Camping used to be about getting away from technology and the hustle and bustle of everyday life. But most camping gadgets and accessories these days are designed to make sure you still take some technology with you. Like this Coleman Inflatable Mattress. It features built-in speakers, insuring that while you are being one with nature, you also are never far from your tunes.

Just plug in your iPod or CD player and listen. Coleman also makes a model with a built in alarm clock, which is pretty handy if you’ve left your cellphone at home. All of these inflatable mattresses have a 4D pump, which is battery powered and hands free for easy inflation and deflation.

A few days ago we introduced you to Samsung’s Blue Earth, their solar powered touchscreen phone. Well, if you like your mobile phones eco-friendly, here’s another choice.

The ZTE Coral 200 Eco Phone is from Digicel, a Jamaican Mobile Carrier. It’s an entry level candy-bar style phone with a solar panel on the back which charges the phone up when the battery gets low. There aren’t a lot of features, but it does have a color display. It should be available by June of this year.

These Pixel art book jackets really add to your geek cred. They are a great way to not only dress up your books, but to add some decorative nerd-flair to your home.

The folks over at icoeye have compiled a great guide and a PDF that you can download to add some geeky style to your library. Pretty cool. You can download the template to create your own designs too.

Here’s a great redneck way to listen to your favorite tunes. Preferably outdoors, where you aren’t poking holes in the wall. But if you have to sit in the woods while rocking out, be careful that some hunter doesn’t take a shot at you, otherwise you and your headphones will end up on his trophy wall looking like the lovechild of Bambi and Elton John.

More likely you’ll just wear these around town at night and it will lead to reports of strange sightings of a new man-beast with antlers.

The iron is one of the few gadgets that has remained largely the same over time. Even this Steam Iron with LED concept doesn’t change it all that much. It features LED lighting that lets you know the temperature, with red presumably meaning that it’s hot and ready.

There’s also a soft silicone lining to prevent you from burning yourself accidentally, which is of course a big plus for you and the emergency room staff. Sure, it won’t iron your clothes all by itself while you play Xbox, but it’s an improvement. I mean, what else are you going to do to upgrade the old iron?

Pillows should be comfy, soft, yet not too soft. A cloud if you will, that will gently carry you off to dreamland. They should not be anything like this Hug Me pillow, which is a pillow that looks like it was delivered by the mafia on a night when horse heads weren’t easy to come by.

Do you want to sleep in the embrace of a dismembered arm? I don’t. But I’m sure it’s perfect for serial killers and the deranged as it will remind them of their last or next victims. The manufacturer should have just went all the way and added the blood and entrails.

Can’t seem to get enough sun for your gadgets? If only that great big fiery ball in the sky would stay still. It would make it so much easier for you to harness those rays. That ain’t gonna happen, but here’s the next best thing.

The Solar ChumAlong solar tracking system is a solar charging panel that automatically tracks the sun just like those expensive arrays you see in movies. But this one is portable and lightweight, so you can always have power. The solar panel is always facing the sun so you’ll always be able to juice up your gadgets.

Perfect for those romantic candelit dinners, it’s Lightware- the LED lit cutlery. This silverware features a silver head and an engraved crystal body, sure to add to the ambience of any darkly lit dining experience.

They have a small LED powered by a watch battery at the bottom. The electronic part can be removed for washing, because otherwise things would just get gross. Your fork will still stab, but now you will be able to see what you are stabbing. If these don’t impress your date, try the Lego cutlery. At least with those you can join her fork to yours and say something sappy.

We’ve covered our share of cheap crap gadgets ’round these parts, but sometimes what looks like a cheap gadget can surprise you. Like this Tripod MP3 speaker for instance. Yeah, iPod/MP3 speakers are a dime a dozen, but they aren’t all created equal. I picked up one of these Tripod speakers because although my laptop has great sound, it could be louder, so I figured I would take a chance on this one.

The design is cool because it pumps the music in three directions. And as far as loudness, it doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it’s surprisingly loud and I haven’t had any sound problems at all, like crackling etc. Just attach your MP3 player via the headphone jack, plug it into your USB port and you’re good to go.

This shark tea infuser makes it look like somebody just got chomped by a great white as it colors the water your favorite blood-colored tea. You may be tempted to stick your finger in and tempt fate, but don’t take the chance.

It’s a concept, but one that will likely be realized, what with the popularity of Shark fin ice cubes in cold drinks. Do people really love a Shark fin in their drink? Apparently so. Earl Grey never looked so dangerous.

Virgin Mobile USA has confirmed the Helio Ocean 2 release and has seen fit to shower the world with further details like features, price and availability. It’s dual slide design is similar to it’s predecessor, but this time it’s slimmer. Like you couldn’t have guessed that. Gadgets and models are always getting slimmer.

Some specs: 2.6″ TFT display with 240 x 320 resolution, 3G connectivity, GPS with Google Maps, Easy access to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr, Stereo Bluetooth connectivity, Media player with background mode playback, 3.5mm headset jack, Opera Mini, Mail for Microsoft Exchange, File Viewer with document editing capabilities, 3D gaming, 2 megapixel camera with location tagging and video recording, microSD memory card slot.

It doesn’t matter if you use your printer a little or a lot, we all still hate paying ridiculous prices for ink. But what if you could use old coffee grounds instead? That would beat the price of ink. It may sound crazy, but one day, who knows? Starbucks could resell their grounds for you to take home and put in your printer.(At a high price just like their coffee I’m sure.)

It’s a just a dreamy concept right now, but with the RITI coffee printer, you could drink your coffee and print with it too. The spent grounds would be poured into a cartridge and the printing mechanism would be moved back and forth by hand to create the image. I like the idea, but could do without the manual labor part. On the plus side, your resume might be judged by the aromatic quality of your spent coffee.

Out of all of the gadgets that we own, alarm clocks are our least favorite. They are probably the most hated gadget period. Anything that wakes you from your peaceful slumber on a daily basis deserves to be smashed, if not thrown out the window to be run over by a dump truck.

That’s the idea behind the Smash Clock. To turn off the Smash Clock’s alarm, there’s no fumbling required to find the right button. Just punch it. The top is nice and soft. By punching it aggressively, you wake up more fully, not to mention the fact that you’ve gotten some aggression out of your system first thing.

Buffalo has launched a 7 inch USB LCD display dubbed the Buffalo FTD-W7, for use as a secondary screen for you notebook or PC.
This tiny LCD display will give you a resolution of 800 x 400 and a contrast ratio of 500:1, and it connects to your PC via your USB port.

The cool part is that the screen swivels, making it even more useful. I might look into getting one of these as I’m planning on buying several hundred displays in my bid to take over the world. I’m gonna need screens for email, world maps, radar, etc.

Just in case of an emergency, it’s good to have a way to charge up your gadgets. Sometimes there’s just no available power source available though. With this SUPERBattery device from Datexx you won’t have to worry. It has you covered.

All you have to do is plug your gadget into the handy hand crank charger and start cranking. 2 minutes of frantic crank churning should give you about 6 minutes of talk time. The kit includes a hand-cranked 600mA rechargeable battery pack, built-in flashlight and an AC adapter which supports over 1,200 different mobile devices. It’s a pretty handy device. Who knows, it might even save your life.