Self Charging Nokia tablets now possible?
I think they are.

If Nokia were able to embed small energy generation devices into their upcoming tablets that had enough power to keep the battery charged always or even "almost always" then they would be an almost irresistible choice over the competition not counting the software side of it.


These energy generating technologies do exist now but up until now their one main disadvantage is that they all produced too little current. Too little to charge a battery and compensate for any leakage their circuits might incur.

But now that has all changed because of a new thin film battery/capacitor product and accompanying low leakage circuits which accepts any current level as long as the Voltage is correct.

The product is called Thinergy
made by http://www.infinitepowersolutions.com/

see engineering tv video link on this page http://www.infinitepowersolutions.com/product
video will disappear if you click anywhere on the page. I don't know why.

The four ways that Immediately come to my mind that Nokia could generate energy in a Nokia tablet would be.

1) www.litroenergy.com
A multi layered sandwich strip of thin film solar panels with their glowpaint in between.

2) www.M2Epower.com

3) Nokias recently announced ambient EM waves collection project.
http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/00...be_charged.htm

4) Piezoelectric power from when we press down on the keypad buttons providing.
example http://www.artificialmuscle.com/products

All of these with the exception of litroenergy probably (because they can just keep adding more layers) fall below the necessary current necessary to charge a tablets battery so why not have all four of these methods embedded into a tablet and each have its own thinergy cell to save up the charge and then send it to a central customized large thinergy made by the same company and then have this zap the Nokia battery at regular intervals.

I was JUST talking to a friend about this. In recent years, I've switched all of my watches to automatic watches... where my motion of walking, talking with my hands, et al charge my watch with no need to buy a battery.

My camping equipment has a flashlight and phone charger that use solar and mechanical movement (crank on one, movement on the other) to charge up things as well.

Why not?

I found the Thinenergy video on its site entertaining and not excessively technical.

5) motion-generated power, as in self-winding watches (only with a kinetic-to-electric conversion). I am surprised that this hasn't been explored (unless I've missed it).

That was the intent behind listing m2epower.com
That is how it generates power.
We have 4 ways to do it.
1) Glowpaint sprayed on solar panels - litroenergy
2) Getting energy from when we press down on the keys, i.e. - piezoelectric
3) motion to energy - m2epower
4) nokias ambient EM wave collection

There are actually a couple more ways but I didn't feel like going to find out all the details about them.

Regarding glopaint.com, when the new "glows for 20 years paint" is finished being tested by the government and has recieved approval for widespread use I think Nokia should start painting their keyboard characters with it. That would save the light being used on the keyboard.
Always glowing keybaord characters.
I don't see why they don't use regular glopaint when painting their keyboard characters right now.

Thanks-- I didn't click that link.

The right term is "power harvesting".
Unfortunately rf-collection is very inefficient.
Buttons - just forget it since You'd have to make Your keys harder than usuall and let's face it - browsing the web equals very low keyboard usage.
The most efficient way theese days is thermal harvesting - it can power a watch for example - but it requires carrying device "on skin" with top not covered - to achieve maximum temperature difference.
The easiest solution is solar panel on the back.
Unfortunately it's quite rare in production devices - I don't know why (I use solar powered FM radio and it works ok).

Depends on the environment and collector area. Might be OK for a separate charger, but I'd be surprised if it can be put in a handset and provide sufficient amounts of power.

Thermal harvesting has it's issues. If you want a lot of power, it will feel cold, really cold. Second, the body adapts, so after the initial surge, your body will try to preserve temperature and thus less power. There are of course parts less susceptible, but those generally arent places you want to have your gadgets Also, you might not want a radio source right on your skin most of the the time.

Solar (unless directly exposed to the sun) PV gives very little power, especially if you consider these devices spend their time mostly indoors or in pockets. A tiny fm radio might get away with a few mW, but we need more (and we need it constantly).

Considering we're talking mostly about devices you have on/with you, Gerbick/Texrats kinetic energy recovery suggestion does make sense to me (with the presumption that your not a mega-couch-potato) - IF the uneven kinetic energy input can be converted to electrical energy in an efficient way (watches are again at an advantage as they need really tiny amounts of energy).

But the OP is correct - the issue is not not getting power from the environment, it's that it's too little/too unreliable to effectively use for charging batteries with current technology.

There are several terms for it.

Yes we already know it is inefficient, have you been listening/reading? thinenergy allows the inefficient collection to be used.

Who says you have to make the keys harder. Did you even go to the link i posted?
Try this
http://www.artificialmuscle.com/appl...eneration.html

The most efficient solid state thermal generator right now is planned for replacing your cars alternator and the research is being funded by the governement. Right now the technology is being used in reverse as heated and cooled seats in modern cars.
http://www.amerigon.com/

to sum up - keep dreaming