With the next Olympics event four years away, you can expect gadget makers to keep capitalizing on the excitement over this year’s happenings. This Water Cube-inspired cell phone makes a good example.

The cell phone’s design mimicks the Water Cube’s unique “soap bubbles” that were used to light up the aquatics center. Featuring a 2.4-inch LCD screen, MP3- and video-playing capabilities and a “dual high-definition camera,” this looks like a promising cell phone, but I’d exercise extreme caution buying any gadget straight from China — since, oh, you know, the country is notorious for using technology to spy on its citizens.

Nonetheless, it’s an aesthetically interesting phone devoted to the Olympics — much more interesting than Samsung’s boring-as-reading-Moby-Dick Blackjack II, which was the “official” Olympics phone.

Water Cube-inspired cell phone from Beijing Olympics: [via] – [source]

Though it’s billed as a “pocket-sized mobile studio,” this 4-ounce, platinum-trimmed phone is certainly no substitute for even a mediocre mini-camcorder (Exhibit A: the Flip Mino). So why drop $500 on the Z10 when you can get a 5MP camphone (Exhibit B: the Nokia N82) that shoots crisper stills and comparable vids? Beats us. Maybe it’s the intuitive editing suite: the Z10’s storyboard feature let us cut together a montage of clips and pics with cinematic fades, circle dissolves, music and title cards in less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the OS wasn’t nearly as user-friendly. We literally had to break out the instruction manual just to send a Bluetooth pic (no joke).

Had Motorola spent even half as much time making the software as innovative as its break-away hardware, the Z10 would have wowed us. But with its lacking OS and underwhelming camera, the phone didn’t feel ready for primetime.

Flexible Motorola Z10 doesn’t deserve 500$: [via]

If you ever looked at a slab of plywood and thought, “I’d love a phone that resembled this,” Japan’s KDDI has you in mind. Designed by Hideo Kanbara, the conceptual “Ply” would put a different function in each of its six super-thin layers. On the top one, the display; in the next, a keypad; in a third, a printer. It would even crack open to reveal a miniature projector!

Plywood works as a display, a printer, a keypad and a projector: [via]

Made official after a couple of hours of speculation a few weeks ago, Palm’s Treo Pro is now ready to roll.

Running Windows Mobile 6.1 on a 400MHz CPU, it has 128MB of RAM, 3G, Wifi and Bluetooth, a 320×320 touchscreen display, and GPS. A micro-USB port replaces the thingie hole, meaning no new cables for Treo-come-latelies that may hypothetically exist.

The unlocked price tag, however, is a stout $550. Too much? Or the happy price to pay for carrier freedom? Also: PalmOS is so very dead.

Treo Pro – the real price for his performance ?: [via]

China’s putting up a really strong show at this year’s summer Olympics, backed by the home crowd. I wonder if the same can be said of the Veva S60 luxury cell phone from Qiao Xing Universal Telephone, Inc. This handset targets “female professionals with its unique and luxury design and features.”

Through cooperation with Swarovski, each VEVA S60 is decorated with 129 Swarovski crystal mosaic and 18K gold coating. As thin as 9.4 millimeters, VEVA S60 also has long standby time.

In addition to the above, you get the mandatory Bluetooth support for hands-free conversations as well as handwriting recognition software – a must if you’re ever going to enter the China market. The Veva S60, despite it’s tag as a “luxury phone”, certainly doesn’t live up to the billing where price is concerned as it retails for a mere $290.

Luxurious Veva S60 – chinese mobile phone exclusive for women: [via]

Off to sun yourself this year? If so you’ll need something to power your various Gadgets and Gizmos, and what better way in our increasingly Green aware world than with the Solar Power ?

Not only does it allow you to charge your mobile phone or MP3 player, while sunning yourself, but once all your gizmos are fully charged you can store energy in the battery for use when the sun goes down.

But what if the weather turns, or you aren’t off anywhere particularly sunny? Fear not, you can simply charge the battery from a USB port before you go and use your portable power pack instead of trying to fiddle around with those ridiculous foreign power points.

Solar power recharger for your gadgets: [via]

Due for release mid-August, MobileFun’s Solar Powered case contains a 1500 mAh battery that soaks up rays to charge your iPhone 3G. It’ll take three hours of fun in the sun to charge your handset with enough juice to function, and 10 hours to get a full charge. Pricing has not been announced.
And even if the saving energy isn’t your concern, this might be a good solution if you have issues with iPhone 3G’s meager battery life. Just make sure to slap on some sunblock.

Recharge your IPhone with solar energy: [via]

No doubt we’ve all seen the reports about how much energy is wasted by phone chargers left plugged in, in fact according to statistics it’s a shocking 95%! Unplugging a phone charger when it’s not in use is a small thing that can save a lot of money and energy over time, but it’s not always something that we remember.

This charger ensures that you don’t actually need to remember to unplug it. This clever little device will completely cut-off it’s power consumption when the phone is fully charged or no phone is attached!

Recharge your mobile phone with economic charger: [via]

This looks like the perfect light-weight gadget for all those who love to try out new phones very often. Not only it backups all your precious data from your phone, it also be used to program the SIM to call selected numbers only. This tiny gadget is very easy to use, you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out… and it comes at the price of £59.95/$107.91.

SIM Recovery Pro: [Via] – [Redferret]

The energy transfer is done through some tiny contact points that come in physical contact with the pad. As soon as the points get in contact with the pad, the energy is transferred from the pad to the electronic device. Such direct contact allows for a very efficient and safe power transfer without generating harmful radiation or magnetic fields. You can check out for more details at Wildcharge.com.

Wirelessly Charge Gadgets, iPhone with WildCharge Pad: [Via]