Solar Cells for Cell Phones

On the news the other day, they had the resident "gadget guy" come out and unveil the latest and greatest in technology and gadgets. He brought out a little, portable cell phone recharger that used sunlight to recharge your cell phone in case you were stranded and had no source of traditional means to recharge your cell phone. It had these little solar panels that flipped out like a fan to increase the surface area to capture more sunlight.

He said, "Leave this out in the sun for 20-30 minutes and you'll have enough juice for a 5 minute phone call." The 2 newscasters he was demonstrating this to were impressed. He went on to say, "Leave this out over night and you'll have enough power to last you the whole next day."

No one caught the irrationality, the idiocy. They just went on to the next gadget.

As a gadget guy myself, I am embarrassed and would like to recommend that this guy get his gadget credentials stripped away from him immediately. Make this guy go back to using a sundial, an abacus and a rotary telephone. Maybe he needs to go back to the basics to really appreciate the conveniences of gadgets before he can be allowed to speak of any new ones ever again.

Unless, of course, this guys comes from Alaska, where there are 20 hours of sunlight a day during the summer. Then that would make sense and I would be an idiot.