Waste Heat For Your Gadget
TES NewEnegy is a Japanese company that has come up with a cooking pan that charges your gadgets. Basically it’s a thermoelectric module connected to a generic power connector, which can be adapted to iPhones or USB handhelds.The module is simply put into boiling water and connected to the device.
The power comes from the “Seebeck effect,” a physical principle that says a temperature difference between the junctions of two metals will create a small voltage between them.It's the same principle used to power deep space probes such as Voyager, except this version uses heat from a flame rather than a chunk of plutonium -- though if you feel like boiling water that way it would work as well.
The up side of this is that it’s useful for campers who don’t happen to be in the sun; the down side is that it takes three hours at least to charge a device. But if one needs to power up a phone to call for help, or just can’t wait to play angry birds while camping in the great outdoors, this could be the solution.
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Each weekday on TechNewsDaily, That's Useful! finds practical new gadgets, computing hardware, apps, appliances and other electronics that make sense and simply make life better.
