Your Phone Battery always Running Flat? Pick a
There was a busy day I went through shortly before Christmas last year. I needed to visit three cities across the eastern seaboard to look at different restaurant locations I was planning on. There were, of course, a half dozen conference calls involved, getting everyone together, and other calls to let my family know when it would be home in Maine for Christmas. Actually they never got to know when I would be home, because the battery on my Blackberry regularly dies after a hectic day, like the other bunny in the Duracell ads. It's not that there are no recharging amenities anywhere: airports have power outlets at places. But it takes time to charge a phone, and usually, the few outlets you see, are already taken. That's when I decided to look at my options, and found a solar powered battery charger for my phone. Now, I just get a window seat on the plane, suction the solar panel to the window, and charge away.
This isn't any kind of environmental conscience at work either; business travelers just find it incredibly convenient to carry their own lightweight power station around with them. Solar generation works for most places, but little dynamos powered by a crank you turn, do pretty well in other places too where there are medical gadgets to power in an emergency situation like Haiti saw recently. You know how laptop batteries just run flat in four hours - what would it look like if emergency workers had to call it off to go fetch fresh batteries every once in a while? Companies like Automated Media Systems go after this market, and make custom solar panels that can power laptops, motion picture cameras, emergency rescue equipment and lighting. The solar powered battery charger has been around for about 15 years now; the panels back then were somewhat cumbersome, and unreliable. Those issues have largely disappeared as mass production in the solar panel industry has taken root.
Even a tiny conventional oil-driven generator can weigh 50 pounds, and put out noise and much smoke, and would be unwelcome in most places. However, the solar powered battery charger isn't really up to the task of charging anything larger than a laptop. The best part of it may be that solar panels are not on the Transportation Security Administration's list of dangerous items to carry on a flight. Of course, large batteries are still not welcome; they're just too dangerous. If you think about it, your own little power station kind of sounds like something out of Star Trek. Has it been that long since we used to watch Star Trek then?
