Patrick Hyland is working on creating a "charger-free cell phone future." This means that, in addition to lowering electricity consumption, we won't have to mess with annoying chargers anymore and can stop throwing them away (because we won't have them in the first place).
According to Hyland, discarded chargers produce 51,000 tons of waste annually. To address this problem, he's proposed a cell phone that charges with heat. A conductive copper skin transmits heat to a thermogenerator inside, producing electricity when the phone is placed on a radiator or inside a pocket. The skin is engraved with small heatsinks, mimicking a sun-baked, dry earth pattern.
