One of the proposals on my ballot this November is regarding renewable energy sources, which is something that has been in the news quite a bit lately as we try to wean ourselves off the finite (and environmentally unfriendly) ways such as coal and oil. I’ve seen several devices that would harvest the heat generated by cooking and convert it to power for your phone, but this one offers something those others do not: flexibility.

While this is only a concept piece at the moment, I can’t see why it couldn’t become a readily available product in the near future. Rather than being a cooking pot with attachments to convert heat to electricity, this is a gadget that attaches to virtually any metal surface to collect its heat. Which means you can use it on pots and pans, your rowboat, a camping stove, a space heater, or even your car. Ardavan Mirhosseini designed this specifically to fill a gap I really hadn’t even realized existed, and now I’m left wondering how I missed it.

The device itself consists of a flexible magnetic face that will adhere to pretty much anything metal, and an OLED display that will let you know how efficient it’s being. What isn’t terribly clear is how that heat energy is converted to electricity, and how that electricity is then delivered to your devices, but I’m betting on USB being involved somewhere. As I said, this is just a concept, but it sure would be neat to see it in stores.

Source: Ubergizmo