However, the idea of putting your device under the heat of the sweltering sun isn’t very appealing because it might overheat and end up getting fried if you don’t pay attention. A pretty neat solution for taking advantage of solar energy without being out in the elements? The XDModo Solar Charger.

Basically, the charger “catches” solar energy through the window where it’s stuck on, and uses this energy to charge up your device, while it sits safely in an indoor environment, such as an office or even in your car. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t just flip it over and use it outdoors if you want too.

The XDModo charger comes with regular and micro USB outputs, and stores power in its 1400mAh rechargeable lithium battery – which should be good for about a full charge of today’s smartphones. It’s available for purchase online from Design3000 shop for €49.95 (~$66 USD.)

[via The Green Head]

Its makers state that with the cover in place and a reasonable amount of sunlight, you’ll be able to use your Kindle for three months straight before needing a regular recharge. The SolarKindle cover also comes with an LED lamp, to allow you late night reading. The lamp will be juiced up for 50 hours of continuous use.

The cover can also be recharged via USB, so it doubles as conventional battery in case there isn’t much sun around. Thanks to the Kindle’s minimal power requirements, an hour under the sun translates to 3 days of reading. The SolarKindle cover will retail for $79.99 when it’s launched.

The giant vehicles that the military uses are far from fuel-efficient and the more fuel they consume, the more fuel the military has to transport to wherever they are operating from. The more transportation runs to fuel up, the more soldiers are in harm’s way. Never mind the massive fuel expenses passed onto taxpayers. Clearly, saving fuel has many benefits in the military. This is why the Hummer is gong hybrid.

The full details on the vehicle known as the Fuel Efficiency Group Vehicle Demonstrator or FED Bravo are still classified. However, it is said to be a plug-in hybrid, using technology similar to the Chevy Volt. More details are known about the FED Alpha, a lightweight model which uses a solar panel to power its electrical system, and runs on a turbo 4-cylinder diesel engine, along with special tires which have a low rolling resistance. The vehicles are said to get the same performance as current Hummers and save 70% on fuel.

[via Inhabitat via Jalopnik]

In order to complete the hack, you’ll need to replace the stock batteries with higher capacity ones. Then, the battery compartment has to be modded to accept Voltaic Systems small 2-Watt solar panels. Finally the lamp has to be re-wired to accommodate Adafruit’s MintyBoost charger module.

The resulting hack adds a USB charging port, while at the same time allowing you to still use the lamp, which is cool and that makes it even more useful. You can check out the whole procedure here.

[via Ikeahackers]

The Solar Ship is made by the Toronto-based company of the same name, and is wing-shaped airship that includes solar arrays on its roof. The balloons are still filled with helium, but can fly using only the power of the sun to extend flying time and conserve energy. While you might think this is just a concept, you’d be wrong as the vehicle pictured is actually a flying prototype called the Caracal.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Since airships don’t require much room to land or take off, they are perfect for delivering medical and relief supplies to disaster zones, without the need for a runway. Running on solar power, the Caracal can carry about 330 pounds while on hybrid power, it can lift as much as  1,653 pounds of cargo. Top speed is about 37mph on solar power, or 75mph on hybrid power.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[Toronto Star via DVice]

Unfortunately I don’t know exactly how fast it cooks food. In fact, I don’t know how fast food is cooked in general. I just wait until my sister says it’s time to eat. Anyway, ID Cook does say this on its product page: “Cooking time: 60 minutes Chicken.” So yeah. No idea.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I wonder how one goes about retrieving food off of a 200°C surface. I’m sure it’s in the manual, because the Cookup is undoubtedly a long-term investment. You’ll get savings from not having to buy fuel for it, but you’ll have to burn a lot of money upfront – the stainless steel and plastic Cookup INOX sells for about $429 (USD), while the wood and aluminum Cookup200 sells for about $715. You can order both from ID Cook’s website.

[via Notcot]

On the plus side, it works under lower sunlight conditions that normal solar panels. It will be interesting to see what happens with this film. It’s a nice (and inconspicuous) alternative to expensive solar panels.

[via Computer World]

If you don’t want to leave your iPhone sitting out in the sun, you can also remove the pack and charge it up separately. Once the Mobius is in the sun, charging starts immediately. There’s a handy LED readout to let you know how much of a charge is left in the pack. It can also be recharged using a USB port. A full charge will double the battery life of your phone, which is about 5 hours of talk time or 8 hours of 3G Internet or video playback. There’s a camera hole so that you can still take photos.

An hour in the sun gets you 25 minutes of talk time. The hard plastic case will also protect your iPhone. Mobius is slim and lightweight, and sells over at Amazon for about $80 (USD).

[via Cool Hunting]

But artificial tans sometimes make them end up looking a bit too orange and, well, plastic-looking overall. A better solution? This Solar Tan Swimsuit designed by Jun-hyeon Kim that solves the problem of uneven tanning if they choose to bake for a couple of hours under the sun–without having to be in the buff.

Kim’s concept makes use of a special fabric and a solar panel that’s integrated and sewn into the suit. So the way I see it, it’s like a tanning bed embedded into a swimsuit to tan your, er, privates (for lack of a better word) while the rest of your body soaks up the sun’s rays. No idea on the risks involved with using technology such as this, though.

While I believe Kim is still a far way off from getting the Solar Tan Swimsuit realized, it’s still definitely a good idea and a very interesting concept.

[via Yanko Design]

He calls the project the Solar Sinter. The device is powered by solar energy and uses the hot rays of sun to melt the silica in desert sand to form the 3D objects. You can see in all the images here that the finished products aren’t as precise as a real 3D printer would make. However, the fact that to uses solar power and the sun to let plain desert sand into anything is really cool in my book.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It looks like the Solar Sinter is able to heat up layers about a quarter of an inch thick with each printing session. The software that allows the printing of the 3D objects is open-source ReplicatorG. You can check out the video above to see the Solar Sinter in action. If you are in the UK you can see the actual device on display at the Royal College of Art graduate exhibition through July 3, 2011.

[via Colossal Art + Design and CreativeApplications]

Inside the Voltaic Spark tablet case is a removable and rechargeable battery. It can be charged from a USB port at home to use on the road. The coolest thing though is that the case has four rugged and water resistant solar panels on the outside. Those panels combined produce 8W of power, which will charge the battery inside the case fully in ten hours of direct sunlight.

Once charged the battery can fully recharge your iPad. Other tablets will need different amounts of time to charge. The case measures 13.5″ H x 11″ W x 2″ deep and has a number of pockets for cables. The battery has two USB ports and the battery comes with several adapters for other mobile devices. The Spark is available for $299 (USD) over at Voltaic.

The NC215S will be available in the US starting next month. It’s a netbook, and will come with a 10.1 inch screen that has 1,024×600 resolution, 1GB of RAM, and a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual-core processor. Apparently, every two hours of sunlight gives users an extra hour of battery life. Now that’s not bad, considering the alternative. It makes lugging laptops around that much lighter, since you don’t have to carry around a power adapter or an extra battery.

According to Samsung, the netbook has a battery life of 14 hours under ideal conditions. That may seem like a lot, but I get about that amount with my MacBook Pro 17 pretty consistently (no Flash installed, brightness to the max, browsing and reading). The NC15S will be available starting in the week of July 3rd for $399 (USD).

[Liliputing via Ubergizmo]

You can access the power via the built-in USB ports. The power can be used to light-up the inside of the chair, to give you light while you are reading or browsing when the sun goes down. Created by architecture professor Sheila Kennedy and a team of students at MIT, the SOFT Rocker can also capture the kinetic energy from your rocking motions, to add even more power to the chair.

The SOFT Rockers can be found at Killian Court, at MIT until the end of the week if you want to try them out.

[Arts at MIT via DVice]

They don’t specify what kind of material is used, but from my experience, electricity and water don’t really mix well together so it will be interesting to find out what will happen when it rains on this backpack. For $800, they’ll probably have used something to insulate the electrical components from the elements.

The solar panel produces 3W of power, and it stores collected energy in a 2200mAh battery unit so that you can juice up your gizmos. In full sun, it takes about four hours to charge the battery pack. Honestly, for $800, I’ll keep my current backpack.

[via CrunchGear]

This remote-controlled, solar R2 unit was created by Kimura and Daisuke Goto, engineering students at Japan’s Hiroshima International University, for no other reason than to prove that R2 could automatically recharge himself if left in a sunny place.

It’s a pretty cool feat, although he looks a little naked without his trash can shell. Without that, R2 could get a pretty bad sunburn. He also would probably die instantly the minute it rains.

[via DVICE]

The trailer theater uses a LED projector that gets juice from that solar panel outside and stores it in lithium ion batteries inside to provide power for the theater to view short films. Apparently, the theater focuses mostly on flicks with a message and nothing with too much violence.

The theater seats eight people and has screened about 400 films so far. I don’t think I could watch a flick without some popcorn and AC blasting though; it looks like it would get hot inside that tiny theater.

[via AOL News]

The Logitech K750 will sell for $79.99 (USD) and is completely built out of recyclable plastic. Solar panels are placed along the top edge of the keyboard to keep things juiced. They even include a luxmeter to tell you how well the panels are charging up.

It not only charges in sunlight, but also works underneath artificial lighting, like a lightbulb. I’ve been using Logitech keyboards for years and have never had any major problems. I’m about due for a new one, and haven’t yet decided which one to get, but this one looks pretty cool.

Philips has unveiled a new green 42-inch TV with an aluminum case and a 0W power off mode. The TV also needs only 40W of juice when using Eco mode. That’s all fine and good, but hardly earth shattering feature makes the set nothing but meh for me. The remote control on the other hand is pretty cool.

Philips is shipping a really cool solar remote control with this TV. To charge this thing, all the user needs to do is sit it in the sun with the back facing up. That’s cool, assuming you have a window nearby.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Generally, remotes are tossed in the drawer around here in favor of my Harmony One, but this one might actually sit out on the coffee table.

The pair of dragonflies use a solar-powered motor and a mechanical wire rig to make their wings beat. And while these dragonflies don’t actually fly anywhere, I think that’s a good thing. Have you ever tried to get a good look at a dragonfly up close and personal? They don’t like to stick around for long. Here’s a video clip of the solar dragonflies in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can catch the Tamiya solar dragonfly kit over at Amazon for about $36 (USD).

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.