There is news out right now that Apple has filed for a patent on adding photovoltaic cells to their iPods. That's right.
I almost put this in the What? category, but I am staying strong that maybe it's a possibility. Can you imagine? I mean, I have replaced the battery in every iPod that I have ever owned. It's not hard to do, and it's certainly cheaper than buying a whole new iPod – who does that anyway? Doesn't the Apple Store gouge you for changing the battery, or do they just replace it? That hardly seems resource efficient.
I wonder how long it's gonna take to charge this little puppy – I can see myself forgetting my charger right before I have to do some programming or something where I need to really focus "because I figured I would just charge it in the sun."
Interesting. I say GO APPLE! on this one.
Check out the schematics, from CleanTechnica:
The skinny on the street is that this patent will cover basically all of their mobile devices, from Shuffles to iPhones. Crazy.