Faraday Flashlight

Perhaps science can’t help with the weakness consumers have for “as seen on TV” products (I love my Ove Glove!), but it has been good enough to give us the Faraday Flashlight. Putting Michael Faraday’s law of induction into action, this little workhorse requires no batteries; a moving magnet in a copper coil provides all the power you’ll need, with a recharge just one quick shake away. In addition to generating the inexplicable compulsion to spend 20 bucks on a flashlight, my overactive imagination also spins off prophecies of days to come. A flashlight that will “last forever” has me wondering: Is this where it all really begins? A hundred years from now, will children laugh at a time when the only widely available, self-contained renewable power source was found in a flashlight?