Hasta La Ideas

Last month, I attended a dinner party where one of the guests wore his Google Glass at the table and throughout the entire evening. Many of us silently teased him, but wearable computers, a.k.a. wearables, are here to stay. And they are now showing up beyond just the geeky, early adopters.

But the limiting factor with wearables is power. How do we carry long-life batteries that won’t break our backs? So far, the options look bleak.

Scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology, however, have landed on a promising solution. We’ve heard of powering gadgets with our own movement before (think of the bike that powers a headlight) but this solution gives us more for less.

The team was able to capture energy from a new kind of nano-generator backpack that converts one’s walking movement into electricity. The contraption is based on something called the triboelectric effect. Simply put, this is the electricity generated when two objects of opposing charge come together and then separate. It’s the same principle behind static electricity shocks.

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