Endless Paradigm

When these models starts to get shipped, I'll definitely get one of these.

Source

Quote:Employees at Apple have filed a patent for integrating solar cells into portable devices by placing them underneath the layers of a touch-sensitive display, according to the filing.

Solar power could help make devices truly portable, freeing from the need for wires to connect them to a power supply.

When generating electricity from solar panels, the larger the panel the better -- but as the patent "Solar cells on portable devices" warns, after allowing space for buttons, screens and a way to hold the device, only a small area is left on most devices for solar cells.

One of the ways around that suggested in the patent is to stack a touch-sensitive layer, a display and solar panel on top of one another. That could make Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch good candidates for such a power supply, as the display occupies almost the entire face of those devices.

The use of solar powered charging in portable devices is starting to get more attention, for more immediate consumer use as well.

When Vodafone announced its plan in April to reduce its emissions of the greenhouse gase CO2 by 50 percent by 2020, it also announced plans for solar-powered phone chargers and universal phone chargers for Vodafone-branded handsets.

At the recent ITU Telecom Africa 2008 conference, Ugandan Minister for Communications and Information and Communication Technologies Ham-Mukasa Mulira talked about trials of solar-powered charging conducted there, which had showed promise.

Damn patents.

But it's an interesting concept.  Typically LCD panels don't work that well in the sun, so IDK whether it's exactly that practical...

I highly doubt anything will come of it. Apple files "safety" patents all the time. Although it would be cool.

LoL. "Safety" patents aren't safe after all. They just end up getting sued for it don't they?

It'll be interesting to see how this works though.

I doubt the solar panels will generate enough power to run the thing in real time, so will "leaving your MP3 player in the sun" be something new?

it may work out.. if only to actively recharge battery. After all, wee have come some distance from solar powered calculators. But lets see what happens.

It is possible to do..

solar panels are not that good a providing a power source..fact..  

These gadget don't need that much energy to power themselfs!!!  There has been solar powered calculators for decades "finnicks" which are powered from room light... If you had a combernation of a mains power source and a solar source you would reduce the power needed from the power station...  This would reduce green houses gases..

Even if it was 10% less then "all OK"

feinicks Wrote:it may work out.. if only to actively recharge battery. After all, wee have come some distance from solar powered calculators. But lets see what happens.

The thing is that calculators require hardly any power...

A typical calculator, on a small battery can like last for years.  How long can a typical MP3 player last on a battery?  A few hours?
MP3 players, for a start, need a much more powerful CPU, than one which only does addition/subtraction/multiplication/division about 2 times a second etc.