NEC showcased a prototype of a remote control that does not require a battery and is intended for home electric appliances.

This would definitely save on millions of AA & AAA cell batteries being used around the world, and not to mention the hassle of changing the batteries.

But as it is just a prototype, it would still take around 2 years for the commercial products to show up in the market. Till then, keep on burning those batteries.

The remote control was realized by combining
(1) a vibration-based power generation device developed by Soundpower
(2) NEC Electronics' microcomputer supporting RF remote controls that use radio waves with a frequency band ranging from several tens of MHz to several GHz to transmit and receive data and
(3) a power supply control technology that drives electronic circuits with a small amount of electricity.

[Via Tech-ON]