solar cell for cellphone screen“A new patent has been granted to Motorola covering the use of a mobile phone LCD screen as a solar cell.” – Mad4 Mobilephones.com.

Also see Techmeme.

The TeleRead take: Hmm. A cool way to augment the regular batteries in cellphones and dedicated e-readers? Especially for outdoors people who don’t want E Ink-type technology?

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Actually, I think it will work even better for electronic paper. When the ink blobs are turned off, the membrane would be transparent, allowing light to penetrate to the panel. Then again, because the power consumption is relatively low, the solar power cells would generate enough energy to be usable even in indoor settings.

    In fact, I think this possibility was discussed on TeleRead a few weeks ago. Maybe we should have taken out the patent first.

    Rob Preece
    Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com

  2. Phones and eBooks need to generate their own power, not a questions of why or how but WHEN. eBooks, in order to compete with real books and function without the needs to plug them into a wall, will have to one day generate their own electricity, and what better way than through the screen? Great idea.

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