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Foot-Powered Laptop 241

Posted by timothy from the what-about-plain-will-powered? dept.
mrd98 writes: "There is an article in the Register about a U.S. developer who has created a foot-powered device which can be used to charge laptop batteries. Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life, it can also be used to power most other electrical devices with a rechargable battery."
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Foot-Powered Laptop More

Foot-Powered Laptop

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  • ...finally getting those damn things in our shoe soles. Charge while you walk!

    • Re:Getting closer to... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Honestly, when I'm listening to all those techno CD's, now I can actually be putting that adrenaline in my vibrating leg to use...
    • I always wondered if this "charge while you walk" thing would be such a blessing. The whole Law of Conservation of Stuff says that you can't create energy, you need to borrow it from somewhere. In this case, every bit of energy you used to charge your electronics would be energy that WASN'T spent moving your body along. I imagine that walking like this would feel difficult and strenuous, sort of like walking in sand. Has anyone actually tried chargers like this?
      • There are a lot of things your clothes do to absorb energy that you don't notice. You don't want the soles of your shoes to be too springy, for example. If you can put some of the absorbed energy to good use instead of turning it into heat, you'd never notice the difference.
      • Currently a whole bunch of energy is spent absorbing the shock of your foot hitting the ground. That energy would be enough to power most devices, and would actually make walking more comfortable.

      • Re:Getting closer to... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Bonker ( 243350 )
        In this case, every bit of energy you used to charge your electronics would be energy that WASN'T spent moving your body along. I imagine that walking like this would feel difficult and strenuous, sort of like walking in sand.

        Hmm... Most geeks I know sit in front of a computer all day and then go to the gym and excercise (if they get excercise at all) on a bulky treadmill, bike, or resistance weight system.

        As long as it was comfortable, I don't think most people would mind a little extra effort in the amount of 'unavoidable' excercise they got walking between offices or tapping their feet to the MP3's.

        I, for one, could save serious buckage on my electrical bill if I put a pedal-type charger under my desk while I worked.

  • What are you doing under that blanket? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @03:58PM (#3028016)
    Charging my laptop. Honest!
    • I suppose you could print out a copy of the article and carry around to show girls who don't understand why you have your foot in their laptop.
    • The US Department of Defense has bought an earlier version of the product for landmine testing and detonation (it's suitable as it can be used to generate and release a well-controlled quantity of electrical power).

      Come on! What enemy is stupid enough to walk up to a landmine -- and then pump up the generator so that their legs will be blown off! This must have been George W. Bush's brainchild.

      </kidding>

  • Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life

    Think of what this could do for the sex toy industry.

    *sigh* I can't believe I've stooped this low.

  • Just what i need (Score:4, Funny)

    by KingKire64 ( 321470 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:00PM (#3028033) Homepage Journal
    My right calf 3 times the size of my left, Now we can definatly be pointed out as geeks...

    BULLY1:"WTF is wrong with his leg?"

    BULLY2:"Oh he is a geek LETS GET HIM!"

  • This looks like it has a lot of promise... not so much for regular use so much as emergencies. Laptops have some pretty high power drain sometimes... I'd imagine that a device that can power one for 4 times it owns usage time must require a good deal of input power, aka, work (or the dreaded e (exercise) word).

  • Bah, pedals would be better (Score:5, Funny)

    by Penrod Pooch ( 466103 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:01PM (#3028037)
    As a diehard Emacs bigot I'd prefer Control and Meta pedals.

  • Wha?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by geek00 ( 260622 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:01PM (#3028040)
    Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life

    For me, 2 minutes then it's nap time...
  • help reduce the fatness of your favourite geek... buy them one of these...

  • Just what the slow tech market needs! (Score:4, Funny)

    by garoush ( 111257 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:02PM (#3028055) Homepage
    Think about it. All those tech workers who are looking for a job now can get a job to keep up the laptops of office workers up and running.

  • Hiking (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 3.1415926535 ( 243140 )
    I suppose this could be good for long hiking trips for people who just have to get their email fix.

    That would kind of defeat the purpose of a hiking trip, though.

  • The Matrix? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slcdb ( 317433 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:03PM (#3028062) Homepage

    So, it's true... in the future the machines really will turn us into living power sources.

    • Stop it - you're scaring me! It's when the air is so polluted that we've got to carry around Oxygen generator kits powered by dynamos that we've _really_ got to worry!
      Hang on - clockwork radios, clockwork mobile phone chargers (now available), foot powered laptops, there's a machine that can 'digest' body matter and change it into energy (currently being used as a 'slug-catcher'): I think it's too late already :-(.
  • this would be cool for airline use for those long flights. Bringing a couple spare batteries would be better, since I can see the annoyed faces of the other passengers around you. Kinda like that stupid airline commercial where the cattl..er passengers all cross their legs at the same time...
  • This sounds like a good idea. It is just so fun running out of battery power on a nice trip......this could help cure. It says it charges the battery. Well, does this mean i have to take the battery out of my laptop or buy a spare and charge it or something? Just how well would a battery react to this kind of charge? Im no expert, but i dont think being charged at changing rates for a short period of time will do too much good for those 100+ dollar batteries.


    Also....looking at some of the people this would be marketed to, that five minutes of vigorous activity...man that could be a killer. I would think something like those crank powered radios would work....use the crank or pedal to wind a spring to get that five minutes of power. Or use a nice sized flywheel in there to help it. Should be interesting to see what happens with this.....

    • Im no expert, but i dont think being charged at changing rates for a short period of time will do too much good for those 100+ dollar batteries.

      Maybe I don't understand what you mean, but it is my understanding that batteries are recharged with pulsed DC power? Sounds to me like a pedal you pump would do the same thing.
      • So by extension, if this device gives the equivalent of wall-socket power, you should be able to recharge the battery while you work (like plugging in your laptop and working), thus obviating the "this wastes 1/5 of your time" argument posted several times above. After all, if N minutes of pedaling gives you 4N minutes of charge, then the battery is charging faster than it's draining, right?
  • ...this should also take care of Thrombophlebitis [dictionary.com] a condition of blood clotting in the legs when they do not move enough... Great for those aging geeks!
  • ...of that Tech Support story (urban legend?) in which someone called saying that their computer was broken. When the tech support guy asked to describe the problem, the person said that they pressed on the foot pedal but the computer wouldn't come on. The foot pedal, of course, turned out to be the mouse...
  • The article points out that the device has military applications (one of which is detonating land mines).
    Accordingly we may expect that trying to carry one of these babies past airport security may result in a trip to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. For those not old enough to remember, back when hijacking was "chic" (late sixties, early 70's) before the terrorists got involved, the most common hijacker demand was "Take this plane to Cuba"

  • Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)

    by LM741N ( 258038 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:06PM (#3028081)
    Windows takes 20 minutes to boot.

  • Wow, incredible ... i just can't emagine how to explain your staff/chef that you've got to pump it up =)
  • Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life, it can also be used to power most other electrical devices with a rechargable battery.

    Guys typically take shorter to reach orgasm [not speaking for myself here ;)]. women need more time 'at-it'. this solves that issue. guys do a brisk pumping for 5 minutes. put that battery into you-know-what and the women get to go at it for 20 minutes. didn't solve world hunger. but very close. very close.

  • Totally wireless... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Styx ( 15057 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:07PM (#3028092) Homepage
    This sound like a great idea. Just combine it with a solar power [snpower.com] charger, a sattelite phone, and you'll be able to get online anywhere in the world. :-)

    There's also the hand cranked cellphone [wired.com] for when you need a workout for your arms.
  • "Apparently 5 minutes of brisk pumping will give you 20 minutes of battery life"

    Darn, there's so much "brisk pumping" that occurs naturally in society-- wouldn't it be more efficient if we could somehow capture the energy from that?
  • Wonderful! Now, when my grandmother is knitting me a sweater with her foot-pedeled sewing machine, she can power my laptop too!
  • This is the answer for XP's peers development utilization question. As one developer would be coding, the second would be pumping up the battery -- no more questionable waist of developers' valuable time by just watching over the coder.
  • I think it would be great if this device were designed to accept your normal outlet plugs so you plug whatever you want into it without having to buy some kind of adapter... but i guess that means the company loses money on selling you adapters for your gear.. ie: adapter for your ipaq, adapter for your phone.

  • Freecharge (Score:3, Informative)

    by jACL ( 75401 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:12PM (#3028115)
    To go along with your foot-powered laptop, you might want to check out the Freecharge windup generator [motorola.com] due out for Motorola cellphones this quarter. It won a Time Product of the Year citation [time.com].
  • 5 minutes out of every 25 must be spent charging. Ok that means you end up wasting 12 minutes out of every hour. I'd say this is much less than I end up wasting on other things like solitaire, minesweeper. PLUS, you get exercise out of it! Sign me up!

    • Nono ... what about charging, while you're at work? I mean, unless you're not totally down, you can do at least 2 things together, can you?

      BTW: it's proven that women can do more things together than men, so what about your secretary powering your laptop?
    • It would be even nicer if the batteries could be charged while the unit is in use. Imagine hooking this up to, say, an exercise bike: put a docking station for the laptop on the handlerbars, and pedal while you code! I guess if it really only takes 5 minutes of pedalling per 20 minutes of uptime, you could just pedal while trying to think what the heck is causing this bizarre bug you're seeing...

      Stuart.

  • Pedal powered sewing machines (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RollingThunder ( 88952 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:15PM (#3028132)
    Seems like a rather low yield to me - my grandfather used to sell Singer sewing machines, and has an amazing collection of antiques.

    Among them are two treadle style, with a large two-foot pedal, and a long band to transfer the power. That sucker got going REALLY fast, with a lot of momentum. Admittedly, it was all iron as well.

    It just seems to me that five minutes of pumping that sucker would have given me about 2 hours worth of laptop power!
  • You come into work and they've cut every last possible person they can. But they still need cut backs. Next cut, the electric company. The company figures it can save money while keeping it's employees in shape. So 2 of these at every desk. Your required to pump 2 hours a day at first so you can work. It will be raised to 4 or 5 though because the executives will decide they don't want to do it and make you do thier pumping for them. We'll all still be skinny or overweight geeks but well have thighs and calves of steel.
  • A small 5k race could power a Beowulf cluster!

    Alright!
  • Vigorous pumping? Legs? Excercise? All to use my laptop? hah

  • Combine this with the ab roller... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Navius Eurisko ( 322438 ) on Monday February 18, 2002 @04:18PM (#3028152)
    and laptop users will be the fittest people on the planet! I can see conversations now...

    "Hey, Bob, your son is really getting big and strong!"
    "Yeah, Steve, he's going to be as strong one day as a computer programmer! Maybe even as fit as a linux kernel hacker!"
    "You don't say?"
  • The thing is OK and all, but I really prefer a three-footed version--

    To answer The Obvious Comment:
    What would a Beowulf cluster be like of these?

    The Rockettes. The noise would be a bitch, but they'd be enough spare juice to light half of Manhattan.

  • Ha! (Score:1)

    by e1en0r ( 529063 )
    I'll finally have a legitimate excuse for constantly tapping my foot while I'm sitting down. Take that, $whiner.

  • Finally (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Amish can recharge their batteries.


  • Could solve Californias energy problems
  • An additional battery weighs about the same (both are around 300g).

  • Nervous (Score:2, Funny)

    by Resident Geek ( 16074 )
    Am I the only one with a habit of shaking my foot/leg nervously? I could put that to use!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • It's more usually a sign of stress. It's only (paranoid) schizophrenia when you're tapping your foot because the FBI just passed a message into your brain that if you don't tap your foot they will take you out with their orbital "laser".

        graspee

  • Though Compaq Australia tried to announce something like this before.

    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/01/0158234.shtm l [slashdot.org]

  • honestly.. (Score:1, Informative)

    by theDEFT ( 254259 )
    I'd have a hard time justifying $150 to recharge a battery with manual labor, when a spare battery can be bought for most devices for a lot less. (especially a cell phone, etc)

    Besides, if i'm away from a power outlet of some sort for THAT long of a time, a nice break from the electronics is appreciated.
  • Sorry, theres only one thing I pump briskly for 5 minutes and I certainly don't get a 20 minute charge out of it.
  • Kindof gives the movie "Sneakers" a whole new meaning :)
  • Or anything like that?

    Because that would just give the dog one more reason to affix itself to my leg...
  • Not exactly sure how I could use it, although it's an intersting concept. If it generated more power, then it'd sure be something.
  • This reminds me of those wrist watches that are powered by the movement of your arm.

    Imagine... laptops chained around your neck swinging around, generating battery life.
    Who needs a pedal!?

  • This could have serious implications for the entire industry:

    1. Computer programmers, now known for being large, out of shape, or at least unfit, will suddeenly lose weight and maintain excellent condition despite many hard hours at the computer.
    2. As a result, programming will become a "Jock" event, and programmers will attract the lust of pretty, air-headed blondes.
    3. Which causes every male known to want to become a programmer, lowering the average mental ability of programmers at large.
    4. Being a programmer then picks up a stereotype of consisting of "stupid" people, and those who would have become programmers now move onto something a little more interesting, like football.
    5. Thus leading to the destruction of the entire culture of programmnig - SPAM takes over the Internet at large, consuming 90% of the available bandwidth with ads like "Inlarge your peenis - Garenteed!".
    6. Society descends into a new Dark Ages, every man for himself.


    So you see, this is not a light event at all - All from having programmers that are physically fit, too.

    Don't buy one!!!
    1. Buy a brand new laptop P.C. complete with WindowsXP goodness.
    2. Use computer until 1st Blue Screen encounter. (May take a couple of charges)
    3. Place computer on pavement.
    4. Carefully stomp on laptop for several minutes.
    5. Computer is completely stable and will not Blue Screen again.
    6. Repeat as necessary.
  • It would be cool if you could operate it by walking.

    How about shoes which generate power from your step? That way you can be charging while you are getting someplace.

    If you are foot-pumping, you have to pay attention in order to keep pumping, and it can really get tedious. Walking is second nature, so you can ignore the fact that you are charging your laptop and it seems like less of a chore.

  • If 5 min. of foot pumping gives you 20 min. of battery life it seems to me that 20 min. of typing on the keyboard should give me 5 min. of extra battery life. I preface a keyboard solution as I won't have to think about the act.
  • think the mouse is the foot pedal for their computer.

    UL points = 1
  • Another approach is to store the power in a wind-up spring, which turns a generator that supplies your power. There's been interest [wired.com] in this approach for years, but it never seems to go anywhere. Probably most people would rather look for a power outlet than turn a crank.
  • Great, now people will be complaining about the iMac not having a second mouse button or foot pedal.
  • Maybe people in this country would lose weight!
  • Why are we devolving back to pedal-operated machines? What about solar, &c. energy supplies?
  • One of the fads of past decades was pedal power. As a nod to couch potatoes, devices were created that took the power energy by your exercise on a stationary bicycle and concerted that into electricity to power your television.

    Maybe we could see something similar for computers. If you want to play Track and Field on MAME, you have to get on the treadmill for half an hour and run for real.

  • From the website:

    Output Power: 0 to 6 Watts / 18 Volts Direct Current (DC18V)

    Funny, my laptop draws about 30W of power... I don't know if he talks about powering a PDA or a laptop, but in the case of most modern laptops with almost gigahertz processors with 3d graphics chips and dvd players and 40GB hdd, all of which are power-optimized of course, but still eating a few watts here left and right, it adds up pretty quickly.

    Just look at the power rating of your battery, 5000mA/hr 12Volts for example, the battery lasts about 2 hours, if you do quick maths, 5A/hr @ 12 Volts gives you 60Watts/hr, which obvioulsy means you can plug 60Watts power for about 1hr then the battery dies, so effectively, 30W for 2 hours is about right. Now if that device can output 0 to 6 watts, let's take the best case scenario... 6 watts... you'd have to pump 10 hours to keep 2 hours on your laptop.

    Unless you're running on a 486 with 10.4 DSTN LCD, I don't see how this is really practical for modern computers... unless you plug the whole office on this to power the server and keep the employees in shape :), or buy 2 of them when they'll reach 3rd generation with 15W output.. you'll look like your pedalling at your desk... heh...
  • A third exercise to add to my book, "Fitness for Computer Geeks."

    For the curious, the other two are:

    the 21" monitor lift and Luser-Aviodance cubicle racing.
  • It might hurt to shift into gear when I drive, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna allow my computer to take my ability to walk too!
  • The article mentions they'd be useful on airplanes. First, have fun explaining that one when going through the security checkpoint. Second, everyone sitting around you on the plane would be just thrilled about it; they'd probably ask the flight attendants if there are any empty seats available near a screaming baby or a jumping 4-year-old.
  • However, with an electric ink screen instead of a backlit LCD display, and some frugal software requiring less CPU and memory, 5 minutes of pumping could probably get you 2 hours worth of play.
  • I would be in much better shape if I was forced to power my computer with muscle-generated electricity.

    Think of the health benefits if all of our electonic devices had to be muscle-powered. Couch potatoes would become musclebound, or would get lazy and read more, which is also good.

    Internet addicts like myself could get some aerobic activity on a treadmill to power up our 'net surfing.

  • Some interesting research into human-powered computer systems has been done at MIT Media Lab. Here are some links:

    Before you know it we'll all be wired for sound, uh MPEG-3. Stph

  • The article claims 6 Watts of power output.

    My previous laptop used about 20W, my current one has a spec stating over 60W on the bottom.

    So for a reasonable laptop (25W), it would be more like 20 minutes of pumping would give you 5 minutes of battery life...

    Roger.

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