Even the simplest electric appliance, the desk lamp, generally has at least a power switch or chain.

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The other display on hand was monochrome with a backlight that flickered on and off as a generic desk lamp shone directly onto it.

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There's a wooden book that unfolds into a desk lamp and a polymer incubation blanket for infants that's "on track to save 100, 000 children's lives, " according to Hatch, TechShop's spikey-white-haired CEO.

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On the more practical end of the spectrum, we reviewed the SUNNAN, Ikea's solar-powered desk lamp, and although we found it to be a bit dim, it actually outperformed its expected charge time.

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Why should a hotel desk lamp merely provide light when it can also contain an electrical outlet and a phone jack for your laptop so you don't have to crawl around the floor plugging stuff in?

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To others, it resembles a desk lamp.

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It was also a hot week for energy-generating tech as Intel unveiled a solar laptop chipset that can be powered by a desk lamp and MIT developed a tiny kinetic generator that can produce 100 times more power than previous devices of its kind.

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