You may remember that one of the big announcements by Samsung at MWC '09 was that of the Samsung Blue Earth S7550, a solar-powered phone that's made up of recycled plastics used in water bottles. In this video, the phone is showcased in a straight-to-the-point manner but impresses nonetheless.

The Samsung E1107 is also known as “Crest Solar”. Made for markets including India, Europe, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and Latin America, the E1107 is a solar powered handset and for every hour of charging, it will offer 5 to 10 minutes of talk time. The phone's other features include:

• dual GSM (900/1800MHz)
• 1.5-inch screen
• FM Radio, MP3 ringtones
• Torch
• Fake Call (for those uncomfortable situations)

Read more about Samsung's commitment to the solar panel mobile market here.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Yesterday (12 Feb 09) unveiled the innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone "Blue Earth".

The phone is designed in the shape of a smooth well rounded pebble and is constructed of recycled material reclaimed from water bottles. By charging the phone with the built in solar panel on the back cover, Samsung claim that “users can generate enough electronic power to call anytime anywhere”. This could come in pretty handy with our current situation in SA.

Just the Solar Power feature alone turns me on, however the unit also looks great and features a full touch screen, boasts a list of “eco friendly” applications; such as a one click “Eco mode” and “echo walk” allowing the user to calculate how many trees are being saved by walking.

Hey guys, have any of you seen the solar powered traffic lights that are being used in our country? I heard about this a long while back, but I only saw these traffic lights during my holiday in Cape Town.

These traffic lights are really cool, as they have a drastically reduced running cost due to the fact that they use solar power. Also, these lights continue operating during power cuts thus maintaining systematic and easy traffic flow.

Our country is blooming people, and I'm proud to be South African, vir nou en vir altyd :)

Yesterday I bought a solar charger for my cellphone and today... I tried to go pick it up.

I received the map and it looked quite easy to get there. It shouldn't have been more than a 3km drive from work... or so it looked on the map.

It turned out the map is so wrong (read here: so wrong you would never ever get there with this map). The streets are all wrong and completely out of scale. At least they gave the GPS coordinates - pity I don't have a GPS.

I think I need a GPS more than a a solar charger.

The Eclipse Intuit phone is a concept by designer Eddie Goh that has all the standard features one would expect from current mobiles in the market - a 5 megapixel camera, a touchscreen display, a slide-out touch keyboard with tactile feedback, and various built-in image and video editing features.

What makes this concept unique is that it has a casing covered in a chemically-based solar skin. Exposure to any kind of light will result in the battery being charged.

Considering that solar power technology is readily available in the market, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to think this concept phone may actually become a reality. It's probably a matter of time.
Hit the jump to see more pics.