Nokia Announces Their Bicycle Charger Kit, Coming Later in 2010

Now there is an eco-friendly way to charge your cell phone, and it’s cheap. Nokia has announced their Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit, which can be used to charge any Nokia phone with a 2 mm charging port. As the name reveals, it is a bicycle charger. All you have to do is attach it to your bicycle and go for a ride, and your cell phone gets charged. Your phone starts charging when you are going at least 6 km/h, and it charges at the same speed as a wall charger when you are going at 12 km/h. That’s not as fast as it might sound, so it should be pretty easy to charge your phone even on an uphill. The maximum speed at which the Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit can charge is 50 km/h. The kit is dust and water resistant, and it can be installed on most bicycles. It also comes with a bracket and reusable ties so that you can attach your phone to your bicycle. In case you want to charge a device without a 2 mm jack, or one that charges via a micro USB port, all you have to do is pick up a micro USB adapter. This is not included with the kit, unfortunately. The Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit will be shipping worldwide at the end of this year for just €15. The Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit could be a great thing to take along on long bike trips or for navigating within the city, along with Nokia’s free turn-by-turn Ovi Maps navigation service.

Kiwi Choice launches U-Powered Portable Solar USB Charger

Kiwi Choice has launched its U-Powered Portable Solar USB Charger. The device is the latest solar charger that has been released in a long time from any company, and seems to have a lot of features to reintroduce to the solar charging market. The U-Powered Solar Charger is a small device that flips out into 3 small solar panels. The device is compatible with most devices, USB powered or not. Engadget has stated that it worked when they tested it with an iPhone but not with an iPad. The U-Power Solar Charger cannot only be charged from the sun, but also from any AC power outlet, car, or USB port. A cool feature of the U-Powered Solar Charger is that it has a 2000 mAh battery which charges when it is plugged in or in the sun. This should give you plenty of charging time for all of your devices. The device can be fully charged in 3.5 - 4.5 hours when it is plugged in or over 17 hours from the sun. The 17 hour charge seems pretty long but I guess that it could be worth it if you are somewhere where there is absolutely no power outlets. I think that the better option would be just to charge it at home and take it along with you. The U-Powered Solar Charger also has a built in flashlight, indicator lights to tell you when it is fully charged or still charging, and a magnet on the back so that you can stick it on anything magnetic. All this will cost you just $50, which is relatively cheap for a solar charger.

RCA AirPower Charges your Batteries with WiFi Signals

As cool as gadgets can be, they still always require batteries and charging. This is a hassle, but the RCA AirPower might put an end to having to stop to charge your batteries. RCA's AirPower is a device that charges your USB devices by converting 2.4 GHz WiFi signals into energy. This energy is stored in the AirPower, and can then charge your USB devices. After 6-8 hours of a constant WiFi signal availablity your AirPower will be able to charge your USB device in the same amount of time that it takes to charge it from a regular outlet. The AirPower will be very useful in our generation as there is WiFi signals almost everywhere. WiFi is also being added to most airplanes. A great thing about the Airpower is that it does not require the network to be unlocked. RCA is also saying that they will be able to embed this technology into devices, so there would be no need for you to carry around an extra device. There is no word on pricing or a release date yet but the Airpower is expected to be available sometime in the holiday season.