Helios was clearly inspired by the Jurassic era, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Helios is a concept design for an off-road electric solar-powered vehicle. When you take a break from your off-roading and stop the vehicle, the car will spread its “wings” which are made of photovolatic panels, in order to capture the sun’s rays and charge up the battery.

You’ve seen the concept in nature, where some animals have stretchable skin that absorb heat and light. A lizard might stop on a rock to take a breather and as he does, he opens up his extra skin and recharges. Same thing here. The Helios Concept won the Best Use of Technology at the Interior Motives Design Awards 2008. Pretty awesome.

This is one of a small fleet of GPS and cameraphone equipped bicycles that Flickr has deployed in select cities around the world. It’s purple, solar powered, pedal powered, GPS powered and it probably needs a little basket with a bow to complete the girl’s bike look. The bikes have handlebar-mounted cameraphones (Nokia N95s, based on the metadata in the Flickr photos) that will snap a shot every 60 seconds while the bike is in motion. Then the photos get uploaded with the geodata, to a special Flickr account.

I have no idea what the purpose is, other then publicity. I suppose they could partner with Nokia etc and start selling these bikes. They are likely to be a nice collectible in a few years, so if you have one keep it safe. And try not to get into too much trouble snapping pics of drug dealers and uploading them.

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.

Air conditioners are not usually solar powered because they use so much power you would need a large surface area of solar panels to keep it going. What’s interesting here is that the GreenCore 10200 solves this problem by using a battery pack that it recharges continuously throughout the day. (It can also be charged directly from the wall)

The GreenCore comes with a configuration that will not be enough power to run the air conditioner completely on it’s own, but what it will do is save you some serious money on your next power bill by doing it’s part and it can be combined with other solar panels to supply its complete power needs. The technology looks pretty promising and can be used in a variety of ways.

This one was conceived as a green and portable commuter transport. What we have here is a fold-up bike that runs on solar power obviously. The name says it all. Power is stored in a battery that you can use at night, and you can even power your other gadgets, like your iPod.

It looks kinda cool in bike form, but when you fold it up it resembles an alien egg that appears to be sending signals to it’s home world. In fact it’s not sending signals, but it’s pointed upward so that it can track the sun’s movements in order to maximize the power it’s sucking down. Even so, it’s still creepy. One day it might get it in it’s head that you belong in that egg so it will keep you there as it points toward the sun, warming you in your egg, so that you can hatch out as a new lifeform.

The iPhone 3G does a whole lot more than its predecessor, and that means that the battery is going to drain much faster. All of those cool new apps will also suck up the juice. The iPhone 3G Solar Charging Case will offer some protection for your iPhone 3G and also has a built-in solar panel that will collect the sun’s rays and turn them into electricity.

Power is stored in a 1,500mAh battery that will give your phone a full charge. Recharge time is about 3 hours. It may not be the most beautiful of iPhone cases, but it’s a good option for those who are thinking green with their gadgets. The price is $54, while the sun’s rays are free.

Buffalo introduced their new BSKBW01SB solar powered wireless keyboard. It features a small and adjustable solar panel just above the number pad so you can better capture the sun’s sweet nectar. Maybe there’s only one tiny ray hitting your cubicle, if you get the right angle, you have power baby!

It also runs on batteries just in case you live in Alaska. It’s got 17 hot keys, does it’s thing in the 2.4 Ghz frequency and will give you a range of 10 meters. The keyboard will go on sale in Japan by mid July at a price of $135. You may be saving power, but not money.

Is Apple getting into solar power? It looks that way. According to Tradethenews.com, the company filed a patent involving placing solar cells on portable devices. This means that Apple’s iPhone or other devices could have photovoltaic cells stacked underneath LCD touch screens, which maximizes the area available for harnessing and soaking up the power of the sun.

According to the filing, performance info in regard to the performance of a device’s solar cells could be displayed on the main screen next to battery power, which makes sense. It could also appear on top of the actual cells, which could be displaying the Apple logo. Imagine less charging of devices. Then one day no charging at all. Nice.

Imagine a future where homes look like oversized futuristic gadgets rather then the same old stale design. The Reboot is designed not just to look pleasing, but also to be entirely self-sufficient. It has energy collecting solar paint, wind turbines and a rainwater collection system, for hydroelectric energy and water for the house.

The designer incorporates a variety of different renewable energy options together. Some of the features inside include, voice activated house controls and terminals throughout the structure that link to your home computer and phone line. It would be awesome to live in this house, but everytime I turned my back on it, I would feel like it was about to zap me with a plasma beam.

When you’re hell-bent on world domination, getting your hooks into little girls and hypnotizing those who love pink, then feeding them a steady diet of more pink cuteness, you want to harness an energy source that’s never ending. Like the sun. Once you do that, there will be no stopping you.

That’s why your pink feline overlord has given you this device. The Hello Kitty Solar-Power Charger can juice up almost any handheld device, whether it’s a phone, media player, or camera. And even if there is no sun, the charger can still be plugged into a DC outlet for up to six hours of power on the go.

The Ravi solar charger hopes to steer you toward greener living with it’s attractive flower-like design. The Ravi solar has photovoltaic arrays attached to petal extensions. The flower aspect is not just symbolic, it actually absorbs energy from the sun during the day, storing it in an internal battery. It gets some points for coolness due to the fact that the petals glow once the battery is charged. At night, you would have a kick-ass glowing garden. You would then remove the battery packs to power all of your home appliances.

The idea is that with gardens of Ravi portable solar generators in a neighborhood, enough power could be generated to supply the community, and if that can not be managed, it would at least lessen energy needs. It’s a pretty cool idea, but it has a kind of War Of The World quality that scares me.

Here’s another great gadget for those who are environmentally conscious. The Strapya mini solar cell phone charger is smaller than an iPod, and when it has 6-10 hours of sunlight it becomes a dependable backup power source for your cell phone.

It hooks up to your phone using an adapter and you can get 3 hours of energy. Not only is it useful and environmentally friendly, but the price is not outrageous at about $17.54. So it wont “Strapya” for cash. And hey, sunlight is free.

Citizen’s Eco-Drive line of watches run on natural sunlight as well as any artificial light absorbed through the crystal and dial. They claim that it converts any kind of light into electrical energy and that runs the watch. As long as it gets regular exposure to light, the watch will continuously recharge itself for a lifetime. The Radio-Controlled aspect comes into play with the ability to have radio synchronization on demand, or you can let the watch do the synch automatically.

The Citizen Alterna VO10-6573H features a durable aluminum case and is water-proof up to 100m. The watch is 10.2mm thick and only weighs 104g, with an accuracy +/- 15 seconds a month . It’s got a nice eye catching design overall, which it better have, since it will cost you $339.