Kinetic charger juices up your mobile when you move around

By | June 15, 2010, 7:05am PDT

I know that many of you are skeptics about the idea that kinetic energy can generate enough charge to juice up one of your gadgets. But for roughly $150, you can give the idea a try.

Tremont Electric has begun to sell something called the nPower PEG, which it describes as a “wearable generator.”

When placed vertically in a backpack, briefcase or somewhere else on your person, the nPower PEG will collect and store a charge simply because you’re walking around. Or running. Or whatever.

The device can be used to top off numerous sorts of mobile devices, such as phones, cameras, GPS devices, or MP3 players. It is made out of titanium, weighs 13 ounces, and is 9 inches long, with a center diameter of 1.5 inches.

The nPower concept was dreamed up by Tremont Electric’s founder, Aaron LeMieux, who got interested in the idea of how to keep his radio and CD player charged during a long hike on the Appalachian trail.

nPower is being used for developing other gadgets — everything from wearable biomedical devices to commercial-scale wave energy converters.

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Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues.

Disclosure

Heather Clancy

Writing publicly about what the high-tech industry is actually doing to help itself and the world get greener or more sustainable is one way I figure I can contribute more meaningfully to said effort. I am also a big OMG-kind-of-fan of smart leadership, which is why the goodly folks who publish this blog let me go on about this topic and why I am always on the hunt for forward-looking business management ideas.

My daily writing is focused on looking for topics for my blogs, GreenTech Pastures and Business Brains. I also write often about emerging technology trends such as mobile computing, unified communications and cloud computing. Occasionally, I will pop up at an industry conference in some sort of speaking capacity. In cases where a speaking engagement involves a sponsor that may be covered in this blog, that fact will be disclosed in coverage as appropriate.

My corporate writing work usually consists of crafting research white papers about some aspect of technology. In the event that my commentary (in written, audio or video form) mentions a company for which I have provided consulting advice, I will disclose that fact. However, there is no connection between these projects and the topics that I am covering in my blog.

Biography

Heather Clancy

Heather Clancy is an award-winning business journalist with a passion for green technology and corporate sustainability issues. Her articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In a past corporate life, Heather was editor of Computer Reseller News, where she was a featured speaker about everything from software as a service to IT security to mobile computing.

Heather started her journalism life as a business writer with United Press International in New York. She holds a B.A. in English literature from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and has a thing for Lewis Carroll.

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RE: Kinetic charger juices up your mobile when you move around
charles.goldberg@... 23rd Jun 2010
@fvm Check your computer for spyware or something. i access zdnet from mulitple computers thru out the day and have never gotten a popup from zdnet.
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WHAT A WASTE...
fm-usa 15th Jun 2010
All that "kinetic energy" is wasted with all these POP-UPS.... ZDNet!

You tout your against the pop-ups yet your use'm.
"Why is thaaaaat?"
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@fvm Check your computer for spyware or something. i access zdnet from mulitple computers thru out the day and have never gotten a popup from zdnet.

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