This Emergency iPhone Solar Charger from Senyx (appx. $22 USD) snaps neatly onto the bottom of your 3G or 3GS and lets you recharge using sunlight. While I’ve seen many multi-gadget solar chargers before, the thing that’s unique about this one is that it’s so compact and designed specifically for the iPhone. So there’s no extra cables or wires required for use. It just connects right into the dock connector and you’re ready to go. And for those of you who have a white iPhone, there’s a version for you guys too.

The snap-on solar panel also has a small 800mAh battery pack built in to give you a little extra emergency power if you pre-charge it with your USB cable. While I certainly wouldn’t rely on this thing as my primary source of iPhone power, it looks like it would be great in a pinch, or if you’re ever stuck out in the woods with no other way to recharge.

These little spherical lamps sure look like some sort of retro spacecraft to me, especially the glowing green part, and the tripod legs.

Created by Japan’s IDEA Label, each light stands about 3 feet tall, and has a bright LED that gets its juice from solar energy. As an added bonus, they’re waterproof, so you can actually line up a bunch of these in your front yard and they’ll be convinced the aliens have landed when the sun goes down. In addition to the bright green one, they’re also available in pink, orange and clear – but seriously, what’s the last time you saw a pink alien spaceship? What sort of fools do they take us for?

As is the case with many of the offbeat products from Japan, they’re not currently available elsewhere. For now, I guess you’ll have to admire them from afar over on the IDEA shop for ¥1575 (appx. $17 USD) each.

The charger actually spreads out into two panels to catch more sunlight. Unfortunately, according to Akihabara News, it’s only compatible with USB devices, so if your gadget doesn’t have a USB port, you’ll have to pair the charger with something similar to Sanyo’s Eneloop Mobile Booster.

Even more unfortunate, we don’t have details regarding the Portable Solar’s specs, its release date or its price. I know that this device is still much larger than today’s batteries and chargers, but I really hope that devices that take advantage of renewable energy become mainstream soon. Not only are they environment-friendly, they’ll save us a lot of money as well.

Problem is, the robot’s lithium ion batteries might succumb to the Moon’s nighttime temperature, which according to Inhabitat can be as low as -240°F (-151°C). Fortunately Whittaker and company still have more than a year to go to figure out a way to prevent the rover from suffering robotic hypothermia.

The rover has also been entered in Google’s $30 million (USD) Lunar X Prize, a challenge to build a robot that will – well whaddaya know – “safely land on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth.” Aside from the solar panels, the rover is also equipped with a total of 8 motors, 2 in the hub of each wheel, a radiator (I think it’s not in the picture above).

I wish Dr. Whittaker and his collaborators at Astrobiotic Technology good luck. Also Dr. Whittaker, I suggest you contact the folks at College Humor; I hear they’re selling something that might be able to help protect the batteries from the cold.

[via Popular Science]

The pocket-sized solar charger has a built in 1600mAh battery pack that can juice up to full capacity in about 8 hours of full sun, or about 3 hours when connected to your computer’s USB port. A color-coded ring lights up in red to indicate that your Xbox 360 has died the battery drinking in solar energy, and glows blue as it drains.

Just plug your cell phone, game console, media player or digital camera into either the Freeloader’s USB port or connect one of the ten included adapters and you can operate your gadgets directly off the Freeloader Pro’s battery or use it to charge up your gadget’s internal power source. The kit also includes the CamCaddy, which lets you easily charge up digital camera and camcorder battery packs in a jiffy.

The Freeloader Pro solar charger ships in June and is available for pre-order over at UK gadget shop I Want One of Those for £69.99 (appx. $97 USD).

Solar-powered DS creator dark sponge has just put up a step-by-step guide to making the Nintendo handheld a little more green at Instructables. If you can manage a little soldering and wire-connecting, you too can have your own solar-powered DS, and if not, you can at least look at the instructions and pretend that, some day, you might learn how to do “all that crafty and mechanical stuff.”

The best part about the project is how good the end result looks. As dark sponge points out, the design of the DS makes it perfect for adding solar panels. Of course, when the DSi comes along, we’ll have to work around the built-in camera.

[Solar-Powered DS at Instructables]

Kyouei Design’s Mobile Lights store solar energy during the day, and automatically turn on when its dark. If there’s not enough daylight to keep them charged, that’s okay, since each segment has a set of AA batteries inside to keep them glowing too.

Each set of three LED lights hangs from your ceiling by sturdy nylon fishing line, creating a swoopy kinetic sculpture in any room. You can find Mobile Lights at Kyouei’s online shop for ¥21,100 (appx. $213 USD).

Created by Sugar Grove, Illinois inventor Greg Zanis, the Dream Car 123 tools down the street at up to 40 mph. A single 3.5 hour charge provides about 240 miles of driving for only about $5 in electricity cost. Take that gasoline!

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The vehicle is powered by 80 lead-acid batteries which drive four independent motors, allowing the car to make a complete 360-degree turn on a dime.

Zanis claims future generations of his car will use lithium batteries to achieve 2 to 4 times the distance per charge, and is targeting vehicle up to speeds as high as 200 mph and more.

The Dream Car’s unique pyramid shape was designed to leverage head winds to produce downward force to hold the car to the road. The single passenger compartment is surrounded by durable bullet-proof glass on all four sides, providing 360-degree visibility and protecting its occupant. A special honeycomb layer inside of the cars shell provides additional safety for the driver at all times.

The battery-operated car even features a dramatic neon lighting system, which makes it really stand out as it tools around in the dark. You certainly won’t miss this car driving down the road.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It currently costs Zanis about $8,000 in materials to create one of his Dream Cars. He has plans to ramp up and start mass-producing these in the next few years, with a retail price around $24,000 (which could drop as low as $16,000 after government alternative fuel incentives). For more information on his vehicles, be sure to visit the Dream Car 123 website.

Whether its the flapping wings of the mosquito-like Gonzo, or the wobbling octopod legs of Cthulhu, each of these BugBots is truly unique.

Every lumpy, bumpy member of the BugBot family is handcrafted from a variety of found materials and electronic componentry, and runs entirely on solar energy.

While I do love the mechanical winged and legged critters, I have to say that my personal favorite are the googley eyed light-seeking bots (Ernie and Bert), who amble around on a single-minded mission to find the brightest light source around.

TinyMinds’ current menagerie of tiny robotic bugs range in price from about $60 to $80 a piece, and can be found over on their Etsy shop.

GreenPix – Zero Energy Media Wall uses thousands solar photovoltaic capture cells attached to a grid of glass panels, each of which conceals an array of computer-controlled LEDs.

The wall was constructed for visitors attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and located in the Xicui entertainment complex, near the site of the games.

The display opens to the public this month, and will feature live and recorded video performances works by artists from around the world.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

GreenPix was designed and implemented by New York architecture firm Simone Giostra & Partners, along with global design and engineering firm Arup.

You can read more about the project over on the GreenPix website. (Check out this nifty simulator application if you want to get a better idea of how the display works).

[via PSFK]

Artist Gianni Motti’s Big Crunch clock is gradually counting down the approximately five billion years we have left until the sun blows up. The 20 digit LED display (pictured) began counting down back in 2005, so the way I figure it, we have somewhere around 4,999,999,991 years to go. Ironically, the clock runs on solar energy, so the same power source that gives it life will ultimately be its demise.

On the plus side, the entire clock will surely fail and disintegrate billions of years before it’s blown to smithereens by exploding solar gases. Now doesn’t that make you feel better?

[via VVORK]

All this thing needs now is a pop up dutch oven and a recorded lesson in how to discern the difference between brown bear vs. black bear attacks, and I am so buying this thing.

Available for US $33.26 at DealExtreme.

In addition to taking on retro gaming sans batteries, the Mobile Power Station plays popular audio and video files, including MP3, WMA and MP4 (converted to AVI) formats. The compact player features a 3.5 color display, 2GB of built-in memory and an SD slot for up to 2GB more. The jack-of-all-trades can also display or speak E-books, has a voice recorder, and even a built-in LED flashlight. Heck, it’s even got a USB-out connector so you can use the solar panels to charge other devices.

So what are you waiting for? You can grab one yours gadget importer Chinavasion for about $123 USD.

[via Albotas]

The fun part is that these mushrooms wiggle back and forth when powered by the sun (or a desk lamp.) They’re just about 5-inches tall and make a great desktop gadget for the Mario fan in your life.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The Super Mario Brothers Solar Toad is available now from importer NCSX for $16 each, and come in both green and red versions.

If you can make out the cryptic diagrams above, little metal planets orbit a larger central planet at the middle of the “universe.” One planet signifies hours, another minutes, and the last tiny planet is the second hand. You can really only tell what time it is by viewing the clock from above, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. When viewed from the side, it still looks cool.

The clock is made out of aluminum and has an acrylic resin case to protect its mechanism. It’s just ¥3,990, which works out to be about $35 bucks, if you can manage to get one shipped overseas.

[UPDATE 4/24/2007: It looks like ThinkGeek has managed to import a handful of these from Japan, retailing for $49.99 each]