There’s always a solution for charging gadgets when your batteries crap out, but the problem is most of them aren’t any fun at all. Why can’t gadget charging be fun? In fact, I demand fun! Fun in the form of the iYo from Swedish designer Peter Thuvander. The iYo makes charging up your devices into a game, by way of a small induction generator to charge a battery inside the iYo. Just play with it for awhile and when you’ve given the battery a charge, then connect your gadget to the iYo’s USB port and the power will be transferred.

Play is fun and all, but can you imagine all of the Geico caveman types that will break it. The same people who broke wiimotes because they don’t have the cognitive capacity to hold something and apply pressure so it doesn’t leave one’s grip. This could be fun. I can’t wait until we get Kerbanger hard drives and ball/paddle chargers that put people’s eyes out. As far as I’m concerned the world just got more interesting, because it got more dangerous with this concept.

The bend in lamp will make you feel like a cartoon character using one of those old horseshoe magnets, though it’s not branded ACME or anything. It’s a lamp that will stick onto most metallic surfaces, and obviously inspired by the magnet. The whole thing is comprised of two sections, the rubber tips and the lamp.

The magnets are in the rubber end so that when you place the tips on a metal surface, the magnets grab on, which triggers the internal switch, turning on the lamp. To switch off the lamp, just pull it away from the surface. It’s an interesting concept, but I’m not sure it does anything that normal lamps and flashlights can’t do. Might be good for workers that need portable lighting on the go, assuming they have metal surfaces nearby.

When it comes right down to it, entertainment is all about the sensory experience. It’s about feeling like we are there, even if we aren’t. The Wii has probably come the closest, but like other consoles, it leaves alot to be desired as far as fully immersing users. The Cocoon is a new VR system developed by NAU, which is a human-sized pod that you enter and it’s actually designed with videogames in mind.

The immersion and interactivity will take it light years beyond the Wii. It includes full 3D surround sound, and graphics as well as Internet connectivity, and could be the ultimate gaming environment to challenge friends from around the world. It may not show up in the home anytime soon, but when it does one future day, everything will change. Game graphics and audio are ready for it right now, but it’s the interactivity, interface, and total immersion that will set it apart. Most of Nintendo’s competitor’s were caught off guard with the Wii, but you can bet they are taking some serious looks at this future technology.

Gone are the days when you could come home from work and expect your wife to have your slippers, smoking jacket and pipe ready for you as you lay back in your EZ-Boy. Nowadays if you light up in the wrong place you’re likely to get kicked out,arrested and labeled a communist. But that all may change. In the future tobacco might be hip again.

The Eolos pipe is ready for such a world, thanks to designer Hakan Bogazpinar. It has a sleek sophistication that says I Like My Nicotine Like I like My Gadgets, shiny and emitting smoke. It even has a built-in “filter replication indicator,” letting you know when the filter is ready for changing. Of course in the future humans will have self-cleaning lungs so just light up and enjoy my friends. And if wives still wont bring you your slippers, your robot will.

When Moti Barzilay had to design something iconic in the Apple universe of products, something he felt was missing, the iShow was the end result. It’s a portable projector designed for Apple’s line of iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks.

The body turns on when you pull the two discs apart to reveal a pico projector and some ports. The projection system is LED based. Not very many details other then that, but since it’s a concept we can hope for HD resolution and the ability to roll itself around and take a charge by becoming a yo-yo and offering up some nice tricks with the string. That would be something to see Steve Jobs play with on stage.

With this concept Sony may be able to have just one gadget that does almost everything for you. It would serve as your phone, still-camera, video recorder, PDA, and music player all in one sleek little package. To lock it or to use it, you’ll need to twist the movable base. It features a 5 MP camera and has dual mode. You can use both the keypad or a stylus for input. It also gives you WiFi and music/video broadcasting capabilities as well as handwriting recognition. If it ever sees the light of day, it would be a runaway hit. We are all looking for that magic all-in-one device to lighten our load. But as cool as it is we don’t expect to see it for quite a while.

You don’t see concepts based on peas everyday. Designer Lu Le was inspired by the pea-pod for this wireless “dynamic audio environment” Pea Speaker system, which has seven Bluetooth-enabled speaker spheres, that can be spread around a room for a hopefully awesome stereo sound. The idea is not to have a more perfect surround sound system, but to more completely fill an area with sound. It certainly makes sense and is a great way to have music everywhere. Recharging of the spheres would be through induction when in the ‘pod’. This concept has a very good chance of hitting the market very soon.

The Spark Lamp concept by Beverly Ng is an LED lamp that you can flip over during the day to recharge itself using solar power. It’s designed to educate the owner about their power consumption. The lamp sports integrated WiFi which wirelessly keeps track of you home’s power usage. When you turn the lamp on, it will change colors and flash to tell you what your home’s power consumption is.

It’s no accident that it looks like a houseplant as a metaphor for how plants are powered by sunlight through photosynthesis. The Spark Lamp was created in reaction to the Swedish’s government response to the energy crisis. In Sweden, future homes will have smart meters that will give real-time feedback to homeowners on the internet. But data on a website is not all that engaging so the Spark lamp was developed to enhance the experience.

Look at this lamp. It wins you over just by doing nothing. Could be the work of an alien civilization and in all likelihood it powers a starship somewhere in a far off nebula. I would buy it in a heartbeat to give my place that Sci-Fi feel. Looks aside, the spherical shape and panels have a function, they adjust the lamp’s light levels to correspond with what’s coming in through your windows.

An internal 3 axis gearbox moves the panels and keeps your home at a constant light level even as the sun goes down. Pretty neat. But will it enhance my life by making me feel like I’m an important Sci-Fi adventurer? Will it wow my guests so that they think I’m an undercover alien? Yes and yes. Those are really the only questions to ask when considering a new lamp.

We’ve all been there. You need to pet your chicken even though your chicken is miles away. How do you do it? Maybe it’s sick of being fondled and that’s probably why the chicken crossed the road in the first place. It got sick of your harassment. Thankfully a group from the National University of Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab have developed a way to pet your chicken through the internet. No chicken will be safe!

The idea was inspired by acts of pets and animal abuse through lack of welfare. This system enables humans to provide care for pets even though they are physically not together. The system enables a human to remotely touch her pet which is kept at home while she is away (in her office), and at the same time monitor the movement of the pet. This is realized by using a doll, which resembles the real pet located remotely, sitting on a mechanical positioning table. The pet owner interacts with the real pet by touching the doll.

Making it’s debut at the 2008 Good Design Expo,(That’s debatable) cellular provider Willcom’s Kuma Phone let’s you talk to a bears nuts while you apparently listen to the voice come out of it’s mouth. Just plain looks wrong and takes the human/bear relationship to places it should never go. It’s totally a real phone. Just one you wouldn’t want to use in public.

It has a SIM card inside just like a real cell phone, and even stores four speed dial numbers, accessed through paw-squeezes. Awww. It vibrates and makes noises when you have incoming calls. When you get a call, just answer by gripping the bear’s tail and end the call in the same way. The Kuma Phone hopes to see the light of day at $500 a unit. I’m not sure how I feel about it. On one hand we’re talking a $500 cuddly bear phone. Which is insane of course. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to deny any bear it’s obvious pleasure interacting with a lovely Asian girl.

Those who are always looking for the latest innovations in tailgating will want to take a serious look at the Manvan. Designed by Aimee LoDuca, this oversized behemoth of a van targets football fans who need more nachos, more beer and just plain more of everything.

It’s inspired by the Nissan NV200, and can expand in the rear just like you after a huge meal. It will house almost everything that you need for indoor and outdoor use. We first told you about the Nissan NV200 almost a full year ago, but it’s still at a conceptual stage, despite being completely awesome and extremely useful. One day soon we hope to see it realized. Man’s first parties were in caves, man’s next parties will be in vans.

It’s claimed that the Peugeot 888 is the “personal vehicle for the future Metropolis.” I’d have to agree. Created by designer Oskar Johansen from Norway, the car has room for two and all of your luggage, but the best part is that it can shape-shift. The Peugeot 888 will lie flat on the highway for stability and aerodynamics. Once you hit the city, it sits up for easy parking and road sharing.

It also has green in mind for a bright eco-future, since it’s powered by electric motors in each wheel and lithium-ion batteries in the trunk. Oh, and it’s also covered with solar panels. So I think it qualifies as green for a good long while. The 888 is one of many entries in the Fifth Annual Peugeot Design Contest.

If fire extinguishers were more like Bazookas, I think more people would volunteer for the job. Fire AND shooting stuff? Hell yeah! Shooting fires out? Even better. This concept is modeled on a light-weight gun design and is loaded with CO2 cartridges with a laser guidance system, so you can hit the target in an emergency.

Just hit the alarm button to alert everybody else that there’s a fire and then pull the trigger and fire. It’s a great concept. Problem is, it’s so fun people would be starting fires just to put them out again. Just think, all those nerf gun hours you logged during your life could finally pay off.

Jukka Roitto has a concept device aptly named Seek, which will make navigating through unknown areas a breeze. The device straps onto your wrist like a watch and even doubles as a music player. Your wrist is a great place for your GPS after all since it’s always attached to you. Once again Sci-Fi predicts our future. How many times have you seen someone in a movie wearing this kind of thing on their wrist? Aside from GPS, I’m hoping it can also teleport you.