All About Symbian - Symbian, Nokia and S60 unwrapped.
12,000 miles with the Nokia N79
Published by Steve Litchfield at 8:49 UTC, May 20th 2009
The N79 certainly seems a suitable device for a hardy, dusty, GPS-enabled, solar-powered cycle ride across the globe. Susie Wheeldon, Jamie Vining and Iain Henderson are using 'Nokia N79 Active' devices to find their way (Nokia Maps) and keep track of their heart rate (Sports Tracker), as they make their way through 15 countries in travelling 12,000 miles. It's all being powered by thin-film solar panels attached to their bike paniers. You can follow their progress over the next nine months on www.thesolarcyclediaries.com. Photo and bits from the PR below.
From Nokia:
"Setting off on European Solar Day, the trip is aiming to raise money and awareness for SolarAid, the UK charity established by Jeremy Leggett. The charity aims to fight both global poverty and climate change, teaching poor communities in rural africa to build and sell small solar devices, powerful enough to charge mobile phones, power radios and lanterns.
The trip will take in France, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China and the US, finishing in Miami on Feb 2 2010. The trip will also take in visits to solar energy projects across the world, highlighting how there is potential for solar energy to provide reliable, available and affordable solutions for global energy needs.
‘We Support Solar’ is the team’s campaign and they’re also calling for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to recognise solar photovoltaics ability to address the credit, energy and climate crunch and see the potential for it to ease poverty and create jobs."
The team are planning to create videos with their Nokia N79s in each of the countries visited, designed to be used as educational material and available on YouTube. Key sites such as Nokia solar-powered base stations will also be geo-tagged and images uploaded to the SolarCycle Diaries web site.
(Image credit: The Hungry Cyclist)
News Discussion
> 28 May: Ferry
That ferry is solar-powered as well, right?!? Cheaters!!!
Not to mention that by equipping their bikes with small dynamos, they would generate more power than with those solar panels. And they would generate power regardless of weather conditions (cloudy or rainy sky = no solar power). What a travesty.
most bicycles here have a dynamo-powered front lamp for driving after dark, and they always had since I was a little kid, so I would say for at least 30 years. It's just a simple matter of adding a switch allowing to select whether to send the power to the lamp or to a battery, and to leave the dynamo on during daylight, allowing it to charge the battery. I would be very surprised if no bike manufacturer hasn't implemented this already, but, even if no one has, it's a really straightforward modification you can do yourself.
What gives?
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