Harvesting energy from every footstep

Time magazine has released its annual list of the year's best inventions. Flip through the slide show and you're sure to be excited and inspired by the promise that many of these concepts and products hold.

Among my favorites is the Biomechanical Energy Harvester, a knee brace that converts your every footstep into energy. Here's the write-up:

"Wasting energy is so 20th century. Power is all around us, if we just know how to use it. That's what motivated Max Donelan, a kinesiologist at Simon Fraser University, to invent a device that harnesses the energy of walking. The 3.5-lb. device wraps around the wearer's knee and generates power using the same principle that allows hybrid cars to recycle energy created by braking. A walker wearing harvesters on both knees could generate about five watts of power - enough to charge 10 cell phones - without hampering his or her stride. Donelan's device is perhaps the most promising in a class of products that harvest energy - all the more important at a time when portable tech, from Blackberries to iPods, is becoming ubiquitous. There's not a watt to waste."

While it may be years away from the commercial market, prototypes for military use are due next spring.

Imagine one minute of walking providing 30 minutes of cell phone talk time. Amazing. Take a look around Bionic Power, the Canadian company that developed this intriguing gizmo, to learn more about bionics in the real world and what the future holds.