Going green with an onion powered iPod and a paper iPhone dock?

Davey Winder
Monday, 24 November 2008 19:24

Science - Energy

Just how green can you be with your iPod in one hand and your iPhone in the other? Can onions and paper help you improve your place in the environmentally friendly tech stakes?

Green IT is big news for business and consumer alike, after all everyone wants to do their bit for the environment. Not that green tech always gets it right, just look at the Black Google for example.

So it was with some interest that I spotted a story in the London 'Metro' this weekend which suggested that you could power your iPod using an onion and an energy drink.

Shame it was November 23rd instead of April 1st as the latter would have been far more apt. Indeed, it was almost exactly a year ago that I first came across the root of this particular veggie powered iPod story on YouTube.

The HouseholdHacker video appeared on YouTube showing, or so it seemed, someone charging an iPod having drilled a couple of holes in an onion and placed it in a bowl of Gatorade energy drink. Loads of people fell for it at the time, and the story made it into various media publications.

However, it has been roundly debunked plenty of times and a little research is all that is required to see this is a hoax.

The truth is that even several onions linked together would not provide enough power to charge an iPod. Oh, and you cannot simply turn your iPod into a handy Taser-like device either no matter what the HouseholdHacker tells you.

That said, you can make a dock for your iPhone or iTouch out of paper. Those clever folk over at Geeky Gadgets have come up with precise video instructions for making a working iPhone dock out of an A4 sheet of 270gsm cardboard.

Which costs a lot less than paying out for a plastic one from the Apple Store as well being a pretty green thing to do. And that is no hoax, there is even a handy template to download and use to make things easier.