This USB 2.0 compliant 4-port hub doubles as a solar charger. Six included adapters allows you to charge just about any cell phone, MP3 player or other digital product available.

This solar charger can be recharged through direct sunlight, AC power or car power. It is convenient for you to take along with when you are out on business, on travel, on a long journey on bus or ship, etc. It is a portable, environmentally-friendly, lightweight, durable and versatile solar charging product.

Features:

• Portable and convenient power back up for your devices
• Use the sunlight to charge your mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players, MP4 players, PSP or NDS Lite
• Built-in lithium battery can be recharged by sunlight, AC power and stored
• USB 2.0 4-Port hub
• Fully compliant with USB 2.0 specification
• Backwards compatible with USB 1.1
• Plug and play
• Supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OSX and Linux
• Dimension: 64 x 64 x 16mm (approx.)
• Weight: 54g

The USB Solar Charging 4-Port Hub is available over at the USB Brando website for $20.

The UV monkey is a handy mini UV ray detector – small enough to hang on a keychain.

Just expose it to sunlight and it’ll tell you how strong the devious rays are at that precise moment, taking just a few seconds to give you a simple read-out on its cute purple scale. Each part of the scale corresponds to the UV warning scales used in national forecasts too, so you’ll know precisely when to pop your hankie on your noggin and roll down your trousers.

The UV Monkey is available from the Firebox.com website for £3.95 (about $6 USD).

In these days of global warming maybe it isn’t such a bad idea to slip this slim UV card inside the pocket before you go out to face the sun.

Specifications:

• Induct the current UV intensity in 3 seconds
• LCD display
• Display UV with 8 levels
• Display temperature
• Size: 85 x 55 x 2 mm
• Weight: 30g

The UV Card is available from gadget4all.com for $11.50.

Ralf Ottow, a Dutch optics engineer, has designed the Maxblaster – a flashlight powered by 54 batteries, capable of producing a beam of light four miles long.

Ottow stripped out the innards of a powerful commercial flashlight and switched in a mercury arc bulb, which generates light by creating an ultra-hot plasma between two closely spaced electrodes inside the gas-filled central chamber of the lamp.

That results in a brighter, more focused beam but also kicks out more ultraviolet light (hence the sunburn, a product of early testing). So he added a specially coated reflector and designed, ground, and coated a new glass window that would trap UV rays while still pumping out light.

More info at Popular Science, where you’ll also find a Maxblaster gallery.

Via a bunch of great blogs:

• Dvice
• Engadget
• Gadgettastic
• Gizmodo
• New Launches
• Prylfeber