to think that these sensors could harness enough energy from a ringing cell phone to power it (not to mention the whole laws of thermodynamics problem).

What the article is about is using power from vibrating pipes, engines or whatever, to power sensors or other things in places that simply can't be reached by wire, or where batteries are simply impractical. (This also implies that it is really expensive!)

I think the technology presented in the article is similar in function but totally different from the technology used in kinetic watches. The technology in kinetic watches could be really cool if it could be applied to cell phones. A detailed explanation of how this works is available on page 2 of this PDF.

Imagine cell phones powered as you move... That'd be cool. Cell phones powered when you attach them to vibrating pipes or engines? Not quite as cool -- unless you're a robot!

Seal aforesaid device in a package with enough air so that it floats. Attach a large weight with a thether to it, dump it in the surf and hope that it works :-)

I have a Seiko kinetic on my wrist that tells me reality goes faster than Slashdot (and tells me the time too).

I wonder how long it will be before a PC-on-a-strap can be powered kinetically

Automatic watches are far from dead. Can I have one for Christmas?

The human body creates it's own kinetic energy field. That is how the Seiko kinetic watches without batteries work. Just have to figure out how to harness this without a huge increase in size. Perhaps something like a computer on a lan and the internet. It doesn't try to connect to the internet, it just sends out requests and assumes that they'll be answered. I know I'm stupid and this probablly shows it, but ohwell.