再也不怕手機沒電：首款無電池手機誕生

手機的續航能力不行，老是得充電？很快你就不用再爲此煩惱了。美國科學家已經研發出了不需要電池的手機，讓你“永久續航”。

Your future phone may never need to be charged.
未來你的手機可能再也不需要充電了。

That's the exciting implication of new research out of the University of Washington, where researchers have created a mobile phone prototype that doesn't require a battery to operate.
這項激動人心的新研究成果出自華盛頓大學，那裏的研究人員已經研發出一個無需電池便可運行的手機模型。

The astonishingly efficient prototype requires just 3.5 microwatts of juice, and it employs an innovative approach to avoid the need for a battery cell. Instead, it uses ambient power from radio signals and light — its onboard solar cell is "roughly the size of a grain of rice" — to transmit a signal back to a base station 50 feet away.
該模型的用電效率出奇的高，僅需3.5毫瓦的電量即可運行，還配備了一項“無電池”的創新技術。它配備的太陽能電池與一粒米的大小差不多，電能來源於周圍的光或無線信號，從環境中獲取能量，並能將信號傳輸回50英尺外的基站。

The prototype itself is made of simple materials: capacitive touch buttons, a circuit board, and other "off the shelf" components. More impressive is that the team of scientists were able to create a custom base station to transmit the signal with such a small amount of power.
模型的用料很簡單：電容觸摸按鍵，一個電路板以及其他一些現成的元件。更令人驚訝的是，研發團隊還成功建立了傳輸該手機的微小能量信號的定製基站。

Using this setup, the researchers were able to successfully make and receive calls (via Skype) and place callers on hold. But the scientists say they want to improve the prototype by adding an e-ink display with video-streaming capabilities and encryption to make the calls more secure.
目前研究人員不僅能成功地使用該模型接打電話（通過Skype），還能讓呼叫者等待。不過研究人員稱，他們接下來想進一步擴展無電池手機的功能，比如安裝帶有視頻傳輸功能的電子墨水屏幕。同時增加加密功能，確保通話更安全。

Vamsi Tall, who coauthored the paper, says the base station technology they developed — while it's still an early prototype — could make it possible for battery-free mobile phones to become ubiquitous.
該項研究論文的共同作者瓦密斯•濤表示，雖然他們研發的基站技術還只是個雛形，但仍爲無電池手機的普及提供了可能。

“You could imagine in the future that all cell towers or Wi-Fi routers could come with our base station technology embedded in it,” Tall said. “And if every house has a Wi-Fi router in it, you could get battery-free cellphone coverage everywhere.”
“你可以想象，在不久的將來，所有的移動通訊基站和無線路由器都會置入我們的基站技術，”瓦密斯說道。“如果每個房子都有無線路由器，你就可以在任何地方使用無電池手機。”