Sony Ericsson is getting environmentally friendly on us with their new super green concept handset. We love a good concept. It may very well just be someone's far fetched idea, but a concept gives us hope that one day in the distant future we may see that same concept again, but as an official product on the shelves of our local Dixons or Carphone Warehouse.

The GreenHeart phone is an eco-friendly gadget personified. It has bio-plastic casing, a recycled plastic keypad and a charger with 3.5mW standby power (The milliwatt is equal to one thousandth (10-3) of a watt).

Its eco-friendliness continues after the jump...

Hippyshopper has news of the latest Trevor Baylis eco-product coming out, in the form of this second generation wind-up media player. Whilst the first had a decidedly 'Hi, I'm an eco product!' look to it, the design of this one puts it amongst the big boys. Crank for just one minute, and you'll get 45 minutes of music playback.

And the specs are completely comparable to other less friendly players. There's music playback of MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV and OGG files, video playback of AVI, WMV and MP4 files, photo and e-book viewing, an internal memory and an SD slot for memory expansion.

The convergence of green and gadgets in the PC world has been a long time coming, but now it's here I think we're going to see a shift in how computers are powered. There's been a lot of talk lately about Google's plan to host their super-computers offshore (water and wave energy= green and cheap) so the fact that home PC's are now being equipped with energy saving devices is no surprise.

Shiny Shiny, Hippyshopper and Tech Digest are going green for the week, courtesy of Ethical Superstore. Never one's to back away from a challenge, we've accepted Hippyshopper's energy monitoring quest. This pretty much involves finding out whether we live in green friendly households that don't guzzle energy like it's going out of fashion, or whether our houses of residence are more the guzzling kind that appear not to give a hoot about the environment and would much prefer to make use of every electrical outlet around the house/flat.

Yes, that's right, four enthusiastic energy monitors - Me, Tech Digest's Duncan, Hippyshopper's Abi and Katie - will be finding out the horrible truth about our daily energy consuming habits. We've each been equipped with energy monitors to find out just how greedy or green our households really are.

See after the jump to find out who's testing what.

The clue is definitely not in the name with this corkscrew contraption - it has nothing to do with fire, despite what the name implies. It does however, have something to do with winding... and lighting and being eco-friendly for that matter. The "lava lamp of the 21st century" (dubbed by its creator) uses wind to power up, but rather than building up enough juice to give it a power boost, Firewinder utilises the wind to generate a pretty lightshow for plenty of oohing and ahhing... oh, and providing a light source on a cold and dark wintry night too. This is also the first time you'll probably appreciate blustery winds, because no wind = no lightshow. The faster the wind blows, the faster Firewinder spins and illuminates all 14 of its LED lights.

See what it looks like in action after the jump

Although the summer is more or less officially over, there are still a few sunny days coming our way over the next few weeks (fingers crossed). That's when you might just need a solar powered phone charger to give your phone the juice it lacks because you've been on it all day or forgot to charge it the night before. You may as well inject some fun and cuteness into it too, by purchasing this disposable Hello Kitty solar charger.

Its solar charging powers gives a firm salute to the green team, although it is a disposable charger, and with no mention of it being made from earth friendly materials, its eco-friendly status doesn't seem so eco-friendly after all.

Yes, it's here at last, your wait is over: the LED squeezable vampire bat torch has finally arrived!

OK, so maybe you didn't actually realise what was missing from your life, but now you've seen this eco-friendly glowing rodent*, you're all going to sleep easier at night knowing it exists in the universe. According to Abi over on Hippyshopper, it's eco-friendly, using LEDs and the power of squeeze technology to set the bat aglow. Just the thing for Hallowe'en.

Yours for £4.99 from Ethical Superstore.

*Yes, I know it's not really a rodent, but "glowing Megachiroptera" didn't have quite the same ring to it.

We like LED lighting around here, but it's even better when it comes stylishly packaged and has extra gadgety bits to get excited about too.

The Spark Lamp is not only a cool, contemporary low energy lamp, but it also comes with a wireless device that monitors the overall energy usage in your home. Oh, and it doesn't need any electricity for itself (it's eco-friendly, hello?), as it stores up sunlight during the day to get its juice. Just like a plant! Which is why it kinda looks like one.

[Via Hippyshopper]

More eco-friendly gadgets here

Mini notebooks, netbooks, sub-notebooks, ULPC's (whatever you want to call them) are great aren't they? But as far as design goes, they tend to be a bit run-of-the-mill - i.e. plain. That's what makes the Tokidoki mini laptop from Fujitsu such great eye candy, not to mention being a nice break away from the norm. Completely covered in Tokidoki characters, this Fujitsu laptop is incredibly lightweight and uses a super low amount of power when compared to your average laptop, giving a firm salute to eco-friendliness too.

Help the environment and look cool at the same time? Well you're not going to complain now are you? These funky looking laptop bags are created from recycled movie billboards. Every one is a little bit different, meaning you get a unique hand-made bag, which will keep your laptop snug all day long.

They're created in fair trade co-operatives abroad, and the proceeds from the bag go to helping underprivileged communities. I love the retro feel of the bag, and hope they'll have a movie poster that fits my personality. I think I'm an Ocean's Eleven kind of girl, don't you?

£60 from John Lewis

See here more more cool cases

We've oohed and ahhed over Mimobots at Shiny, craving their cute chunky bodies and colourful casing, but now we can help the environment at the same time. Seriously.

They've decided to team up their Treeson bot with their Mimoco's GreenBot USB Flash Drive Recycling Program. They'll collect old or defective USB drives, Mimobots or otherwise, and give you a Mimobot discount in exchange. The Treeson bots have a capacity of up to 8GB and come preloaded with exclusive digital content, from wallpapers to music.

Check it out here.

See here for more funky peripherals

Yes, I know it's not really necessary that the lid of my jewellery box be covered by a gossamer light butterfly which flutters its wings, but isn't it pretty? And if we're talking functionality, well I probably don't need that home planetarium, disco ball or oddly shaped lamp either. The wings are powered by the natural light in the room, so I'm guessing they use a very low level of solar energy to keep them flapping (more details aren't provided), and it will keep your treasures safe.

$15 from Brando

See here for more cute accessories

So, Surya, the world's first ecological nightclub has just opened, complete with its own wind turbine, solar energy system and electricity generating dance floor. It only opened recently and is already getting a lot of flak for not being as eco-friendly as it claims. Obviously, its creators are going to stand up tall and say it's completely ecological. However, that's all rubbish according to Friends of the Earth, who say the club's activities "are not compatible with their work to promote low-carbon living", and are more than a little peed off the club has decided to use their logo.

See how eco-friendly the club really is after the jump.

These bright little solar powered LED 'shrooms will make a lovely colourful addition to any garden. After eight hours of sunlight exposure these magic little mushrooms will give off a far-out glow that won't make you trippy, but will definitely create a stunning ambience and enhance your shrubbery.

You get four whimsical mushrooms that continuously cycle through a spectrum of colours, so it'll make your garden look superiorly cool to your neighbour's garden. It's also a great eco-friendly way to give your garden light after hours and give your gnome friends a colourful sanctuary.

Why not showcase them at your next barbeque for £34.00 here.

[via Hippyshopper]

Visit the HippyShopper for more like this

Do you sometimes wish you could do more for your environment but can never be arsed to actually put your plastic bottles and cardboard into the designated bins? As Tesco says, every little helps, so if you can't be bothered to recycle, you could always contribute and do your little bit with this cool little alarm clock that's powered by plain old water and a pinch of salt. Generating electrical power from water doesn't require any convoluted science-y equations to work. Ok, so maybe it involves just a little bit of science, but it's secondary school stuff. The water powered Bedol Wall Wave Clock has electrodes that use the ionization in the water to generate enough current to run the LCD clock. I'm going to omit the part about the pinch of salt - no idea?

You won't be able to save the world just yet because it's not out until August 15, but it'll retail for only $19.00 USD and comes in a variety of colours, so hopefully that'll keep you sweet until then.

[via Gadgets Weblog]

More environmentally products here

Relentless computer users... seeing as you're on your computers all day and night - downloading/watching early morning porn/because you couldn't be bothered to switch it off - why not invest in something that'll reduce your carbon footprint?

That's where the Eco Button comes in. Simply plug it into your computer's USB port, and give it a tap each time you know your going to leave your computer idle for a considerably lengthy amount of time. This will send your computer into a low power state, generating as little power as possible. Upon your return, it will tell you how many carbon footprints you've saved, so you can feel all warm and tingly inside (or whatever it is you feel when you've done a good deed). That's not the best bit, this is - the Eco Button software will let you know how much money you would have spent had you let your PC just sit there, wasting energy with the power on.

Washing machines aren't usually a hot topic on Shiny, unless it does something amazing like remove your clothes and iron them for you, or if it's from Hello Kitty of course. What makes this particular washing machine special is that instead of using water, it uses plastic chips, friction and solvent to get your clothes clean.

For those who now have confusion written all over your face, see after the jump to see how it works.

Harnessing the sun's rays seems to be a popular choice for chargers at the moment. It's safe to say it's due to the summer why we're being bombarded with solar-powered chargers, and that come winter, these eco-friendly chargers will not be the topic of anyone's conversation.

Rather than bring you something similar to chargers we've seen in the past, the Wind Charger makes a bit of a change. It requires you to work a little before it rewards you with enough power to charge your gadgets though. So if you don't want to work to acquire power, stop reading now. It's simple - mount it on to your bike and convert passing wind (no, not the flatulent kind) into power. It also has USB output as well as phone and game connectors.

Freesheets - the plague of the 21st century city. Rehashed news and aggressive distributors who will shove a copy of their paper into your hands whether you want them or not. G.a.h.

But this designer is hoping she's found a use for them. The Unbrella is a concept which allows you to insert your crappy newspaper into the umbrella skeleton, and use the paper as a canopy. Perfect, unless you get a seriously heavy downpour (or unless you're in a freesheet-free location, lucky sod).

[via Yanko Design]

For more eco-news, check out Hippyshopper.

Roberts is definitely going to score some major green points with their latest eco-friendly effort - the solarDAB. Not only is it the world's first solar-powered digital radio, but unlike a lot of solar-powered gadgetry, it doesn't need to be in the sun to provide your radio with juice - Marconi would be so proud.

When not directly exposed to sunlight, it is the solar panels and built-in rechargeable batteries that give the solarDAB its energy for up to 27 hours of music listening. It can also run off the mains if you want to reserve its power for when you really need it.