Although the question is both legitimate and topical, executives at panels--many of them working at semiconductor or cell phone companies — seemed almost dumbfounded at the suggestion.

Qualcomm's Jha's immediate and straightforward answer was: "No." He said, "I don't know of any commercial technologies" capable of harvesting power for cell phones. Jha said, "At Qualcomm, we are investing in a number of battery technology companies. We are also looking into adiabatic circuits," but none far enough advanced to call a solution.

During a panel entitled "Next Generation Wireless-Multimedia Devices — Who Is Up For The Challenge?," the same energy harvesting question was asked for cell phones of the future. There came nary a peep from the panelists.

Instead, Jan Rabaey, professor at Berkeley Wireless Research Center at University of Calif., who chaired the panel, suggested that incorporating solar cells in a cell phone might do the trick. But then estimating a solar panel's potential output of 1 milliwatt per square centimeters for a handset exposed to the sun, Rabaey concluded, "That much energy won't drive a cell phone any time soon."

Rabaey also mentioned work done by Marin Soljacic, an assistant professor of physics at MIT, who is working on magnetic resonance as a promising means of electricity transfer. (see: Physicist Marin Soljacic is working toward a world of wireless electricity ). Rabaey posed a future in which every household includes a basket, equipped with a magnetic coil. While the family sleeps, the coil recharges the phones.

But dismissing this scenario, Rabaey reiterated that today, there isn't a real energy harvesting technology fit for cell phones.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm's Jha turned almost defensive at a suggestion that ubiquitous cell phones, together with their power-thirsty base stations, may be perhaps one of the sources contributing to the current energy crisis.

Jha said, "Look, ICT (information and communication technology), which includes everything from computers, cell phones, base stations, data centers and Google, represents only two percent of the energy consumption in the world." He explained that the question is not what the mobile industry can do to minimize the power consumption of cell phones. Instead, "The bigger issue is how technology can help other industries to become more energy efficient."