The Mitra, a stylish mini-PC that gets its power from the sun, is being targeted at people living in rural areas of India. This solar-powered mini-PC concept is intended to be used for online teaching, online medical help and online help for rural Indian farmers. Designed by Indian-based industrial designer Yogesh, the Mitra mini-PC has a small, clamshell-styled LCD display, a built-in LED projector, Wi-Fi connectivity and an onboard storage battery.

The mini-PC also performs as a portable energy-efficient notebook computer. Solar panels are fastened onto the body of the PC but in case of a rainy day, you can power the system using the hand crank. No word on when this device may become available.

Tags: hand crank, Laptops, pc, solar power

With all the talk about how we should wisen up when it comes to turning to proper charging for our batteries for use in gadgets, alternative manual chargers for mobile phones and MP3 players are being introduced one by one.

The latest manual charger that does not make use of electricity is the Super Battery which can be charged by cranking it up.

Any hand crank device always takes a little while, if you crank it for two minutes, that will give you six minutes of talk time on your phone. If you charge the battery up completely by plugging it in, it’ll give you four hours of talk time on your phone or five hours on your iPod.

If you’re in an emergency type situation, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the built-in flashlight as well. It also has a twin cable, which will allows you to charge two more devices overnight.

(Source) Technabob

Tags: batteries, chargers, flashlight, gadgets, hand crank, ipod, Mobile News, mobile phones, MP3 Players, Portable Devices