Hasta La Gadget!

Plotting their latest spread of watches this spring, Casio executives decided it was time to “go green.” Some poor schmuck in R&D took them at their word. Thankfully for mother nature, the Casio Pathfinder PRG110C-3 is more than meets the eye; the watch — suited for argonauts needing an altimeter, barometer, thermometer and digital compass — also has a miniature solar cell built into its face to automatically recharge the battery. Though Casio’s claim that this last will cut down on the three billion batteries Americans trash each year seems a little reaching — watch batteries last a lot longer than a AA — the timepiece does help the planet some merely by being packaged in recyclables. The $250 device will be available exclusively from Amazon, and yeah, the color you see here is the color you’ll get.

Casio’s solar-powered Pathfinder watch plays the green card twice originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Solar power combined with fancy-looking cases? The perfect storm for getting an end-of-the-week mention on the Gadget Lab. Today its the turn of the Novothink Solar Surge, an iPhone and iPad Touch case with a solar panel and a lithium-ion polymer battery. Instead of just gluing some photo-sensitive panels to the back of a case, Novothink has, well, actually thought about the design.

In sunlight, the case can grab enough juice in a half-hour two-hours for 30 minutes talk time on 3G and an hour on 2G. That’s enough to make this case useful on its own, especially as outdoors is exactly the place you can’t plug in a charger. The case also has a hole for hooking onto a carabiner and hanging from a backpack — a bad idea in the city, but out in the wilderness and away from pickpockets it is ideal.

For once, the iPod Touch gets some extra love: The Touch version of the case, due to the extra space afforded by the iPod’s slim body, has a 1500mAH battery (the iPhone’s is 1320mAH). Both cases, when fully charged, will double the life of the devices. There’s even a free iPhone app to help you calculate how much sunbathing your case has to do to get you through a day. Other neat touches are the row of LEDs to tell you how much power is left and, on the inevitable cloudy days, the regular USB socket in the case means you can charge (and sync) without Apple’s custom cord.

The Apple-certified cases aren’t cheap, but for such utilitarian devices they certainly look good. The iPod Touch case is $70 (on offer right now at $53) and the iPhone version costs $80.

Surge for iPod Touch [Novothink. Thanks, Matt!]

Surge for iPhone [Novothink]

See Also:

• Personal Solar Panel Twenty Time More Powerful Than Rivals …
• LG's Solar-Powered E-Book Reader
• Solar MacBook Charger Costs More than MacBook Itself
• Solar Power
• Blue Earth: Samsung's Solar Phone Made from Water Bottles

You might expect a product from a company called AmbienTech to make you a bit drowsy, but we’re thinking this pair of solar chargers are actually rather interesting. For one thing, they aren’t just concepts: they’re available for purchase right now — or at least they are in Japan. They’re called SolarFold and SolarFan, two designs that both deliver four panels of spherical-based solar cells, comprised of 1,900 globes each, making them slightly flexible and rather more durable than your average photovoltaic. They’re reasonably efficient, too, delivering 2W over USB and, in 10 minutes, are able to charge an iPhone enough to make a 3 minute call. (We’ll leave it as a reader exercise to figure out how many days would be required for a full charge.) Both models are available now for ¥22,050 (about $250), but only the fan comes with a cool little tripod, making the decision of which to buy a little easier.

Continue reading AmbienTec’s SolarFold and SolarFan charge your gadgets, available without prescription (video)

AmbienTec’s SolarFold and SolarFan charge your gadgets, available without prescription (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Researchers shows off self-contained, 9mm solar power system

Researchers shows off self-contained, 9mm solar power system originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Red Ferret  |  University of Michigan  | Email this | Comments

Solar cells are cute and all, but let’s be real — these things are far too inefficient for mainstream use. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology are working hard to remedy that very issue, and they’ve recently concocted a “new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons.” The solution relies on arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded onto a polymer substrate, which uses just a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells. According to professor Harry Atwater, these cells have “surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials” for the first time, and we’re told that the arrays can convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons, and yes, that does mean that they have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. Hit the source link for all the technobabble, and cross your fingers for this stuff to get the honored approval of the Governator.

Caltech gurus whip up highly efficient, low cost flexible solar cell originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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