What is this? It's a cellphone being charged by vibrations in the metal tuning fork-like doohickey sitting on the table in the picture. What's causing those vibrations? Wind.This is a technology called Windbelt that was developed by 28 year old inventor Shawn Frayne to provide cheap and clean micropower to the third world. The idea, hatched after watching video of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge takes advantage of small wind-generated oscillations in a middle membrane that is then translated into electrical power.
Humdinger is the company that was created to commercialize this technology. How many small electronic devices could be charged by devices like this if they were planted outdoors in the city? What if the devices were glued into a constantly running HVAC system?
Taking the idea a step further: Take a look at this video from TED. at around 8:20 into the video Robin Chase (Zipcar founder) talks about creating adhoc peer-to-peer wireless mesh networks by adding a wireless router to every single car in the United States. Could we throw a Windbelt onto the spoiler of all cars to provide the constant power necessary to fuel a completely resilient wireless mesh network?
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