Solar-powered gizmos and gadgets have been around for a long time now. So it’s not really surprising to me that Casio is releasing a line of solar-powered watches. They are a bit on the ugly side in my opinion, but it’s a start. Funny thing is, it’s based on technology and ideas that have been around for decades. For example, it used to be harder to find a calculator that ran on batteries then it was to find a solar powered one.

What IS surprising to me is that there aren’t so many more solar-powered versions of things that people use every day. It’s not like the technology isn’t there. Solar panels and batteries have gotten a heck of a lot better in the last 20 years (and especially in the last 10). There is no reason why there shouldn’t be solar-powered cell phones, laptops, car battery booster cables with a battery charged on solar power (to say nothing of the solar-power car industry, which is going to look pretty interesting over the next 15-30 years).

There are a few ways to add solar-power functionality to some of your everyday stuff, from companies like SolarStyle, who have a line of solar battery chargers you can use with things like cell phones, pdas, etc….but why isn’t this technology being put directly into the cell phone or pda in the first place?

Do we really need to look back to the 80’s to see how useful solar-power can be? How many of you had one of these calculators, or one like it, years and years ago? I sure did. Hopefully my future children will be able to say the same about their first car, or house, or at least their cellphone or other gadgets.

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