I'm not an expert, but this sounds like useless crap. The comment in the article mentions that this "could come in handy in sub-Saharan Africa, where less than

I'm not an expert, but this sounds like useless crap. The comment in the article mentions that this "could come in handy in sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 25 percent of the population has reliable electricity". My best understanding of this statement, from limited experience in africa, is that grid electricity is available but a little unreliable - it goes down frequently. This soccer ball will have expensive electronics for capturing energy and an expensive battery. Of course, if I have intermittent grid power and a battery, I'm already all set. I don't need the electronics to capture the kinetic energy. Worse, if this thing breaks in any way - and it's literally getting kicked around - to repair the innards probably requires cutting the soccer ball in half, which makes it pretty unlikely to be repairable.