Motorola one step closer to solar powered mobile phone
Motorola are one step closer to producing a mobile phone which will be powered entirely from solar energy. They have managed to create a screen which allows more light to pass through it than traditional LCDs, which means a fairly large solar cell can be placed behind it. It has been tried previously, but normal mobile phone screens only allow 6% of light to pass through. With this new technology that figure is raised to around 75%. Motorola hope that the new solar cells can also be used in other electrical goods which feature these new organic LCD screens.
[via treehugger.com]
Moto's biodegradable mobile
Meet the biodegradable phone that grows into a dwarf sunflower after you chuck it in the compost. Crazy, yes, but reality over at the Uni of Warwick, where some very clever people have joined forces with Motorola and materials' firm PVAXX to come up with a biodegradable phone case that hides a seed ready for the day the phone gets binned. Obviously, you can only compost the case - the battery and electronic innards have to be disposed of elsewhere. It's at concept stage right now. Until a real world version materialises, try recycling old phones when you upgrade.
Biodegradable phones
First, the good news: phones with biodegradable cases have made the jump from prototype to real world product. The bad? This one, the NEC N70i, is currently only available in Japan. Made from potatoes, corn and kenaf, the cute clamshell will simply rot and decompose when you chuck it in the compost. As an added bonus, NEC reckons the manufacturing process uses far less CO2 than your average petrochem-based plastic mobile. There's a good chance of this corn phone - or a similar model - coming to the UK next year, since O2 and Three are both top chums with NEC.
