Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments have designed a new lower-voltage chip that they claim could be up to 10 times more energy-efficient than the current generation.

The power consumption in the new chip is so low that devices using them may even be able to be recharged by human body heat from implantable medical devices such as pacemakers and health monitors, and it could lead to cell phones, handheld computers, and remote sensors that last far longer when running from a battery.