In all honesty, USBfever almost nailed this one. The $22.99 in-car charger plugs right into your cigarette socket and gives motorists their cigarette outlet back along with 4 charging USB ports. The one (admittedly massive) tweak we wish it would've made? Replace that cig adapter with a traditional AC outlet. Yeah, yeah -- that would make the whole thing a lot bigger, but you can't deny that it would be way more useful. Version 2, anyone?

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

Two 4x Wiimote charging stations in a week? Um, okay. If, for whatever reason, the Nintendo-licensed charger we saw just days ago wasn't right for you (read: too expensive to import), we've got yet another option for you to consider. Penguin United -- which gets brownie points on name alone -- has just unveiled the Quad Charge Station for Wii, which utilizes Li-ion batteries that promise 13 full hours of playtime from each Wiimote. Additionally, it can juice up your controllers in just 4 hours, and there's even LEDs to inform you of how close to full each one is. The real kicker? The colored Wiimote straps that PU tosses in -- huzzah! Include one in your next party for $44.99.

[Via IGN]

Nah, ICP Solar isn't trying to help create the next solar-powered automobile (at least not with this initiative). Instead, it's looking to all but eliminate the hassle of returning to a vehicle with a dead battery. Said outfit has just entered into a sales agreement with both the European and North American branches of Nissan for OEM solar chargers, which would essentially juice up one's main battery while the sun beams down in a grocery store parking lot. Curiously, there's no mention of what vehicles this will be integrated into, so we'll just throw caution to the wind and expect to see 'em on every last motorcar it produces in 2009.

[Via CNET]

Not that charging stations are a total rarity at airports, but Samsung is giving a nod to the little guy by adding a new fleet of 'em at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Unlike some alternatives, Sammy's stations deliver juice to cellphones, laptops and all manners of other gadgets gratis, which -- let's be honest -- is exactly how it should be. 22 new stations will be installed at MSP and ready for use prior to July 4th, so feel free to drain your lappie right on down prior to landing / connecting in the great state of Minnesota.

[Image courtesy of Really Sarah Syndication]

Oh yeah, we've seen dedicated battery pack extenders for a plethora of the most popular gizmos, but IOGEAR's looking out for the run-of-the-mill crowd with its GearJuice Rescue Charger. Essentially, the wee device accepts any 'ole AA cell, and upon plugging it into your mini-USB-equipped PDA / mobile / DAP / fish tank, it provides an infinitesimally small boost of power. Okay, so it's said to give you an extra 15 minutes of talk time, but we'd probably go in with even lower expectations just to be safe. It's available now for $11.99 (battery not included).

[Via Gearlog]

We know, it's tiresome scouring the streets for an AC outlet when you've got oodles of sunshine surrounding you. That's where Devotec Industries' Solar Charger comes in. The smallest (and freshest) addition to the company's line weighs in at under 80-grams and measures just 95- x 43- x 10-millimeters, and packed within you'll find an 1800mAh battery. Of note, users can also juice up the device via USB or AC for when cloudy days swoop in, and it comes bundled with a slew of tips to handle the most popular handsets out there. Yeah, it does take a full day of sun (12-hours, to be precise) to get this thing fully charged (or 4-hours by AC / USB), but then again, it'll only set you back £19.99 ($40).

We'll be honest -- we weren't exactly feeling blueLounge's grossly overpriced SpaceStation, but its boldly-named The Sanctuary actually strikes us as quite useful. The gadget organizer allows technophiles to stuff their handhelds into this black or white container for easy carriage / storage, and moreover, it includes a built-in panel of labeled plugs in order to connect all your gizmos to power at once. The unit comes with a dozen connectors for the most popular items around, but since it's universal, your options are bordering on limitless. Heck, there's even a USB port thrown in to charge any oddball device you may have laying around. Yeah, $129.95 is still a touch steep, but for the avid traveler who can never find room for 12 or so AC adapters in that carry-on bag, it's probably well worth the cost.

[Via iLounge]

We've seen self-healing materials and artificial arms, but a team of researchers hailing from UCLA have taken two fabulous ideas and wed them together to create "an artificial muscle that heals itself and generates electricity." Put simply, the contracting / expanding of the material can generate a small electric current, which can be "captured and used to power another expansion or stored in a battery." The scientists have relied on carbon nanotubes as electrodes rather than metal-based films that typically fail after extended usage, and in an ideal world, the research could eventually lead to (more) walking robots and highly advanced prosthetics. Integrate an AC adapter in there and we're sold.

[Via CNET]

We've heard of firms tinkering with the idea of converting excess heat directly to energy, and apparently, a team of scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have done just that. Oddly enough, the researchers admit that they're still unclear on how their findings actually work, but they've nevertheless discovered how to increase the conversion efficiency of converting waste heat to energy "by a factor of 100." The authors of the report suggest that clothing constructed of material embedded with thermoelectric modules could one day "recharge mobile electronic devices off the heat of one's body," and while we're certainly stoked about the idea, we're already conjuring up awful images in our minds about what this garb will actually look like.

[Via textually, image courtesy of FourEyesJokeShop]

USB devices do everything these days, including charge your gadgets with only the power provided by your breathing: specifically, the act of moving one's chest in and out. Just in case you thought this required sticking a gadget down your throat, see the image above and note that it's attached to the outside of the model's chest. The instructions for building your own breathing powered USB charger are over at instructables, and the kit only requires simple equipment like a spare CD drive, some elastic bands, and an electric circuit. You've got all that lying around, ain't ya? Well then, stick it all together and get breathing. Unfortunately, it only produces around 5 volts, so you'll have to breath a lot whole lot to get any meaningful charging time from this invention. And don't even think about attaching it to the cat.

[Via Gadgets-Weblog]

According to reports, a team of scientists have developed a battery which uses "betavoltaic" cells to keep chugging along for up to 30 years without the need for a recharge. If you believe what they say (and that's a big "if"), the battery uses a non-nuclear form of radioactive material as the basis for power, and that material gives off energy as it decays. Apparently, the batteries are small and thin, and when they've cashed in their energy-producing chips, they're totally non-toxic and inert. Sound too good to be true? Well you're not alone. Rupert Goodwins, of ZDNet, cleanly separates the wheat from the chaff by pointing out a number of problems with claims being made over the batteries, pretty much dashing any real hopes that these things will end up in your next laptop. Raining on the parade, Mr. Goodwins says that the atomic structure of the cells tends to fall apart when hit with high energy electrons, the "inert" battery would still be toxic should its housing ever crack, conversion efficiency would be 25-percent (an abysmal number, which also means 75-percent is heat), and finally, the cells would weigh something like 72-times more than conventional batteries. Guess we'll get back to watching the Orbo progress.

Read -- Scientists Invent 30 Year Continuous Power Laptop Battery
Read -- Radioactive laptops? Perhaps not...

Not even a week after startup WiPower boasted about its breakthrough in wireless power, Murata and Seiko Epson have announced plans to "jointly development a non-contact quick charging system." Reportedly, the technology "leverages electromagnetic induction," and both the charging stand and a given mobile device would be "respectively equipped with coils that generate power." As for the production, it sounds like Seiko Epson will hone in on the "transmitting side, or primary side," while Murata "will be involved in the production of the rechargeable Li-ion." The overriding goal is to recharge a handset "in about 10 to 15 minutes in a non-contact manner," which would purportedly push power transmission efficiency from current levels of 30- to 50-percent to nearly 70-percent. Oh, and we've already been assured that these "will not generate heat."

Hey, it's no shocker that Apple's iPod is a coveted item even for those who acquire their wares in less than legal manners, but a recent patent application from Apple shows that someone at Cupertino cares about you rightful owners out there. Essentially, the technology would invoke a "guardian" recharge circuit, which would disable any further charging if the computer (or "other recharger") it was paired with was of the unauthorized variety. According to Apple, this type of limitation would "serve as a deterrent to theft," and while we can only assume that it would be applied first to the iPhone and iPod, the application does insinuate that other handheld, rechargeable devices could eventually benefit from the invention.

[Via Slashdot]

Not too long after Belkin threw its name in the iPhone accessory hat, the company has now introduced a number of replacement iPod docks and charging kits. The $49.99 F8Z126 Power Dock AV is essentially a basic silver iPod dock that sports USB connectivity and AV output in order to pipe multimedia to your television set, while the vanilla $34.99 F8Z122 Power Dock strips itself of any video exporting abilities. On the charging side, the $34.99 F8Z152 Charging Kit for iPod consists of an AC outlet to dock connector cable, USB cable, and a cigarette adapter for road trippin', while the $24.99 F8Z121 Power Adapter for iPod offers up just the AC adapter for those strange moments when you can't seem to locate a spare USB port. All four units should be available any moment here in the US, while launches in Asia, Europe, and Australia will be following soon.

While there's a plethora of atypical options out there for charging up your gadgetry, oftentimes the need to charge up a number of items simultaneously leaves one frustrated by a lack of AC outlets or the brutal realization that you're cellphone charger is a thousand miles away. callpod's Chargepod isn't reinventing the charging wheel or anything, but its portable nature lends itself to the gadget-strapped road warrior who can leave six charging dongles plugged into the device itself and juice up half a dozen peripherals (presumably via USB) with a single power outlet. Notably, this rendition isn't designed to charge up laptops or your electric car, but the company does state that a second version is in the works to handle more demanding applications. The Chargepod can be snapped up now sans adapters for $49.95, and while this should be self-explanatory, feel free to click through for a demonstration if you're somehow still miffed.