News: Socckets: Ball can charge a cellphone

Socckets: Ball that can charge a cellphone London: A football that generates electricity to charge a cellphone or power a light from a short kick is set for trial at the 2010 FIFA World Cup host South Africa.         Four female undergraduate students, from Harvard University, who wanted to find a solution to the developing world's chronic power shortages, designed the ball named sOcckets. The ball works by a 'shake to charge' torch, in which a magnetic ball rolls through a coil to generate an electric charge.        The ball generates enough electricity to power an LED light for three hours in just 15 minutes of being kicked around. "Soccer is something you well find in every African country," one of sOccket's inventors, Jessica Lin, said. "People play for hours days, so we thought, 'Why not try to get a little more out of that energy," she added.         Lin said the main motive was to withhold the passion for football among children in Africa's poorest communities to provide them with reading torches when the light fades.