Tiny windmills may one day power cell phones:

Indian origin scientist Smitha Rao at the University of Texas has come up with world's smallest wind turbine that could one day power portable electronics and recharge smartphone batteries. The micro-windmill is so small that 10 such windmills could be mounted on a single grain of rice. The device is about 1.8 mm at its widest point. Rao, along with J.C. Chiao, a professor of electrical engineering at UT, developed the technology based on recent advances in micro-robotic devices. "Hundreds of the windmills could be embedded in a sleeve for a cell phone," the researcher claimed. "Wind, created by waving the cell phone in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, would generate the electricity that could be collected by the cell phone's battery.