Patents are both the coolest thing in the world, and the most frustrating. They’re cool when you can see the crazy ideas coming out of some of the world’s brightest minds; and they’re frustrating when they’re being used to make the competition struggle. But it’s the name of the game, and Nokia has gone ahead and taken with the former: a great idea.
They’ve gone ahead and filed for a patent that would, essentially, mean your phone would never have to be actually plugged into a wall to be charged. Yeah, things like this already exist in the form of Palm’s Touchstone charging base for their recent webOS devices, or even the immensely popular PowerMat, but Nokia wants to take the same technology and just move it one step forward. Instead of putting the devices outside the phone, they want to include piezoelectric crystals inside the phone.
Nokia is essentially planning to place the most important parts of the phone, like the battery, on a set of two rails. The piezoelectric cells would activate when the rails were compressed; so when you’re walking around, the phone would be charging itself. Just like magic, basically. Much in the same way that the Touchstone and PowerMat use a trickle-charge, so would the self-charging cells inside the phone. However, if you’re phone is always topped-off, this wouldn’t be a big deal. While we love the new wave of wireless charging, we can’t help but want this. Right now. No more cables sticking out of the walls at all? Yes please.
[via Symbian Freak]
