The MoPR Blog

Telecom provider Orange announced this week the continuation of their partnership with alternative energy company GotWind that will create a new cell phone charger powered by the kinetic energy of the human body.

The renewable energy junkies and Orange will be providing the new technology for this year’s Glastonbury music festival in Somerset, England.

Last year, the company provided a rechargepod the world’s first mobile charging station powered solely by wind and solar energy, according to the folks at GotWind.

The pod, a seven meter high tent placed at music fest and mounted with a wind charger, gave the nearly 175,000 attendees at the three-day celebration the chance to recharge their phones outdoors and away from traditional sources of power.

“With a peak power of 1Kw, the pod can recharge 100 mobile phones per hour, and stores any unused energy in its battery bank,” GotWind explains on their site. “A fully functional weather station and power generated and consumed readout is also viewable for all to see on an information panel within the pod.”

This year, GotWind and Orange are adding a new extra to the festival in addition to the rechargepod, a phone charger that users can wear on their arm, the Orange Dance Charge, powering their batteries through dance energy. Check out the press release.

MSNBC explained that the prototype chargers weigh the same as a phone and are about the size of a pack of cards, packed with weights and magnets storing the current in a battery that can later be used to charge your mobile.

So dance the night away and get something out of it other than an endorphin rush. You’re going to do it anyway, so you might as well harness your own energy to power your mobile, right?

You might not see the need for recharging your cell phone at a music festival meant to put people outdoors rocking out. Not the most opportune time to talk to your buddies. Shouldn’t you be taking a break from your hectic schedule and email?  But if you think about the thousands of people, young and old, in attendance, moseying across nearly 900 acres of farm land, the need for communication between groups within the festival atmosphere is essential.

I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve lost my friends in the crowd a concert. How will we know where we’re going to meet up afterwards if my battery dies? And what if I want to take a picture of Radiohead with my phone to send to my boyfriend who missed the concert?

As soon as I started thinking about it, it totally made sense, besides being environmentally friendly and a model for alternative energy in the grander scheme of things.

“The rechargepod will act as a trial in using renewable energy sources on a larger scale, with a view to ultimately powering elements of the Chill n’ Charge tent at future Glastonbury Festivals,” Orange and GotWind explained in their press release. “It is more important than ever that we continue to innovate and demonstrate how mobile technology can help bring people together and make festival life a little bit easier, whilst in-keeping with the traditions of the Glastonbury Festival,” an Orange rep explained.

The pod will be located within one of the campgrounds at Glastonbury and is totally free for all to use. A few prototypes of the armband will be tested at the festival as well.

ITWire reports that Orange will promote the armband charger with an interactive “Dance Charging Man” (I can see it now) who will help recharge phones by dancing with the people who need their phones re-charged.

As a backpacker, the idea of harnessing kinetic energy is super-compelling.

I could charge my GPS if I get lost in the snow. Emergency personnel or forest firefighters could have a backup plan if radios or equipment died (don’t scoff at this—those fire people do a lot of digging and chopping in teams that would create a ton of power). Of course the ability to charge my iPod might be nice, but it’s not that big of a concern when I’m hiking 25 miles into the woods. I don’t really want electricity to enter into that equation; however, it could provide some useful developments, like an electric stove to cut down on propane costs.

Keep the great ideas coming GotWind. We’re listening.

Google looks over shoulder after Nokia Symbian buyout. Big news this week with Nokia taking control of Symbian. Nokia is riding on the hopes of increasing the sales of mobile phones while boosting revenues from its wireless web services.  According to InfoWorld Daily’s Tom Sullivan, the move could damper Google’s Android. Still wondering what this means to the industry? Read “Seven things you need to know about Nokia-Symbian deal.”

If you think your broadband is slow, you’re probably right. Enter InternetforEveryone.org led by the FCC [?!] that wants universal access to high-speed, broadband Internet throughout the US. Thirty-five percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection in the U.S. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single choice for high-speed Internet service.

We’re in Awe: 15-Year-Old Girl Sends 15,000 Text Messages A Month. According to WEWS in Cleveland, a 15-year-old Ohio girl discovered her true talent recently - the ability to crank out 15,000 text messages in a month and keep an 3.0 GPA- all under a 9:00 p.m. curfew. According to WEWS, she didn’t realize how many text messages she sent every month until she went to the cell phone store to get her phone fixed.

“I just don’t look. I guess I had the phone a long time and I just know where the buttons are and I just hit them,” said the speed texter.

Mobile coupons finally a reality? According to MediaPost, Yahoo! is teaming with Coupons Inc. to offer mobile coupons through its Yahoo! Mobile service. The initiative would “create a national platform for large brand advertisers to distribute mobile coupons, which so far have mostly been tested only in local markets or niche categories.”

Mobile coupons, says the article, will rely on solely electronic means, such as a secure bar code system allowing shoppers to swipe mobile devices at the point of sale to get discounts or special offers.
Distribution of the coupons would involve different methods, such as e-mail, banner ads, SMS text-messaging and apps on Yahoo!’s mobile portal.

McMobile McMarketing. The Mobile Marketing Association newsletter landed in our mailbox this week. A mix of industry news, trends and upcoming events, the newsletter is always an informative read. Our favorite section is successful case studies of mobile marketing in action, such as a recent story on McDonalds and its use of SMS in Germany.

Via the SMS Lounge, McDonald’s invited customers to text their information which then registered them at their local McDonald’s. In the following months, users received a mobile voucher directly from the restaurant onto their phone every two weeks. The coupons – embedded in code - could be redeemed by scanning them at the restaurant.

Since its launch in July 2007, more than 10,000 participants have used SMS service. This first of its kind mobile couponing pilot achieved response rates up to 29% throughout Germany according to the MMA. Using SMS and mobile technologies to extend and build your brand is something we can get behind!

Wind Charged Cell Phones. Folks toting mobile phones to this year’s Glastonbury Festival 2008 in the UK later this week will have a free and green way to recharge their phones thanks to a charging station being set up at the festival by Orange. Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival. [See Grace's post for more on Gotwind.]