Offices are littered with Post-it notes. Some argue for their greenness, others aren’t so convinced. But in any case, a tiny reusable display might make a better alternative in the long term—if only it didn’t require any extra power. And it so happens, scientists at Microsoft Research have developed just that.
Featured in New Scientist, and dubbed an "energy harvesting situational display," Microsoft's invention is a Post-it sized chunk of e-paper, the same stuff used in Amazon's Kindles. And simply through some solar panels placed on the display’s back, it can generate enough electricity to not only run continuously simply by sipping on the ambient light inside an office, but to actually update its display anywhere from two to sixty times per hour, depending on light levels.