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NTT Energy-Generating Shoes Are Squishy
NTT is developing electricity-generating shoes that generate power from walking. These green shoes generate 1.2 watts of electricity - enough to power your tunes. I'm wondering if you generate more power when dancing, which would allow you to listen to your music at higher volume.
(NTT electricity generating shoes)
The characteristic I like best is that these shoes don't use those any of those fancy-pants technologies like Piezoelectric Zinc Oxide Nanowires or Biomechanical Energy Harvesters or Vibration Energy Scavengers. Nope, the NTT electricity-generating shoes use good old-fashioned water pushed through a turbine.
Each shoe has a small generator attached to the water-filled sole of the shoe; as the user walks along, each step causes water to gush past the small turbine, generating power.
Regular Technovelgy readers saw this one coming; I'm going with the cool Fremen stillsuit desert boots from Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune as a precursor for this idea:
Paul sat on the edge of his bed and began stripping off his desert boots. They smelled rancid from the lubricant which eased the action of the heel-powered pumps that drove his stillsuit.
(Read more about Herbert's stillsuit)
From Japanese Company Develops Electricity-Generating Shoes; thanks to Jake for the tip on this story.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/17/2008)
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