This is a good time of year to be trolling for a nominee for Dumbest Product of the Week. Dozens of papers and magazines are doing year-end rosters of the best products introduced this year which gives me a chance to catch up on “innovations” I may have otherwise missed.
This week’s winner comes courtesy of Time magazine which recently released their 50 best inventions of 2008. Most of their choices are good like the Montreal Bike Share program (Bixi), and some are creepy, but a few are real head-scratchers for me. In the continued push to Borgify our population, the Biomechanical Energy Harvester developed at Simon Fraser University wins this week’s prize. A 3.5 pound device that connects to your knee, the Energy Harvester uses some of the energy created in walking to generate power. Time’s article suggests this could be used to extend the battery lives of iPods and Blackberries.

Now, cycling is the original human energy conversion product so why the panning of this product? Well, cycling’s energy conversion yields freedom, the freedom to cover long distances without a polluting, wealth draining hunk of steel and the mental freedom of the joy and simplicity of the ride. The bicycle is such a simple machine that even when you encounter problems, they are usually easily fixed.

The Biomechanical Energy Harvester instead chains us even more to our electronic devices with their ever present communication streams. News feeds, calls from your boss, YouTube clips from your friends all coming to you without limit. Is this push for constant entertainment and mental engagement a desperate attempt to fill the void our consumeristic culture has created?

I’m against any device that perpetuates this addiction. I think we’ve gone too far down that road and need to unplug. The most relaxed and engaged I am with my family is when the computer is shutdown, the TV is unplugged, and the phone is off. I’m able to listen to and enjoy the people I love instead of just soldiering through.

So while I appreciate the move to harness natural energy in the form of human motion (allusions to The Matrix aside), I think the green movement is missing the boat on this. We need answers to problems that simplify our lives, not further clutter them up. Until we realize this, supposedly green products like the Biomechanical Energy Harvester or Cycle Sol will receive the ribbing they deserve.

Enjoy your weekend, and get out and ride your bike.

Read the previous week’s Dumbest Product of the Week.

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