GP's eco-friendly Solar Charger

Now, here's another way to do your part for the environment and save on your electricity bills at the same time. Instead of plugging into the mains to recharge your batteries, try the new GP Solar Charger, the company's first battery charger using solar energy. It comes with two thin-film solar panels laminated in UV stabilized and weather-resistant polymers. This supposedly helps make the charger more durable while minimizing its weight.

According to GP, it takes almost six hours to recharge two AA batteries (or 2 hours for AAA cells) under direct sunlight, which is slightly longer than what is usually expected of regular AC battery chargers. The advantage, however, is that the Solar Charger can be used outdoors where there is no access to the mains. Of course, with solar power being a free renewable source of energy, the Solar Charger also makes more economic and eco-friendly sense, too.

The GP Solar Charger was first launched in Hong Kong in mid-July, followed by Singapore last week. There is no word on when it will be available in other parts of Asia at press time. It will retail at S$39.90 (US$28.41) with two AA-sized GP ReCyko rechargeable batteries which have been pre-charged for use immediately after purchase.

60,000 Beijing 2008 Olympics coin sets up for grabs

Ever since the first Olympic coins were introduced in 1952 in Helsinki, the tradition has continued for all the Summer and Winter games. This year, the Beijing Olympics 2008 commemorative coins come in gold and silver and there are only 60,000 sets--each comprising six gold and 12 silver coins--available worldwide.

All coins feature a pair of dragons, emblem of the games, name of the country and the year on one side, while the reverse of the gold coins picture ancient traditional Chinese sports such as equestrian, archery, swimming, weight lifting, wrestling, and cuju (football games).


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In case you're too lazy to lick

Calories burned playing 30 minutes of basketball: 350. Calories burned taking a 30-minute yoga class: 160. Calories burned washing dishes for 30 minutes: 70.

How about the number of calories I'd burn licking an ice cream cone for 30 minutes? About 25 (although if you take the calories from the ice cream into account, then you burn, well, negative 175 calories). That being said, can someone please tell me why anyone would possibly need this motorized ice cream cone?

I'm no stranger to novelty candy. When I was in middle school, my friends and I would buy sweets by the grocery bagful and would use them as a local form of currency. The stranger candies would always be valued higher, since they usually came in containers that looked like paintbrushes, cars, milk jugs, or animals, and which could be kept and used to store other things (like our pog collections). Extra intrinsic value was awarded to anything that turned our tongues bright colors.
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In the moooood for a cow-shaped grill?

Vegetarians and animal lovers might want shield their eyes.

Produced by Traeger Pellet Grills, the Lil' Pig and Longhorn Steer are here to remind grill masters that what they are cooking was once in cute farm animal form. And yet, who can resist a novelty grill that boasts digital thermostat control, EZ-drain grease system, and 418 square inches of cooking space?

Yet cooks who aren't thrown by the campy eyelash-clad, smiling-animal grills, may be deterred by the price tag. Most wood pellet grills are expensive (ranging from US$600 to US$2,500) and the cow and the pig grills will cost US$1,700, including shipping.

The grills could also make for a pretty lawn ornament, but the real upgrade would be if they could moo or oink when the meat's done.

Via CNET Crave

Biodegradable running shoe joins race to curb landfill waste

Brooks' Trance 8 men's running shoes might be silver, blue, black, and gray, but they're actually quite green. The shoes feature Brooks' new BioMoGo foam midsole, which contains a natural additive that encourages anaerobic microbes to break the shoe down more easily once it hits the landfill.

The footwear company is debuting BioMoGo in the US$140 Trance 8 this month, with plans to extend the technology to all Brooks performance running shoes by the end of 2009.

Knowing how crucial sturdy shoes are to any runner, Brooks is making a point of stressing that shoes with BioMoGo midsoles won't just spontaneously fall apart in your closet or while you're taking a jog around the local track.
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