Gadgets: Jacket Powers Gadgets With Your Hot Body

Gadgets, energy, green, green tech, jackets, portable media, power

Jacket Powers Gadgets With Your Hot Body

You know how in the Matrix humans were grown in farms to harvest bodies to power machines? The kids at Berkeley Lab (Giz trivia: Chen's a Berkeley grad) are making a jacket that does the same thing, but it powers gadgets like laptops and cellphones instead of futile resistance to Keanu Reeves. Basically they're going to interlace thermo-electric silicon nanowires with the fabric, and they'll transform excess hotness into energy. Send these to Adam Frucci, and our energy problems are over. [Rich Media Info via New Launches]

1:50 PM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By matt buchanan
2,426 views
15 comments

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strider_mt2k at 01:58 PM on 03/27/08
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Holy Mitochondria!

I sure HOPE it works on cells!
Darrone at 02:01 PM on 03/27/08
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"Basically they're going to interlace thermo-electric silicon nanowires with the fabric" Theres nothing basic about that sentence and you know it!

Also, hmmm, excessive body heat... Send of these and a treadmill to Danny Devito and we'll solved the energy crisis.
Geisrud at 02:04 PM on 03/27/08
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I know Kung-Fu
Show me
habib15 at 02:05 PM on 03/27/08
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Not to make their efforts for gadget powering sound futile, but why don't they use this technology to wrap car engines in and make better hybrid cars. Most of a combustion engines inefficiencies are due to lost energy in the form of heat. Just my 2 cents.
Kaiser-Machead at 02:12 PM on 03/27/08
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Hey Matt, you saying that Frucci has a hot body? Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Jason Chen at 02:16 PM on 03/27/08
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@Kaiser-Machead: Matt doesn't need to say it. Frucci's hot body speaks for itself.
baltwade at 02:28 PM on 03/27/08
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But the excess heat my body produces and my jacket keeps trapped against me keeps me warm during the cold months. If my jacket starts using that heat to power small electronic will it no longer keep me warm?
Hiphopopotamus at 02:36 PM on 03/27/08
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If Frucci does his white guy dance it will blow up an entire power grid.
The Brain at 02:38 PM on 03/27/08
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If you've ever tried to keep batteries from freezing by keeping them in your sleeping bag, you'll know that they will suck the heat right out of you and leave you in hypothermia.

From the sound of it, that jacket would best be worn in the summer. I wouldn't wear it in the winter though. You want something that keeps the heat trapped next to your skin, not something that wicks it away.
Way at 02:38 PM on 03/27/08
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Excellent cross-linking to Frucci's "Intel spot."
scarbrtj at 02:57 PM on 03/27/08
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I got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!!!

(except perhaps maybe I will pass on cowbell as my fever is helping power my laptop and cellphone in a most opportune fashion...)
General Tsao aka Ivan... at 03:17 PM on 03/27/08
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They should make skivies out of this shit - all the rubbing and friction in the groin - oh wait!!! I thought I was on Fleshbot - sorry. But seriously back to the rubbing and friction of the groinage.
ripfire4 at 03:25 PM on 03/27/08
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@baltwade: Yeah exactly. It's called endothermic process.
cyborgtroy at 03:29 PM on 03/27/08
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I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but heat can technically only be captured from the temperature difference between the body and the air. Thermoelectrics do this analogously to regenerative braking [But with heat transfer]

Which means I believe it will feel warm because of the heat gradient, and cooler under load ["I'm cold, turn off the electrical device I'm wearing"]

And wrapping it around a gasoline engine would keep insulate it somewhat and reduce performance / efficiency so much that it wouldn't be worth the thermoelectric power.
knome at 03:38 PM on 03/27/08
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dang that would be crazy