Solar-powered dresses are so two years ago. These days, dames in the know are all about that piezoelectric material, evidenced by the incredibly flashy Piezing. Dreamed up and designed by Amanda Parkes, this piece of garb is all set to steal the show at the 2ndSkin expo in San Francisco, and according to CNET, it features electricity-generating fabrics around the joints of the elbows and hips. When the wearer walks, bends or gets downright nasty on the dance floor, the mechanical stress conjures up energy which is stored as voltage in a built-in battery where it can presumably be used later for charging your favorite handheld gizmo. Sure gets our electrons flowing.

[Via textually, image courtesy of James Patten]
Read - 2ndSkin expo
Read - CNET article on Piezing

Remember that yeast-and-sugar-powered generator from Dr. Cedrick Ngalande of Malawi we spotted a while back? Ol' Ced's back with a video of the system in action -- and an explanation of how it works, to boot. Just as most of you guessed, the system is powered by the yeast / sugar mix giving off CO2, leading to a pressure imbalance which tips the center of gravity and causes motion. What most of you didn't guess, however, is how freaking slowly that would happen -- check out the video after the break, and then wake up and wipe the drool off your face, slick.

[Via BoingBoing]

There are plenty of solar bags on the market which can squeeze some extra juice into your phone or handheld, or perhaps even trickle a charge into your laptop over a few days, but Voltaic is launching the first member of its lineup to fully charge a laptop with a day of sunlight. The "Generator" bag produces 14.7 watts from a single solar panel, but that's only with a full day of sun, so we're guessing you'll end up getting much less of a laptop charge with a normal day of use. In addition to a laptop plug the bag includes adapters for phones, USB devices and a car charger, and there's a battery inside the bag to improve the efficiency of the panel and to keep the juice flowing when you're in the shade. It all sounds great, but the bad news here is the price: $599. Yeah, your money might be better spent on a few spares batteries, but if you're going to be spending a week or so away from plugs, the Generator just might be the ticket.

While still quite a ways away from our ideal method of drawing power directly from tap water, the new HydroPak generator from Millennium Cell and Horizon Fuel Cell at least trumps those heavy, dirty, traditional models in both cleanliness and efficiency. As we first heard a few months back, this water-activated, fuel cell-based "portable power product" uses $20 disposable cartridges to provide "enough energy to recharge an average notebook computer 8 to 10 times" or "operate low power devices such as portable lights, notebook computers, portable televisions and ad hoc communications networks for more than 14 continuous hours," via AC outlet or dual USB jacks. Also on display at CES alongside the $400 unit will be a smaller version called the HydroPak Mini, a prototype device designed to juice up gadgets such as cellphones or gaming systems.

[Via Gadget Lab]

This yeast-and-sugar powered generator invented by Dr. Cedrick Ngalande of Malawi can supposedly power cellphones, OLPCs, and medical devices for up to eight hours, but apart from a few vague guesses involving CO2, oscillating motion, and a couple Sharper Image desk toys we've got lying around, we're utterly at a loss to explain how it works. Ideas, leave 'em in comments!

[Via Afrigadget]

We've seen our fair share of diminutive power generators, but rather than worrying with vibrations or hyperventilating, Millennium Cell and Horizon Fuel Cell have teamed up to deliver an iteration that's water-activated. The pair has been working together on this technology for some time now, and apparently, it's readying a beta that will be demonstrated at next year's CES. The portable power generator incorporates a "unique water-activated cartridge system," which is designed to quietly provide clean energy to consumer products in emergencies and when far, far away from an electrical outlet. Reportedly, the device will provide an AC socket alongside two USB connectors, an operating time of over 16-hours, infinite shelf-storage life and 400-watts of instant juice by just adding H2O. Regrettably, we still have no idea what this thing actually looks like, but considering that CES is less than two months away, we'll soon be seeing what this $400 gizmo can do up close and in person.

There's no shortage of green solar- or wind-powered ways to juice up your gadgets these days, but rarely do we see a charger that employs both together -- along with the reliable old power grid -- for sweet, sweet redundancy. The Hymini from startup MINIWIZ was first conceived by founder Arthur Huang in an MIT business class, and combines a micro turbine generator with a 1200mA/h lithium ion rechargeable battery that can also be filled via USB, AC, or an optional array of up to four miniSOLAR solar panels. According to published specs, the device -- which has yet to be priced or released -- will operate at wind speeds between 9mph and 40mph, with a 20-minute session in 19mph winds providing enough power for between four minutes of talk time (cellphone) and forty minutes of music playback (flash-based DAP). Very promising indeed, yet of limited utility until we find a gadget that ensures we don't leave all these handy supplemental charging products in the bottom drawer of our desk when we actually need them.

[Via Crave]

Hearing that a cellphone saved someone's life isn't exactly surprising these days, but it was the manner in which a bundle of handsets enabled doctors to continue on in a recent operation that differentiated this one from the rest. Reportedly, the backup generators at the Policlinico Juan D. Peron hospital in Argentina failed to activate after the power went out whilst an appendix surgery was ongoing, but rather than panicking, a family member gathered up a number of phones in order to provide enough light for the surgeons and anesthetists to keep on keepin' on. According to the hospital director, the operation went on without proper lighting for no more than 20 minutes, but thanks to the beaming LCDs, the fellow under the knife came through just fine.

[Via Switched, image courtesy of foto8]

We've seen a couple interesting attempts to convert vibrations and sound into electricity, but the latest design from a team at the University of Southampton is the first we've come across that's designed to be attached to bridges, large buildings, and other structures. The sugar cube-sized generator, a smaller version of a design already commercially available, uses cantilever-mounted magnets to induce a current in a copper coil -- a use of magnets to generate electricity that doesn't violate any laws of thermodynamics, which is always appreciated. The team has successfully used the generator to power an accelerometer (pictured), and tests indicate that the unit can put out up to 46 microwatts of power -- enough to run a pacemaker off the vibrations of the heart itself. No word on commercial availability, but the team seems like they're ready to get shaking fairly soon.

Hey, we're tired of waiting for wireless charging solutions to actually hit the market just as much as the next guy (or gal), but one inventive soul took that frustration out on a swank DIY project that elicits energy from simply breathing. We've seen the use of hot air in powering gadgets before, but this homegrown USB charger was assembled by simply using "parts scavenged from an old CD-ROM drive, a basic electronic circuit, and a few rubber bands." The chest-worn device was intended to output around one-watt for charging a cellphone, which could purportedly juice it up in just under three hours, but unfortunately for us all, this seemingly brilliant device only mustered about 50mW of energy. Of course, that's still getting somewhere, but we're not exactly keen on wearing this thing around for an entire day in order to add a few battery bars to our mobile. Nevertheless, the creator doesn't look to be giving up on it so soon, and hopefully v2 will allow our breath to add new life to our lappies or electric cars, eh?

[Via Slashgear]

Sure, building up a campfire in order to roast some eats in the wilderness could be fun for awhile, but for the reported "two billion people that use open fires as their primary cooking method," we're sure it loses its luster somewhere along the line. The University of Nottingham is hoping to change all that, however, by attempting to develop an all-in-one gizmo that acts as a "cooker, a fridge, and a generator," and relies on biomass fuels for energy. The £2 million ($3.96 million) SCORE (Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity) project seeks to create a "wood-powered generator capable of both cooking and cooling food," and it will purportedly rely on thermoacoustics to cut down on pollutants, increase efficiency, and be more reliable to future consumers in Africa and Asia. No word just yet on when this newfangled kitchen appliance will be ready to ship, but a portable version would probably do quite well in the camping market.

[Via CNET]

While it's easy to appreciate an invention that makes all of our lives a touch easier, it takes something truly exceptional to be both impressive and completely useless simultaneously. Such is the case with the curious (and gigantic) smoke ring generator, which looks to crank out giant rings of slowly fading smoke while onlookers beg for "just one more." The hand-powered device starts by launching a ghostly orb, which hastily slows and forms the infamous circle that brings back all sorts of gangster flick-related memories. Now, where's the step-by-step instructions to build one of these bad boys? Oh, click on through for the must-see video.

[Via MAKE]

While the school of the Ramblin' Wreck may be best known for its barrage of engineering graduates, the university has been on quite the medical trip of late, as researchers have reportedly developed a nanometer-scale generator after already cranking out nanowires that monitor your blood pressure. The aptly-named nanogenerators can produce "continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow," which translates into easy energy for implanted and worn medical gadgetry of the future. Interestingly, the project was funded by the likes of the National Science Foundation and our pals at DARPA, and while this invention may not quite match up with wireless charging (hey, we're scared of hospitals), the concept is novel nonetheless. So if you were hoping that dreams of implanted analysis of your vitals would suddenly cease, things aren't looking up for you.

[Via MedGadget]

Just in case you ever plan on heading up into space to see your soon-to-be-painted logo on the Y*N*I*S satellite up close and personal, you might be interested in this. Devised by researchers at a Cambridge-based venture, dubbed IntAct Labs, the motion-sensitive "power skin" could be used and worn by humans and inanimate objects alike in order to generate electricity, and the concept was derived from our very ears. After investigating how biological organisms are such "ultra-efficient generators of power," the crew homed in on a tiny protein called prestin, which can "convert electrical voltage into motion or produce electrical charges in response to mechanical stresses," and is actually found in the outer hair cells of the human ear. Ideally, networks of these proteins would be linked in order to form skins that could coat people or objects and generate energy from something as simple as walking around or being in the path of wind gusts, and if everything pans out, a prestin-powered research station could be set up on Mars without a manmade perpetual power source in tow.

[Thanks, Sparky]

Although developing alternate fuel sources is most certainly a worthwhile effort, a group of Purdue scientists are looking to demolish two birds with a single, um, bag of refuse, as its portable generator not only creates useful electricity, but it disposes of worthless garbage while it's at it. The aptly-named "tactical biorefinery" processes several kinds of wastes at once, which it then converts into fuel via two parallel processes before burning the results in a diesel engine to power a generator. The device, which comes in just a hair smaller than a "small moving man," can crunch through multiple kinds of garbage at once, creating energy completely without discrimination towards certain kinds of gunk, and is already being eyed by the US Army for future battlefield usage. Interestingly, initial prototypes are showing that it can produce "approximately 90 percent more energy than it consumes," and considering that it pulverizes everything inserted into it, soldiers won't have to worry about leaving behind remnants of their stay. Ideally, the backers would love to see the unit available in commercial settings as well as in the military, but we think this thing will be a real winner when it can compress gobs of garbage into vicious (smelling) pellets and launch grotesque projectiles while keeping our planet green.

[Via CNET]