As February comes to a close, it’s again time to pick our favorite gadget from this month. Although this gadget is just a concept, we simply couldn’t resist. The winner for February is… Read more »

Sony’s in-house “odo” team, based in California and with some help from Japan, was put together to design devices that tap into the “creativity, curiosity, and energy” of children in developing nations and that are capable of operating in extreme temperatures without the need for power supplies. Their latest imagining is a self-charging digital camera.

The camera resembles a white, plastic pizza cutter, and it is charged by rolling the wheel at the top on any surface. 15 seconds of rolling should generate enough power to take one picture - not a bad tradeoff considering that the thing never needs to be plugged in. Read more »

Designers from Singapore have come up with a concept mouse that can use the heat generated by a laptop to power itself.

The DORmino mouse works by placing an oversize mousepad under a laptop which then collects the extra heat and turns it into electricity using silicon nanowires. The electricity is then sent to the mouse, resting on a different part of the pad, via an induction coil. This mousepad can be rolled up when not in use for easy transportation.

The mouse itself is an ordinary wireless mouse with the exception that it doesn’t ever need to be recharged. One of the more interesting features is a “touch screen scroller” which lets you scroll by moving your finger up and down a sensor on the mouse where an ordinary scroll wheel might be.

DORmino is pretty far-fetched, but is certainly feasible with today’s technology. However, it would probably be a bit expensive as all of this technology isn’t cheap. Either way, we love to see new eco-friendly innovations such as this. Diagram of how the DORmino works after the jump. Read more »

Nokia has recently announced their Morph concept, a gadget which should (in about 100 years) replace everything you carry in your pocket today.

Featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition, the Morph aims to be the only gadget you’ll ever need due to its adaptable nature. Made of flexible and transparent materials, Nokia imagines this gadget taking on just about any shape and size.

For example, it can start in the shape of a cell phone, but then unfold into a screen to view movies and other media on. This larger screen would incorporate input devices such as keyboards and touch pads as well to allow for communication. It could then be folded up into a bracelet that you wear on your wrist. As Nokia says, the Morph would “allow us to communicate and interact in unprecedented ways.”

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What do you get when you cross an iPhone with an iPod shuffle? An iStick, of course! Designer Alexei Mikhailov has dreamed up this gadget to show what he thinks that hybrid should look like.

The iStick is modeled after a tube of lipstick. However, all four sides have a touchscreen providing for a slick interface.

While the device isn’t for movie or photo viewing, it would be perfect for listening to music. It’s small, light, and has the same great interface as an iPhone. The iStick would also have Coverflow to let you scroll through album covers for an added effect. WiFi is also built in to browse iTunes.

The pictures also show some tiny wireless headphones. We’d really like to see some of those.

The concept is great, but it would be pretty hard to fit all that technology into a device as compact as the iStick. We’re also wondering what the gray end cap is for. Maybe you can twist it around as another way to interact with the gadget. Hopefully we’ll see a similar device from Apple sometime in the future. More pictures after the jump. Read more »

The Woood Smart Phone, envisioned by UK designer Gernot Oberfell, is a notable mention of the 2008 Greener Gadgets Design Competition. It seeks to provide a greener alternative to today’s mostly-plastic cell phones.

Just like the Chute Smartphone, Woood is made of, well, wood. Actually, it’s a wood composite containing up to 80% natural fibers. Components like the buttons and endcaps are made from biodegradable plastic, to ensure that most of the phone can be recycled.

The phone would be very friendly to touch and feel, just like real wood. It would also age over time, changing its appearance for the better.

With so many cell phones being disposed of every year, Earth-friendly phones would be a welcome addition. Provided its good looks and green nature, the Woood would definitely be a hit. More images after the jump. Read more »

Designer Mac Funamizu has created a gadget showing what he thinks the future holds for mobile devices. The “near” future, he claims. It includes a touch screen, built-in camera, scanner, WiFi, Google Maps and Google search support, and even an image search, all in a tiny and beautiful package.

Although the concept is pretty far out for today’s technology, it might indeed be possible sometime in the future, and it would probably be one of the most useful gadgets we own.

The device would be able to give you all sorts of information about what you are looking at through its screen. Simply touch the thing you want to know about - be it a word in a book, a floor on a building, a car, or even some food - and the definition pops up right next to it on the screen.

We love the idea and can only hope that technology will some day allow it to become a reality. This gadget could be tech equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, especially if someone can build a cell phone into it as well. More pictures after the jump. Read more »

Young Optics Inc., a company that creates optical components and optical engines, has announced that they will be shipping a pico projector either at the end of this quarter or the beginning on the next one, meaning that we will see a tiny projector in the next few months.

The devices are expected to run on only 1 watt of energy and, using an LED lamp, will be capable of displaying 7 ANSI lumens of brightness. The pico projectors will use the Texas Instruments DLP display technology.

A name or price has not been announced yet. However, with the release date imminent these details should emerge soon.

With this projector we could finally see an explosion in mobile video. A pico projector would probably mean bigger storage in mobile phones so we can cart around big video files and view them anywhere at a decent size. Hopefully the big mobile phone manufacturers will take advantage of the technology when it’s released.