Sure, there are plenty of solar powered chargers to charge your gadgets, but few are as sexy or as versatile as the forthcoming Regen ReNu. The solar panel is used along with one of several optional bases. These include an iPod/iPhone dock, a sound dock with it’s own speakers, and an LED desk lamp.

The built in battery constantly stores juice even when your iPod isn’t docked, so that the ReNu can then transfer the charge into your device. It can even pull power from a wall socket if you don’t have light in your space.

Looking for a radio that both Ewoks and hippies can endorse? Here it is. The Log Radio. A wooden wonder device that looks like the escape pod that R2-D2 and C-3PO took to Tatooine. It’s from designers Solène Le Goff and Christophe Gouache.

The radio is powered by solar or wind-up. It should work for a good long time until Squirrels start living inside or your senile dad chops it in half for the fireplace.

Your choice of e-reader devices continues to grow rapidly. And now LG is showing off its Solar Cell e-Book reader. The prototype has an energy conversion efficiency of about 9.6 percent. That means that it gives you an extra day’s worth of power to continue reading on that 6-inch TFT-LCD after four to five hours in the sun.

LG is working on getting that solar cell energy conversion efficiency rate to 12% by 2010 or up to 14% by 2012. Great news for bookworms, not so great if you have to read for your homework.

I always forget to bring my Bluetooth headset inside from my car and charge it. That means each time I want to use it the thing is usually dead. i.Tech has announced a new Bluetooth headset that will help me stay powered up for hands free use called the SolarVoice 908.

The device has solar panels on the back to help charge the battery and features sound reduction technology to eliminate background noise. The headset also uses a design that allows air to flow to the ear canal so your ears don’t feel plugged up when you wear the headset.

Sanyo’s line of Eneloop batteries are as green a battery as you will find and they have some more improvements to make them even more Earth friendly. These newly upgraded Eneloops can be recharged around 1,500 times, which is said to be a new record for the industry.

The batteries come pre-charged from the factory using clean energy from renewable solar power. If we had to guess, we would say that the other big names in batteries are watching very closely indeed.

LG has unveiled the LG GD510, a nice loking and compact 3-inch full touchscreen phone with WQVGA display resolution (240 x 400), 8GB internal memory and a 3 megapixel camera. The LG GD510 is made from brushed aluminum and features a single button on the bottom of the face that functions as the menu, end and cancel keys, depending on what mode the phone is in.

The focus is on an optimized feature set for a more compact phone that’s easier to use. Apparently the GD510 has an optional solar panel add-on, which replaces the battery cover with a solar panel for recharging.

Solar power has come a long way. They used to be something you only saw on hippie communes and Sci-fi movies. Solar panels are on everything now, especially our charging gadgets. The latest to sport a solar panel is the Surge iPod Touch charger, which allows you to recharge your iPod Touch anywhere, as long as you have sunlight.

The case features a 3.7 V lithium-ion battery that can be charged via the sun or by USB should it be cloudy. It comes in a bunch of colors. We aren’t sure if they have chargers for the other iPods, but at least your Touch is covered.

Solar Technology’s CamCaddy universal camera charger is already available in a bundle with the company’s Freeloader Pro solar charger, but now it’s available by itself. The charger isn’t 100% “universal”, but the company says it should be compatible with over 85% of the proprietary batteries used in digital cameras, camcorders and DSLRs, and if you are unsure, just check their website before you buy.

The charger is also of course still fully compatible with the Freeloader and Freeloader Pro, and it comes with a car adapter, a USB charging cable, and US and Euro plug adapters so you should be covered.

Safaricom out of Kenya has rolled out its latest solar-powered cellphone dubbed the Simu ya Solar. The handset was constructed using recycled materials, while an integrated solar panel makes sure that your phone always have some spare juice.

This one is great for users who are in rural areas where electricity is hard to find and sunlight is plentiful. Another benefit for those users is that even if they do have access to electricity, they will save money by letting the sun do it’s thing rather than charging it and wasting resources.

We all know that you can’t look important and worldly unless you have a globe sitting in your office. When that globe holds liqour, well, you the man. Start drinking in North America and don’t stop until until you’ve hit Antarctica.

No matter what latitude you are drinking at, you’re sure to impress your drinking friends. The world is yours and it’s filled with liquid spirits. That’s not the room spinning, it’s the Earth. Only $39.99. It may look huge, but it only measures 13” x 6½” and 4½” and holds 55oz. So what we really need is Jupiter. Oh yeah.

The ideal phone would never have to be plugged in or at least would need to be plugged in only rarely. The reality today is that high-end devices like the iPhone burn lots of battery power and require almost daily charging to remain usable.

A company called MotionTouch has announced a new charger for the iPhone that is eco-friendly and charges by light. The device has a solar cell on the back of the sleeve that can gather power from some ambient lighting and from the sun.

If you enjoy carrying your speakers around with you, check out these Devotec Solar Sound Bluetooth Speakers. They come with a pair of 2W drivers, Bluetooth and AVRCP support, along with a 3.5mm jack and a 1,500mAh battery that should provide up to 8 hours on a single charge.

Don’t worry, you won’t be a complete slave to the sun. If you choose not to invest the 12 to 24 hours it will take to charge via solar, you can power it up via USB for 4 hours or so.

I know a few people that can’t go without their phone or sending a text message for a few minutes without nearly go into full panic mode when in an area without service. These same folks would want a text messaging device rather than food if stuck on a deserted island.

For the globetrotting fan of text messaging and two-way communications a company called Solara has announced a new 2-way handheld interactive satellite text messaging device. The unit has a screen that lets users read and write text messages that can be sent and received from anywhere on the planet.

DoCoMo is working on the Solar Hybrid phone, a “solar-powered” phone that is also rugged enough to be “waterproof”, according to DoCoMo. It comes with an 8 Megapixel camera too, so this one is made for outdoor shooting.

It’s not entirely “solar-powered” as it can’t run on solar power alone. It’s more of a “solar assisted” device. 10 minutes in direct sunlight will give you a whopping 1 minute of talk time. Oh and “waterproof” means that the phone can stay in water for 30mn and no deeper than 1 meter.

Here come the flesh-eating machines. The EATR project has hit a new milestone in the development of the reconnaissance bot, successfully coupling a steam generator with a compact biomass furnace. This means that it is possible for an autonomous machine to forage for and refuel itself with biomatter, otherwise known as our corpses.

They call it fuel versatility, as gasoline, diesel, and solar power may also be used. But our guess is that flesh tastes much yummier to robots. So run until you fall, at which time an EATR bot will finish you off for lunch. Humans USED to be the top of the food chain…