Page 35 - Stuff - September 2017 UK

H O T S T U F F

FUTURE STUFF
BATTERY

FREE

PHONES

Hannah Evans is dreamin of a
better world where mobile juice
High velocijuice oes on and on and on
STK FAST FUEL 15K

Power banks are the saviour of the smartphone-addicted when away Of all life’s little pleasures,
from the convenience of mains electricity. Thing is, if you’re only back at leaving the house with
your tent for a quick nap before another summit attempt, you’ll need to your smartphone battery
zap your talkybox quickly. Like, five-hours-of-power-in-five-minutes on 100% is perhaps one
quickly. Good news: STK’s Fast Fuel 15K does exactly that, boosting of the greatest. But what
your mobile six times over (thanks to a 15000mAh capacity) with if that glowing sense of security lasted
Quick Charge tech that’s fourfold faster than your standard USB longer than half an hour?
port. Better yet, it’s clad in rubber for in-rucksack protection, while That’s a future could soon be within
a pair of USB slots means you can boost two devices at once. reach: electro-boffins at the University
£50 / stklife.com of Washington have figured out how to
draw power from thin air – and they’ve
used it to create a phone that needs no
battery power to make a call.
How? Well, this magic mobile has
gone back in time, employing an old
analogue method of communication
that requires a lot less energy than
modern digital phone calls.
Relying on a technique called ambient
backscatter, the prototype reflects
wireless signals already present in the
environment, rather than generating
its own. These signals are sent to a

THIS MAGIC MOBILE
REFLECTS SIGNALS
ALREADY PRESENT
IN THE ENVIRONMENT

base station, which converts them and
connects the call. Sounds ingenious, but
this is a gig that’s been running for years
– in fact, it was first mastered during the
Cold War by Soviet spies who used it to
“Alexa, make me a brew” bug the US embassy in Moscow.
iKETTLE 3 Admittedly, it’s unlikely that your next
mobile is about to go battery-free. The
Yelling at relatives to make you a fresh pot of tea rarely goes down well. tiny amount of power this one stores
If you do get a drink out of it, it’s likely to be a milky mess with a faint means it’s only capable of making calls,
taste of resentment. Yelling at the iKettle 3 instead might make you so Pokemon Go is off the cards.
look like a loon, but it will deliver boiling water on command. Back with Still, give it a few years and we could
IFTTT and Alexa integration, the third iteration of this connected kettle have phones packing a low-power mode
can be boiled from anywhere in the world via the Smarter App – or that uses nothing but the air to hit up
added to your smart home recipes for a bedtime brew as the curtains your loved ones. And there goes any
close. Just think of the extra cuppas you could brew in the time you’ve excuse for not calling your mum back.
made up from not having to wait for the water to boil.
£100 / firebox.com

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