Previous Week Samsung launched world’s first ever Solar powered Mobile phone, now Nokia is coming up with a technology where phone that could charge themselves. These are not solar powered they use another technology charging though radio waves. No, this is not a new technology, infact we have been using this technology in Oyster cards used by London commuters , powering themselves from radiowaves emitted by the reader devices as they are swiped. Modern radio frequency identification (RFID) tags also use the same technology(powered purely by radiowaves) and are increasingly used in shipping and as antitheft devices.Ambient electromagnetic radiation–emitted from Wi-Fi transmitters, cell-phone antennas, TV masts, and other sources–could be converted into enough electrical current to keep a battery topped up, says Markku Rouvala, a researcher from the Nokia Research Centre, in Cambridge, U.K.
They believe that if they are able to harness 50 milliwatts of energy then slow charging of the battery is possible,So far Nokia research centre protype has been able to harness about 3-5 milliwatt energy .Their short-term goal is to get in excess of 20 milliwatts, enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely without having to recharge it. But this would not be enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call.
But Nokia Research Center, in Cambridge, U.K. is optimistic of achieving their target in 3-4 years of time.Though 50 milliwatts would only be able to power the phone only but the potential would be huge as a typical mp3 player only requires about 100 milliwatts which can be optimised in the due course of time.Source:Guardian,Technology review
But still the energy obtained might not be enough to run a 3G or a touch screen phone ,but what if we are able to combine different technologies as the Solar power and the radio wave power.The possibilities are infinite lets see what future holds.
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