TECHNOLOGY

A purse that charges your phone!

New York : Now charge your phone by putting it in the purse! A new cute clutch hides cutting-edge technology in the lining that makes it possible to simply drop your phone in the pocket and watch it power up.

Imagine a world in which you never have to worry about your cell phone running out of battery again. For women at least, that world is here, thanks to 27-year-old Chicago entrepreneur Liz Ormesher Salcedo, who has invented the ‘Everpurse’ that charges your cell phone on the go. ‘Everpurse’, hides cutting-edge technology in the lining of a cute clutch, making it possible to simply drop your phone in the pocket get it charged.

Salcedo developed the technology while working as a social worker, where she regularly found herself stranded when her phone ran out of juice.

Salcedo and her husband Dan, a serial entrepreneur, started experimenting with off-the-shelf parts from an electronics store until they made the first prototype in one of her old bags. “I tore out the insides and I glued and taped things down,” she said. “I moved things around and I played with it for a week, and then I moved it around again.”

They would continue to make adjustments over the next year until they perfected the ‘Everpurse’, which they put on a crowd-funding platform in early September in the hopes of raising USD 100,000 to professionally produce and sell the bags. ‘Everpurse’ met its fundraising goal in just six days and the pot keeps growing.

They’ve now raised over USD 150,000 and have orders to make roughly 1500 bags. “We’ve gotten a lot of ‘oh my god this changes everything,’” Salcedo said. Fans can order the purses in an array of colours, in either fabric (USD 129) or leather (USD 159).

The bag powers up when placed on a wireless charging pad, and holds the equivalent of two iPhone batteries when fully charged. The technology can easily be modified to hold even more charge, Salcedo said, which means a bag that could power your phone for a full week is “totally doable.”  

New electronic device helps paralysed people walk again

London : Scientists have developed an electronic implant that can help paralysed people walk again. A British surgical team carried out the treatment on four patients, allowing them to walk once more, the Daily Express reported. The device, made by a German firm is designed for victims of stroke or brain damage whose nervous systems have been impaired.

A patient fitted with the device in July had recovered sufficiently took part in the Torch relay through London. The woman, in her 20s, had suffered a brain injury in a road accident and could not walk. “It is amazing to see patients who had a useless withered limb walking again almost normally. One of our first patients went back to work after many years off following a stroke. She had been unable to cope around the home let alone going to work. Now she has resumed her career,” Orthopaedic consultant Dr Michael Jauch, leading the programme, said.

 ‘ActiGait’ is only available privately at one clinic at present but the hope is that it will eventually become accessible to National Health Service (NHS) patients.   Stroke patients and other brain damage victims are often unable to walk because nerve signals no longer reach their legs. By implanting an electronic stimulator into the upper thigh, signals are sent by a buried wire to muscles in the calf and foot, reported media.

A tiny computer on the waist sends radio signals via an external antenna to the stimulator. It then fires an electrical current to the calf muscles where an electrode is fitted. The circuit is completed by a small switch worn in the user’s shoe, which makes sure the foot does not hit the ground too hard. It also lets the stimulator know when to deliver another shock to the calf muscles.

Patients control the nerve stimulation by adjusting the settings. “It’s easy to use and patients walk normally within minutes of us turning on the computer,” Jauch was quoted as saying by the paper.

The implant by firm Ottobock is powered by a rechargeable external unit. The implant is expected to last at least 10 years.