August 26, 2011 | Louis

I always forget to charge my mobile, so I’m quite taken by a new gadget that generates electricity as you walk. The device, which fits inside your shoe, generates enough energy as you stroll along to power a phone or camera.

There are other devices that generate electricity from human motion – most famously floors in some of Tokyo’s rail stations capture energy from commuters’ footsteps to power automatic doors. However, the new device generates far more electricity than anything scientists have built before.

This research appears in the August 2011 issue of the journal Nature Communications.