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Diffus Solar Handbag charges your cell during the day, may actually leave the closet
Sure, solar-paneled bags are occasionally practical and always geeky, but the women in our lives wouldn't dream of letting us walk around with one, let alone using one themselves. That soon may change. The Solar Handbag from Diffus, a Danish design studio, integrates 100 "solar sequins" in a pattern that ladies may actually find socially acceptable, perhaps even attractive. During the day, the bag is capable of generating 2 watts of power, enough to charge many portable gadgets. After the sun sets, however, any leftover energy is redirected to a set of optical fibers, which glow whenever you open the bag to search for mascara, ABC gum stuffed in crumbled receipts, or whatever else you've decided may never leave your side. There's no word on whether the bag will actually come to market, but if it does go to production, it may just end up being affordable, given that many handbag budgets far exceed the amount we set aside for gadgets.
Diffus pollution dress is turned on by CO2, prefers a clean environment
We've seen LED-laced dresses before -- though sometimes we'd rather we hadn't -- but this one here is almost refined enough for us to consider wearing. Stitched together using conductive embroidery, hundreds of LEDs are connected to a CO2 detector and react to its input with anything from a slow pulsating glow to a blinking signal of doom. No mention of Morse code messages, unfortunately, but this is run by an Arduino chip -- which means programming malleability (read: near-limitless possibilities) should be built in. Just know that when you see the next Bond girl communicating with Daniel Craig via her haute tech outfit, we had the idea first. A closeup of the dress and processor awaits after the break.
