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Tech

Poor People Technology, for Not-Poor People

At the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal "plugs in":http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/the-universal-charger-for-just-about-any-gadget-battery/241225/ a USB charger by Fenix International that can charge virtually any battery. Unlike the...

At the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal plugs in a USB charger by Fenix International that can charge virtually any battery. Unlike the universal chargers with those annoying proprietary adapters that you might find at Radio Shack, this charger relies simply on nifty little contacts that clip onto almost any Li-Ion battery. (It’s obviously a bit harder to use with batteries that are locked inside their devices, i.e. the iPhone.)

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It can draw power from any computer or USB wall adapter, but it’s also been designed for the ReadySet, an all-in-one “intelligent battery” that can take in power from a variety of sources like the wall, solar, or bicycle. It may not be the slickest adapter out there, but no one needs slick when they’ve got elegance.

While it’s due to land in retail stores in the U.S. this year, Fenix’s charger wasn’t designed with most of you in mind. It was inspired by the need of people in places where electricity can be scarce, like Uganda, part of a suite of products designed by Fenix to turn local people into electricity providers. As Madgrigal writes, it’s an example of how appropriate technology “designed for the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ can bounce back to the developed world.” See, for example, Humdinger’s Windbelt, which is claimed to be 30-percent more efficient than wind turbines, and less ecologically obtrusive. Designed by Shawn Rayne to address rural lighting in Haiti, it could potentially help scale up wind energy in the U.S. too.

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