Solar Handbags And Solar Back Packs

Okay, you've gone out and gotten the very latest in solar fashion, namely one of those Greenever solar baseball caps. Or maybe you prefer the safari look and you're now sporting a Hammacher Schlemmer pith helmet. As you shall learn, the cutting edge innovations in solar power aren't just for setting on your head!

Let's begin with handbags. How in the world, one wonders, can there be a solar application for a handbag? Brunel University student Rosanna Kilfedder thought long and hard about this, and she wound up designing the Sun Trap. It sports a solar cell on the outside of the bag to collect energy from sunlight and then stores it in a small internal battery. Whenever you unzip the bag (the zipper acts much like a light switch) the lining of the bags lights up. The bag's lining is fabricated from the same sort of electroluminescent material that's used in cell phones. Close the zipper and off goes the light. By the way, the portable battery can also be used as an emergency charger for a cell phone. Brilliant!

If there are such clever and innovative uses for a handbag, what about a solar powered backpack? There are plenty to choose from.

Voltaic solar backpacks are designed to allow you to charge many devices (but not laptops) without having to be plugged into a power outlet. They can handle cameras, cell phones, mp3 players, and more. The outside of this solar cell backpack has three waterproof solar panels that generate up to four watts, and a battery pack stores surplus power gathered by the backpack solar charger.

Eclipse Solar offers the Reactor solar backpack, made for commuters, students, and sportsmen. It has pockets designed to carry your cell phone, mp3 player, CD player, GPS unit, and your laptop. Like the Voltaic, however, you can't charge your laptop with its backpack solar charger. Made of denier nylon and weighing less than five pounds, the Reactor can trickle charge your devices while you're on a hike. The charger is rated at 2.5 watts.

Finally, to end up our review of solar backpacks, let's look at a product that hasn't arrived in the USA yet, but surely will soon. The O'Neill H2 solar backpack is currently only available in Europe so we're getting a glimpse of cutting edge technology here. The H2 offers a control panel for your iPod in one strap, and a microphone system for your cell phone in the other. Here's the really slick part: when you get a phone call the H2 pauses your iPod to allow the call to come through! Here comes the future!