One of the more prevalent worries a smartphone user faces is the “20% Battery Remaining” warning that pops up when your device is getting ready to lame out on you.
Basically, from the minute you think about leaving your house, the calculations begin about how much juice you can spare to text a friend, find a restaurant, check your email, monitor your stocks or take a turn on Words With Friends. While it’s been quite awhile since I personally have subjected myself to the rigors of an outdoor music festival (cough, cough, late 90’s Lollapalooza cough), one of the top five reasons I might not want to go is the extreme phone-use rationing one would need to implement to ensure one could find one’s friends at the end of the evening. (I would hasten to point out that back in those days, we didn’t have cell phones- we just shouted our friends’ names over and over while A Tribe Called Quest played in the background, before collapsing into a hoarse-voiced ball, sobbing and getting our knee-high Doc Martens all muddy.)
UK cell carrier Vodafone has come up with an awesome and free (for Vodafone customers) solution for the thousands of festival-goers who may suffer the same fate at summer events. Nokia, Blackberry, iPhone and Android owners will be able to locate one of these trucks, described by TNW, to circumvent any instances of phone death:
The Vodafone VIP recharging truck is heading to 11 festivals this year, offering Vodafone customers with the opportunity to charge their mobile devices, completely free of charge. The 44 tonne vehicle can charge 2,000 devices at any one time (as quickly as it would at home) and is expected to charge over 72,000 mobile devices this summer alone.
It’s such a cool service we can almost forgive them for directing people to “just rock up to the counter.” Unfortunately, us yanks can’t access the full Vodafone VIP page, but it seems likely that you’ll be able to locate the trucks at festivals using location-aware services like Foursquare and Twitter.
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