SOMETIME MAKER OF MOBILE GIZMOS O2 has launched a new mobile charger that the company claims will help the icecaps, the polar bears, lower sea levels and quite literally save our skins.
The O2 Universal Charger, for thusly is it dubbed, is amongst the most energy-efficient mobile phone chargers in the UK, providing the same amount of juice to connected phones as standard chargers whilst reducing consumption from the plug by as much as 70 per cent.
The Universal Charger is only universal, however, if your universe consists of Nokia, Sony and Samsung phones. Compatibility with O2's flagship Iphone and Blackberry devices is apparently coming early next year.
As is traditional with these kinds of launches, O2 has handily provided some numbers that put the energy consumption into some kind of context that makes sense to the average joe sixpack.
To that end, I am empowered to tell you that the power wasted from phones left on charge whilst having a full battery costs the British over £30m a year, and that the power saved if everyone went out and bought an O2 charger would amount to enough power to make over 7 billion cups of tea.
Not only that, but by cutting off charge once phones are full, the Universal Charger would save carbon emissions equivalent to taking 36,000 cars off the road each year. Additionally, if everyone in Britain used the charger, the power saved would be enough to run the Bank of England's printing press constantly for a month, thus generating enough money to pay for the recent batch of financial bailouts.
That last fact may, in fact, not be true.
What is true is that the charger won't break what miniscule bank balance you may have left after paying for the City's folly. The charger will cost 15 of your UK squids, or just £7.49 when bought with an O2 mobile before Crimbo.
Go on. Splash out. Save the planet. µ
