Powering all of your gadgets is a tricky proposition at best. Mintpass has a new rechargeable battery concept that lets you choose between charging it on a standard charger, or simply shaking it to rev it up. We’ve seen shake-to-charge flashlights before, but this is the first time we’ve seen a hybrid battery that lets you choose your own charging method. Of course, the innovative ShakEnergy design isn’t without a major trade-off: it only has about half the capacity of a traditional AA NiMH battery.

The illustration shows how the juice is generated if you choose to use human power: a permanent magnet and coiled bobbin travel up and down along the shaft, generating a charge which is stored in the battery. A rubber shock absorber keeps all of the bits from knocking into each other violently while helping the magnet bounce back in the other direction.

We could definitely get behind this product. Anything that keeps the digital camera from running out of batteries in the middle of Junior or Junioretta’s birthday party sounds good to us. Sadly, though, no release date is given on the Mintpass website. Given that the technology already exists and is in place (in its separate components) in other gadgets, it’s probably only a matter of time before we’re able to buy these in stores.