Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/20/orange_eco_t_shirt_glastonbury/
Orange eco T-shirt boosts Glasto goers' blowers
Put on a charge
Posted in Mobile, 20th June 2011 10:37 GMT
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Orange has once again dived into this year's festival season with a nifty eco-product for charging mobile devices – a T-shirt that uses sound energy to produce an electrical charge.
The shirt packs an A4-sized piezoelectric film, a material that has found a use in speakers. By reversing this application so that the film behaves as a microphone, soundwaves are absorbed and converted into electrical energy. The T-shirt comes with various interchangeable cables to support charging common handset makes.
All delicate organs can also be easily removed for a safe wash, not that you'll be doing that at a festival - have you seen those queues for the showers?
Last year, in another venture with Orange, the company behind the design, GotWind [1], put together some wellies that charge phones [2], producing electrical charge by converting heat generated while stomping.
As with the wellies, the 'Sound Charge' T-shirt will be debuted at one of many Orange 'Chill 'n' Charge' tents around the Glastonbury festival site.
Apparently over the course of a weekend, the T-shirt will only produce enough energy for roughly a single smartphone recharge, so it will probably follow in the footsteps of the wellies by remaining a non-commercial product.
However if you do find yourself out of power and sober enough to move at Glasto, head down to the local Orange tent and ask the team for a juice boost. They've got charging phones down to a tee. ®