![What time is it? It's THE FUTURE](http://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/digital_watch.jpeg?w=470)
SmartUKWhat time is it? It’s THE FUTURE
Do people ever tell you that you have a ton of potential, but you aren’t doing anything with it? Well, scientists can’t help you harness your talents, but they have invented a chip, based on solar panel technology, that can recover the energy you just wasted walking to the store, calling your mom, and/or scratching your balls, and use it to power your personal devices.
Perpetua Power of Corvallis, Ore., says that when you wear one of its TEGwear chips close to your skin, it can generate enough power (three volts) from recapturing your body heat to power, say, your watch, and since you probably don’t wear a watch, your Fitbit or something. In turn, this clean energy will reduce the need for some of the toxic heavy metals used in our billions of disposable, environment-destroying batteries. If it catches on. (And if, we assume, the manufacturing of such chips does not create worse toxic waste of its own.) It’s planning on rolling the thing out in 2014.
No word, yet, on what could be generated from pasting these chips all over your body at once, or from implanting them in your ADD-addled, energy-chaotic brain. But fear not. We’ll find a use for you yet.
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