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Foot-Powered Laptop
mrd98 writes: "There is an article in the Register about a U.S. developer who has created a foot-powered device which can be used to charge laptop batteries. Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life, it can also be used to power most other electrical devices with a rechargable battery."
Charging my laptop. Honest!
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Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life
Think of what this could do for the sex toy industry.
*sigh* I can't believe I've stooped this low.
El riesgo vive siempre!
BULLY1:"WTF is wrong with his leg?"
BULLY2:"Oh he is a geek LETS GET HIM!"
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
As a diehard Emacs bigot I'd prefer Control and Meta pedals.
Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life
For me, 2 minutes then it's nap time...
Think about it. All those tech workers who are looking for a job now can get a job to keep up the laptops of office workers up and running.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
So, it's true... in the future the machines really will turn us into living power sources.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
Windows takes 20 minutes to boot.
This sound like a great idea. Just combine it with a solar power charger, a sattelite phone, and you'll be able to get online anywhere in the world. :-)
There's also the hand cranked cellphone for when you need a workout for your arms.
/Styx
To go along with your foot-powered laptop, you might want to check out the Freecharge windup generator due out for Motorola cellphones this quarter. It won a Time Product of the Year citation.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
Seems like a rather low yield to me - my grandfather used to sell Singer sewing machines, and has an amazing collection of antiques.
Among them are two treadle style, with a large two-foot pedal, and a long band to transfer the power. That sucker got going REALLY fast, with a lot of momentum. Admittedly, it was all iron as well.
It just seems to me that five minutes of pumping that sucker would have given me about 2 hours worth of laptop power!
and laptop users will be the fittest people on the planet! I can see conversations now...
"Hey, Bob, your son is really getting big and strong!"
"Yeah, Steve, he's going to be as strong one day as a computer programmer! Maybe even as fit as a linux kernel hacker!"
"You don't say?"
There are a lot of things your clothes do to absorb energy that you don't notice. You don't want the soles of your shoes to be too springy, for example. If you can put some of the absorbed energy to good use instead of turning it into heat, you'd never notice the difference.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
In this case, every bit of energy you used to charge your electronics would be energy that WASN'T spent moving your body along. I imagine that walking like this would feel difficult and strenuous, sort of like walking in sand.
Hmm... Most geeks I know sit in front of a computer all day and then go to the gym and excercise (if they get excercise at all) on a bulky treadmill, bike, or resistance weight system.
As long as it was comfortable, I don't think most people would mind a little extra effort in the amount of 'unavoidable' excercise they got walking between offices or tapping their feet to the MP3's.
I, for one, could save serious buckage on my electrical bill if I put a pedal-type charger under my desk while I worked.
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