In this age of wireless gadgetry, the chore of recharging your mobile electronic devices feels so… twentieth century. While your iPod, PDA, and cell phone allow you to do things that were impossible a decade ago, if you can’t find an outlet and a few hours to power them back up, they turn into very expensive paperweights after hardly any time at all.

So until they invent a Crackberry than runs off of thumb blisters, you can still keep your precious gadgets running when you’re on the go with a solar backpack.

Voltaic offers messenger bags and backpacks which harness the most powerful free source of energy available: the sun. Each bag has three water and scratch resistant solar panels on the back which convert sunlight into 4 watts of power, enough to charge most mobile devices. Also included are adapters to suit a variety of devices, including cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs, and GPS’s (no laptops, unfortunately, although the messenger bag is specially padded for them).

And even when the sun goes down, you can still get some juice out of these bags, as they come equipped with a lithium ion battery pack which charges up during daylight hours, and provides plenty of power when you’re in the dark. If you happen to have access to an outlet, you can even charge up the internal battery for a quick and easy mobile power source.

And if carrying around some solar panels wasn’t enough to make those Greenpeace gals quiver in their Birkenstocks whenever you walk by, you can also tell them that the bags are made with recycled PET, a heavy duty fabric made from post-consumer plastic products. ($199)

link: Voltaic Solar Messenger Bag

link: Voltaic Solar Backpack