Be Smart

It's been quite a week for kooky concept designs. First, there was Triumph International's "solar-powered bra", above, a funny-looking prototype for underwear which includes solar panels to charge a cellphone or MP3 player plus refillable water-filled sacs to reduce our reliance on bottled water... Oh, and it also holds your breasts aloft. Good job: it doesn't yet operate when the user is wearing clothes.

Phillips' idea to integrate fashion and function is to build a charging station into a woman's handbag, and being a purse fanatic (and someone who generally keeps her underwear from public view) I like this idea a bit better. It sounds somewhat complicated: the bag will have different sections, for your different devices to charge in their own areas while you're on the move, and the strap will conceal a USB port. As to how pretty it will be, we'll have to wait a while to find out: it's only at patent stage for now.

Via Ananova and Engadget.