Most of us have a daily ritual for charging our phones: we plug them in by our beds when we go to sleep, or set them on a desk charger when we get to work in the morning. But for digital nomads who are always on the go, that ritual can be a little harder to find.

Zurich University of Arts student designer Ramon Marc Zolliker designed a portable, human-powered charger that can create a whole new charging routine. It’s based on the very human ritual of creating fire – the activity which separated us from other mammals.

The IMTI consists of an outer shell with a hole in the top and a cord running out of its bottom along with a stick-like object that fits into the hole. The user holds the outer piece steady and twirls the stick between the palms to create energy which is transmitted through the charging cable to the phone.

The concept is certainly more hands-on than our regular method of plug-and-wait. Zolliker feels that performing this sort of ritual will help digital nomads feel more connected to daily life in some way. It’s kind of a physically demanding ritual, but it seems very satisfying on a primitive level.

The post Primitive Ritual: Charging Your Phone Goes Prehistoric first appeared on Gajitz.

Whether running errands or running a marathon, our body movements can create a lot of energy every day – energy that is basically wasted since we tend not to capture and use it. The Tusk concept would harness the energy of the human body and use it to charge mobile gadgets.

The clever system uses rotary dynamos, rectifiers and linear regulators to create electricity from the repetitive movements of its wearer. The power created by an active person can power a phone, iPod or whatever else needs a topping up.

It’s doubtful that the device, if it were ever to hit the market, would be powerful enough to charge a phone or other mobile device completely using just the wearer’s regular daily movement. But if you’re one of those people who can’t work out without music and never seem to remember to charge your iPod, it could be an insanely useful tool for making use of all of that human-generated power.

The post Power to the People: Whole-Body Gadget Charging System first appeared on Gajitz.