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Concepts - Inventions

Imagine being able to charge your phone with nothing more than a summer breeze or the rays of the sun. That’s the idea behind the Aeolus phone, an eco-friendly, low-energy cell phone made of renewable materials that lets you charge its battery without any reliance on grid electricity at all concept.

 
Concepts - Inventions

Even though we now have more resources available than ever to make our lives easier, many of us can’t seem to find time to squeeze in some exercise every day. Between work, family and social commitments, the day just gets eaten up. This stationary bike workstation can help combine some daily activities with exercise to make it easier to stay fit. In order to power a laptop, portable DVD player or other plug-in gadget, the user has to pedal the bike and create his own electricity.

 
Concepts - Inventions

If you’re going to go ahead and spend all of that money on a MacBook, chances are you’ll want to keep it around for a while. This awesome case is the best way we’ve found to do that while still maintaining your strict GQ (Geek Quotient). The Bookbook from Twelve South is custom-made to fit the MacBook and MacBook Pro, but it’s not one of those boring neoprene numbers: it’s a sweet hardcover leather-bound book laptop case.


 

It looks like the hard covers of the book would give decent shock absorption, and the velvet interior will keep your prized possession from developing any horrifying scratches. Plus, working with the cover on will make you look like the geekiest geek to ever geek out on a MacBook in public.

And what better disguise for an expensive laptop than an old book? Some unscrupulous fellow at the local coffee shop may be all too willing to wlak off with your expensive new laptop, but will he bother grabbing a dusty old tome? Dual zippers that look like bookmarks add to the convincing disguise. For the extraordinarily gifted crafter, this might not be too hard to throw together at home. But for the rest of us, Twelve South can hook you up with one of your own for $79.99.

 
Concepts - Inventions

(image via: Julie_Berlin)

There are certain things that most of us take for granted – like well-lit streets. But leaving street lights blazing at all hours of the night, even in towns that don’t see much foot traffic, doesn’t always make ecological and financial sense. A handful of German towns are trying a rather unconventional solution – a program called Dial4Light, which requires users to activate lights with their mobile phones.

The small town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz first decided to turn off the lights altogether as a cost cutting measure, but residents weren’t too happy about having no choice but to stumble down pitch black streets. Enter the wonders of modern technology. With the Dial4Light program, pedestrians can activate the streetlights with a simple phone call.

 
Concepts - Inventions

douglas engelbart world's first mouse

Just about everyone who uses a desktop computer uses a mouse of some kind. It’s become an indispensable piece of technology that we just couldn’t live without. It wasn’t always so, though. The mouse was invented in 1964, and the first one was little more than a block of wood with a single button. Since then, the mouse’s overall design hasn’t changed much, but its form certainly has.

 
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