A Tougher, Greener Battery Could Power Phones in Africa (LiveScience.com)

Monday, March 7, 2011 9:01 AM

One of the problems covering nonindustrial countries is that grouping in agricultural communities separate to walk around with departed cell phones. That is because ambulatory devices are cheaper than ever, but noesis plants are ease expensive. But as a work-around in off-the-grid communities, sound owners hit scholarly to separate calculate cords soured of used automobile batteries.

Now, Fenix International, a San Francisco-based organisation firm, may hit a better resolution for these communities: a newborn ruggedized shelling and shaper system titled ReadySet. The device, its designers believe, could place more electricity in off-the-grid homes, create jobs, turn interior expose pollution by exchange kerosene lanterns with LEDs, and decimate automobile shelling Elvis leaks. Plus, the telecom industry is hooked on it. Network carriers crapper attain 10 to 14 percent more money from users who crapper keep their phones charged, and an estimated 500 meg cell sound users worldwide springy soured the grid, according to a inform from the ambulatory subject assemble GSMA.

“Building upon the existing society was the inspiration for this solution,” said Michael Lin, originator of Fenix. “People in nonindustrial communities hit a difference of needs, of course, but admittance to electricity is elating in that it empowers grouping to meliorate their lives in a number of areas.”

Ready, set…

ReadySet is a plastic-encased brick optimized for charging phones and powering electronics. It has USB and cigar-lighter ports to serve the chargers most commonly institute in East Africa, and it crapper calculate in a accepted electrical outlet, a solar panel or on a increase for a stationary cycle titled a “Velo.”

The figure needs no assembly. Under its cute case, ReadySet is a lead-acid battery, so it shares the aforementioned guts that a automobile shelling has. The difference is that because it is programmed to closed soured before it is full drained,  this figure retains its knowledge to calculate for longer than a automobile shelling does. It is also Elvis leak-resistant, unlike a automobile battery. Fenix's lab testers dropped the shelling onto concrete from three feet above, sprayed it with briny water, blamed it UV rays, ran it finished thousands of cycles — and it ease stayed uncastrated and revealing free.

Will it sell?

Fenix is pilot-testing ReadySet in decade individual markets. Retail sales should begin by June, and it may attain its artefact to the matured world by the modify of the year. The toll for the kit should move at US $150, and the outlay could start if orders garner up.

That price, however, could be a sticking point for poor agricultural consumers, many of whom acquire $2 to $4 per day. But in Lin's view, ReadySet could pay for itself by sanctioning business. In airman tests, diminutive playing owners attach their income by selling charges for $0.25 each. That is null new—people hit paid for sound charges from automobile batteries for individual years.

“We are working to distribute ReadySet with individual super ambulatory sound network operators that hit in excess of 100 meg subscribers,” sculpturer said.

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience.

  • Changing Energy Industry Forces Whiz Kids to Wait and Learn
  • Animated Cell Phone Videos Will Train People in Developing Nations
  • Environmental Call: 5 Awesome Green Cell Phones


Source

0 comments:

Post a Comment