Safe to say Ralph, as in Ralph Lauren, has lost his freaking mind.  This here solar backpack, which is part of the RLX line, costs a wallet numbing $795.  We’re all about charging your devices on the go, but there is simply no justification for this level of cost.  

So what do you get for 800 greenbacks?  They say it can charge up your iPod or iPhone in 2-3 hours, provided you’ve got enough sunlight heading your way.  The bag itself is crafted from water resistant material, sports padded shoulder straps and an additional handle for carrying it on one side.

You can buy the Solar Panel Backpack directly from Ralph Lauren in Orange or Black.

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DriveNTalk, a company that specializes in hands-free Bluetooth telephony in the car, has come up with quite the brilliant proposal: do so with the power of the sun. That is, solar powered gadgets, which could theoretically last forever, so long as you aren’t in Alaska during winter.

The BHF-2000 (not to be confused with the BFG-9000) is a Bluetooth communication device meant to sit on the visor of your car so that when it’s low on battery or whenever it’s too sunny, you can pull the visor down and recharge it. Brilliant! Not that I like being forced to pull the visor down to recharge a battery, but it’s much better than charging it through a cable (also an option) or by swapping batteries.

Not only is it solar recharging, the BHF-2000 also uses a voice-based UI to control whether you take calls or not. When a call is received, the device will ask whether you want to answer it or not. Users can then reply vocally, or through a hand gesture. It also comes with an FM Transmitter to work through your speakers for audio playback, and is rated for 15 hours of talk time before needing to tan again.

Right now, the estimated release date for the BHF-2000 is soon, with a possible (meaning unconfirmed) price of $100. If that price pans out, DriveNTalk is giving us all a bargain…assuming it works well.

DriveNTalk

This is Philip’s solar powered remote control and you can’t have one.  Unless of course you live in Europe and have plans to purchase their Econova LED TV, which apparently consumes 40w of power in “eco” mode.

We don’t know if the battery can run purely off solar juice, but since the device demands very little power generally speaking, we don’t see why not.  But hopefully there is a battery option or back up just in case things get gloomy; case in point the UK during the winter months.

The TV uses LED backlighting and features a Zero Power Switch, which means that it won’t suck any power while switched off.

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10) Don’s Solar Scooter

This is a total DIY project, but hey, it’s a solar powered vehicle, right?  The solar panels can be folded away during driving making it completely street legal.  When it’s parked they can be unfolded and the battery juiced from the sun’s rays.

9) Sunraycer

The Sunraycer was built in 1987 in just 10 months.  It’s covered with 8800 solar cells that produce up to 1500 watts of power.  It won the world’s first race featuring solar powered vehicles and achieved a speed of 109 km/h (65mph) over 3005 km.  The following year it achieved a top speed of 75.2mph, destroying the previously held record.

8) E-V Sunny Bicycle

It’s really a kit, but you can’t knock an all solar powered bicycle, right?  Sure, you could pedal, but why not take the extra help, especially when it has no carbon emissions.  The bike can move at a speed of up to 19mph by way of it’s 500 watt electric motor.  You can score a completed bike for about $1,250 or opt fo the kit which costs $775.

7) Solar Golf Cart

This thing costs a whopping $9k, but that’s the price you pay for a little luxury and a clear conscious.  The roof features 72 photovoltaic cells that increase its range by up to 33% between charges of a standard electric golf cart.  That means you can play 10 rounds of golf before it needs to be plugged in, or you can just leave it in the sun for 15 hours and you’ll be all set.

6) Nuna4 Fastest Solar Car

This things takes records, period.  It weighs less than 190 kg and can achieve a top speed of 90.87 kmh.  Enough said.

Hit the ‘leap’ for the remaining 5

5) Venturi High Performance Solar Vehicle

This is the first commercially available high performance solar vehicle. It boast 21 square meters of solar cells.  The passenger sits directly behind the driver, who can accelerate the vehicle to a top speed of 120 kmh with a range of 110 km.  Unfortunately, we don’t think any have been built.

4) Smallest Solar Power Car

This little car is the smallest solar powered vehicle.  It measures 33×22×14 millimeters and has a tiny electric engine.

3) World’s First Solar Powered Motorcycle

The dude that built this apparently sold his entire motorcycle collection and house to fund the project.  The result?  The world’s first sun powered motorcycle with a range of 50 miles.  It took him more than 2 years to build.

2) Planet Solar, World’s Largest Solar Boat

We’ve covered the Planet Solar boat in the past.  It’s the largest of its type and rocks 1600 square feet of solar panels.  It’s cost its maker more than $25 million to build and took its first ocean voyage this past March.

1) Solar Impulse Plane

This plane just completed its first 24 hour flight.  It’s a single person vehicle powered by 12,000 solar cells.  It’s inventor is now planning for an around the world trip.

Looking for some added security for your home’s front door?  The Solar Over Door PIR Light is a completely self contained motion sensing light that turns on when it detects movement.  It requires no wiring since the power is drawn from the built-in solar panels – perfect for those renting.  You’ll just need to mount it.  Eight super-bright white LED lights illuminate for up to 30 seconds when a subject is detected within its 120 degree peripheral.

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And we thought the Energy Curtains were cool.  These windows, which look almost like everyday windows, contain translucent solar cells that capture energy from the sun.  They were unveiled at Taipei’s International Optoelectronics Week and come in a few different opacity levels.  The darker the window the more energy it can harvest.  While they’re a long ways away from replacing a stand alone solar cell, or so we guess, they’re far more practical than slapping up additional panels on your roof, that is assuming of course your anti-eye sore and are willing to take the gamble that little Jimmy doesn’t fire a baseball through them.

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Windows lets sun shine in. Conversely, curtains keep the light out. The Energy Curtain makes the best of both worlds by harvesting the sun’s rays and uses it to power the fabrics light emitting fabric. So, effectively the conceptual product keeps the sun out on hot summer days while providing light and cutting down on your energy consumption – a triple whammy. Now, only if they can come up with an efficient solar cell.

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Solar infused cell phones are nothing new, but soon as a company like Apple is involved the world is all ears.  Their newly minted patent calls for an iPhone that uses a capacitive touchscreen with a layer of solar cells hidden behind it.  Cool, because I would hate to see the aesthetic of the iPhone get ruined with those unsightly photovoltaic cells.  The patent also indicates that the back of the phone might also include the solar tech or use a special material that allows the sun’s ray to shine through to the tasty solar core.

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Oh the burden of a large yard. Yup, it’s a pretty painful thing. Heck, if you’re not too careful you might get lost out there one drunken night or at the very least lose your sense of direction. To keep you on the straight and narrow is the Solar Lighted Walkway Tiles. 4 LEDs placed at each corner of the wooden looking tile (it’s made from plastic) turn on automatically when the sun goes down and are powered by the day’s ray which means no batteries to replace or cords to hassle with. You can place them individually or lock them together to form one cool ass looking deck. The 4 LEDs are each rated for up to 20,000 hours of life, which should get you about 4.5 years of use.

The only downside you ask? A set of four 11″ x 11″ tiles costs $100.

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Chinavison once again never fails to impress with their new 20,000 mAh Solar Battery.  The huge array of solar cells will be much more effective in trapping rays and may not actually take forever like virtually every other solar charger I’ve tried.

The charger comes packed with 29 unique adapter tips to satisfy almost any gadget you have in your arsenal.  Priced at $148, this charger is pretty much a steal and anybody looking to go green may want to get their hands on this now.  

[via Dvice]

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Summer is upon us which means beach, pool, picnics and more.  But what’s an outing without some tunes.  This solar powered iPod Speaker dock is apparently the first of its kind (I don’t buy that).  Flipping open the protective lid, which is rated to IPX-4 when closed – that means it can resist splashes from all angles – provides off the grid charging of the speakers built-in lithium battery.  Surprisingly, three hours of solar charging produces up to one hour of listening time on the two 5-watt full-range speakers, which are housed inside a rugged, rubberized and aluminum body.

Hammacher has it for $200.

How would you like to score some of those tax credits associated with the installation of solar panels on your home? I know I would. While I don’t think MIT’s printable solar cells will qualify any time soon, the convenience and accessibility should out weigh any monetary breaks from the government.

Researchers say the solar panels can be printed out using a similar process to that of an inkjet printer. The semiconductor-coated paper features carbon-based dyes, which provide it with its solar capabilities, though the cell’s efficiency is just 1.5% to 2%. But the key to their success is the low cost and using them in mass quantity.

Right now the tech is years away from commercialization and still in the research phase. But hey, this could not only cut carbon emissions in the Western part of the world, but help those in less affluent areas to be self sufficient.

[via Inhabitat]

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Yesterday we had an interesting solar powered lantern, but now we’re upping the scale with a solar powered plane! The Solar Impulse had its first flight today in Switzerland, getting 5,500 feet of altitude and doing test maneuvers that went off without a hitch. In specs, the plane’s wingspan is a little over sixty meters long, covered in 12,000 solar cells that power the 40 hp engine, getting to an average speed of 44 mph.

The flight lasted 87 minutes, filled with sharp turns, bank angles, and the crucial take off and landing. This is the first step in a planned around the world-flight scheduled for 2012. Before that, a 36 hour flight is planned. Way cool.

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Here’s an example of a great product doing good in the world. Plus Minus Solar have created a Solar Pebble to reduce the use of dangerous kerosene lamps in the world’s poorest regions. It’s portable, can be hung or clipped onto bicycles, and it charges other small electronics, like mobile phones. In a year, it costs a tenth of what lighting a home by kerosene would, and its much more safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly. This is great design in action.

The Solar Pebble will be available in June, with pricing currently unknown. Best of all, for every purchase in the developed world, Solar Pebbles will send one to the undeveloped world.

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I’m not totally sold on all this consumer grade solar charging stuff.  I just takes too damn long for me to really care at this point.  Looking forward however, comes the Muzatch SP 6000 Solar Laptop Charger.  Jamming a massive 12,000mAh battery into an eye catching package, the Muzatch SP 6000 uses updated solar technology to convert more rays more efficiently at a faster pace.

Currently priced at $150, the Muzatch SP 6000 also features an intelligent adaptive voltage distribution system to charge an array of laptop computers.  No word on Mac compatibility.  Looks nice!

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My skepticism meter tells me that the Solar Electric Razor probably won’t provide the closest of shaves, but hey, if you’re off the grid and in the wilderness than why not.  Placing the device in 8-12 hours of sunlight will guarantee a full charge.

You can nab one for $22.

[via Coolest-gadgets]

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PlanetSolar is the world’s largest solar boat.  Its covered in over 1600 sqaure feet of solar cells and supposedly carries a massive lithium-ion battery to capture the sun’s energy.  The boat itself measures 31m long and 15m wide and can achieve a top speed of 15 knots.  Total cost to date to produce the solar powered boat is just south of $25 million.  SunPower provided the some 38,000 photovoltaic cells and are said to be the world’s most efficient on the market today.

The PlanetSolar boat will launch in just 5 days time, where upon the team hopes to be the fastest solar boat to travel across the Atlantic Ocean.

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I had me a solar watch when I was about 12 years old.  Unfortunately, the technology wasn’t far enough along and required constant charging under the sun’s rays. Casio’s newest Pathfinder watch, the PRG110C-3, however, requires only 5 minutes in direct sunlight for a 24 hour charge and when fully juiced can supposedly last up to 5 months.  Fittingly the watch is finished in an eye popping shade of green and is made from recycled packaging.  Other features include a compass, 200m water resistance, altimeter, barometer, stop watch, alarm and more.

You can grab one now from Amazon for $250.

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Remember Solar Roadways?  They’ve finally completed their first USDOT prototype.  In addition to providing carbon free energy (aside from the manufacturing process), the Solar Roadway can display traffic info using the built-in LEDs and perhaps even melt snow and ice from its surface.

For now we’ll have to settle with some pics, but they say they’ll have video up sometime later this month.

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I think it’s more than fair to say that most solar devices on the market today are “woefully inadequate”.  At least that’s the opinion of Solar Components, who is ready to crush the competition this June by launching the Joos Orange, a personal solar device that can produce up to 20 times the energy of any personal solar product.

So what does that mean in terms of gadget charging?  One hour of direct sunlight can capture enough power to deliver more than 2.5 hours of talk time to a cell phone.  Most solar devices produce 5-10 minutes, tops, after 1 hour of solar exposure. If need be, it can also be charged via USB and has a set of LED status lights to indicate dead battery and power production.

Even better the Joos Orange is waterproof, rugged thanks to its polycarbonate build, and has a replaceable 5400 mAh lithium-ion battery.  It measure 5.8 x 8.6 x 0.8-inch and weighs 24oz, so it’s not out of the question if you want to toss it in a bag with your laptop.

So how much you ask?  They’re aiming for a retail cost of $100.  Not bad in the grand scheme, not bad at all.

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