Instructables has a post here on how to make a small solar generator which can power small appliances or recharge gadgets. Or if you prefer to charge your gadgets on the go the DIY juice pouch instructable might be for you.

Those of us who catch public transport know it’s many benefits. Aside from being environmentally friendly there is the added bonus of catching up with tasks you might otherwise not have time for. Reading, writing, assignments and possibly best of all - sleeping. However if sleeping on a stranger’s shoulder is not your thing then take a look at Mathew Gale’s jacket for sleeping on public transport.

Via Gizmodo (which has some very amusing comments)  and Treehugger

If you like the idea of growing vegetables or herbs indoors without using much space (or light) then look no further then Aerogarden. This gadget uses about 60W of electricity and you can grow plants even if you don’t have any yard space or much sunlight indoors. It doesn’t use any soil, isntead it uses NASA tested aeroponic technology using nutrient tablets which it claims produces 100% organic plants. It’s currently only available in the US and Canada (runs on 110V 60 hertz AC).
Aerogrow via Inhabitat

Instructables has a tutorial on how to create your own solar panel (or jellyfish!) out of broken bits of solar cell pieces. Although it’s not exactly for beginners it is definetely do-able and it ends up in a very cool mosaic effect too.

LightCap - Solar Powered LED Light & Water Bottle by SolLight.

This very cool water bottle doubles as a night light or camping light (or power outage light). You can switch the light from white to red depending on how much light you need. It needs about 4 hours to recharge in the sun and will work for many hours. Very handy for kids who wake up to have a drink of water throughout the night (like mine).

Sanyo in Japan has announced the world’s first washing machine which not only offers a waterless air wash to replace having to send clothes to the dry cleaners but it also recycles water when you are using it’s water cycle. The super washing machine also dries clothes and kills bacteria.

With ‘AQUA’, which is the world’s first*1 washer/dryer to utilize ozone, which enables ‘reduction of water’ and ‘recycling of water’, SANYO has broken away from conventional thinking and is offering a completely new cleaning technology.

Aqua via The Sietch Blog

If you run any of your appliances off battery banks you might find this bike generator handy. It is simply a frame into which any bike will fit and when you are finished generating electricity you can quickly release the bike to use for the road again. The generator apparently creates 150 to 200 watts easily. You can buy the generator ready assembled for $289 (US only) or you can buy the plans for $35.

Pedal a Watt Via Hugg

These solar powered flowers light up at night with fibre optic strands and LEDs. They use small solar panels to charge up during the day. They’re weatherproof, make great addition to the garden and are nice for parties too.

Solar flowers via Hugg

If just 10% of the worlds cell phone users unplugged their phone chargers when their battery is full, they would save enough power to power 600,000 homes for an entire year. So imagine if just 10% switched to recharging their phones using alternate means. Such as a solar charger. You can pick one of these up for about $20-30 (Ebay) or more for a product such as Solio’s chargers.

The way they work is that the charger has it’s own battery which you can charge with the sun (or by plugging it in to the wall if you wish). You can then transfer this charge to your phone any time you want to. This type of charger is very handy not just for energy saving purposes but also in emergencies such as if you are in a remote area.

OOOMS are a design company in the Netherlands who have quiet a few interesting inventions amongst which is this Rollator. The idea is that you walk on it kind of like a treadmill and it gets you from A to B three times as fast as the speed at which you are walking at. There’s a video of this machine in action at their web site (I can’t give a direct link to the product as the site is all Flash)