Glastonbury Festival forecast: very windy, hopes Orange Orange is expanding its methods for eco-friendly phone power with the trial of a wind-powered recharge tent at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. Orange_Tent Orange's Recharge Pod uses wind power to juice-up 100 phones each hour Last year, Orange launched a small tent-top turbine onto the mudflats of Glastonbury. This year …
But if the wind doesn't blow, there's no power.
Something tells me James Sherwood doesn't read The Register. Or the parts of it that contradict his green-tinted fantasies about power generation.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/04/microgeneration_report/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/microwind_chocolate_teapot/
Could you do the sums for us next time?
Now isn't a tent a bad idea in high winds? Even one shaped like a pyramid will fall over or flex badly at the first signs of our British summer winds - especially if it has a wide open door to collect the air and turn it into one big parachute!
If Orange are to roll them out across the country, they should ditch the tent bit, give it a deep foundation, make it look somewhat like a lamppost.
A hell of a good idea, its a shame that peoples mobile phones generally end up being one of the least energy thirsty gadgets of all - arguably the most useful in emergencies though.
Now if only they'll make one that can feed an electric car - I fear such a wind turbine will need to be the size of Wales to do that though.
Heart icon - I is luvvin the idea.
Personally I would say that glastonbury started to die when mean fiddler took over and started to erect all of those fences!
Actually, scratch that ... the rot really began back in the early nineties when they killed off the traveller's free festival (a field outside the main gates where travellers erected their rigs and partied all night - unlike the main area which shut down in the wee hours)
Sigh ... those were the days ... acid smiley, just because ;)
"But such a wide scale UK roll-out covering several gadget types probably means recharging won’t be free, as it will be at this year’s Glastonbury Festival."
Pay for charging your phone from a totaly free source? IE the sun and the wind?
I understand that the supplier will have to claw back the initial outlay for the charge pods, but sureley they make enough from roaming charges to be able to absorb?
Also won't that give the "NIMBY's" something else to complain about.... first the mobile masts, causing cancer, now the Solar panels frying the poor pigeons, or the blades from the turbine making to much noise!
If glastonbury organisers are happy enough to erect tent after tent for gigs, festival goers are happy to sleep in theirs (provided they haven't, as I did, accidentally erected it with the flap pointing up hill :( ) then I'm sure orange will be fine!
securing my coat in case a gust of wind blows it into cow pat
"Surely this just advertises that there is a mobile on charge in the tent?"
Use the wind turbine to charge a portable battery pack meant for charging mobile phones etc., sure you'll lose some of the generated energy by not charging the mobile direct but you won't have to leave it in the tent.
Glastonbury used to provide a space (with some music thrown in) and the visitors did the rest - and those were the days!
Now they provide "everything" and it's all so super and lovely and family friendly and unsuable and health and safety conscious that it stinks, as does all pre-arranged, shrink-wrapped culture.
I first went in '83 - the last year afore the police were allowed on site - it was a Freak Brother's comic come to life.
Now it's rubbish.
...the unsmiley face cus everything that catches peoples attention has to be shrink wrapped and sold back to us as "the real thing"
seriously your doing the festival equivalent of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen. "When I went to Glastonbury we partied for 3 hours before we got up..."
The super fence was the best thing they did for the festival, crime is practically non existent now in Glastonbury. I'm guessing you're slamming the acts because your tastes are a bit dated, that is fine, most people's tastes get dated as they age.
Glastonbury commercialised? Welcome to the f*cking current era, where people get brand names as tattoos and wars are sponsored by Haliburton.
Firstly - Orange do this every year, last year it was a personal mini turbine on selected tents to charge your phone and the year before it was a pop up beacon that you could txt to find your tent. Both devices were "to be available commercially", I can't see them anywhere though...
As for all of the 'it was better in my day' lot. I for one thank the organisers, whoever they are for:
Securing the site - no more getting murdered by knife wielding scallies cutting your tent open.
Dealing with the travellers, who acted like they owned the place, (because they lived on the road and it was somehow their festival), while treating everyone who actually paid to get into the festival like shit. I believe Mr Evis said that they were "taking the piss out of his hospitality"
Pumping hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment money into the site to prevent the flooding that has happened two years ago. You don't see fiddler doing that at Reading do you? (NB: Last year there was more rain than the year before and no flooding)
Pumping millions into the local community.
Making sure that there is proper food onsite.
Stopping the ticket touting.
Not listening to those miserable fuckers who said that you can't put Jay-Z on mainstage because it's not Glastonbury. Snobs.
And last, but mostly for giving an inceredible wedge of cash to Oxfam.
There are many other reasons, I'm sure...
Have any of those going on about how Glastonbury is crap now actually been recently? While I only went for the first time in '98 there's still very little commercial 'branding' there now compared to most of the big festivals. None of the stages are sponsored or feature advertising (apart from banners from the three charities that are supported by the festival). The big stages' video screens carry no adverts (although do show short pieces by the aforementioned charities).
The relatively small commercial presence there is subtle and the companies all seem to have to give something to the festival-goers in return (Orange' charging tent, Q Magazine's daily paper and the Guardian's festival guide). The music and other entertainment is also still very varied, while the big names are on the Pyramid stage there are dozens of other venues with all manner of acts.
While I appreciate that it was probably better in the halcyon days before Mean Fiddler I think it's still the best festival for its size. Sadly, I doubt it would be here now if it wasn't for the involvement of Mean Fiddler...
Great memories , and regarding the corporate "slide" , this festival acted like a big fat shroom , when it popped ( mean fiddler , media arse ,
£1,000,000 police invoice , tricky fence ) , the spores went everywhere , if you dont know where , then i guess you dont know . Glastonbury festival , the best town in Europe bar none , for three days only , less crime/trubble than your town , safer for your kids than your town , more
entertainment , excitement and laughter than your town , more drugs than your town ( uuuh , hang on? that can't be right? ) etc etc . Michael Eavis is the sort of man i want as Prime Minister , he could call his "party" anything at all ,it would be the best ever , major respec , dig? ahem.
Or just plug it in while you're back at the motorhome for a shower.
I love Glasters, so what if the pikies turn up a week before and set up camp inside the perimeter? They never bothered me when I was there.
It's the spirit of the thing that counts, and people make that, not corps.
One of the most amazing sights at Glastonbury (and there are many), is on Monday afternoon when a few hundred volunteers sweep across the main field picking litter. (Everyone else has either left, or are nursing very broken heads before they leave). In front of them, a whole heap of rubbish scattered all over the place. Behind them, some flattened grass! There's something special about Glastonbury, always has been and I don't think the fact that peoples tastes change over the years will ever change that.
I remember leaving Glastonbury last time; after 4 days of doing exactly what I wanted to do, with like-minded people with huge smiles on their faces the whole weekend. I walked into a town on Tuesday on the way back and everyones faces were grey and glum. I was hit with massive culture shock and just thought Jesus, take me back to Glastonbury. So gutted to be back in the 'real' world.
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