“The U.S. Patent and Trademark office published a patent application from Apple today for solar-paneled technology designed for devices with small screens, such as iPhones or iPods,” Donna Tam reports for CNET.
“This ‘integrated touch sensor and solar assembly’ would involve integrating social cells into a touch screen by using electrodes that can pull double duty as a solar cell and a touch sensor,” Tam reports. “Apple envisions this technology for handheld devices, like ‘a media player or phone,’ according to the patent application.”
Tam reports, “In addition to images of different size iPods, the patent application also comes with an image of a screen that’s sized for an iPad.”
Read more in the full article here.
“integrating social cells…” Ummm…
I believe they also had a patent to have a system that charged the battery via movement. Kind of like winding a watch.
These two technologies complimenting each other would be very sweet! I could run all day with my GPS/music rocking and never worry about a dead battery.
hey… my phone can bend…
hey your phone only stays charged like 1 hour…
This is so awesome. The biggest obstacle I can see is the current operating temp recommendations, and how users may abuse/exceed them
Easy to imagine leaving your dead iDevice by the window with the sun beaming through, and returning to a scorching hot device that has shut down due to thermal overload. (From personal experience using a portable solar panel.