There’s a new, solar-powered backpack in town, and it’s called the ZenTrek. Offered in three models—the slimline Xplorer, the full-sized Instinct and the hybrid Endura—the ZenTreks line of rugged solar-powered backpacks promises to provide energy-on-the-go for your electronics, and the company is looking for help to launch its products.

Startup ZenTreks, whose designs were inspired by mobile-power backpacks used by the military, is offering its products for a wider audience through a promotional program called Kickstarter, which provides public funding in the form of individual or business pledges to interesting, noteworthy or experimental offerings in product design, the arts and publishing. ZenTreks’ says its design, by San Francisco creator Norman Ho, offers fully mobile solar photovoltaic power for portable electronics via highly flexible, second-generation, silicon wafer technology panels that won’t crack under pressure, thus ending their useful life forever.

With a tandem focus on sustainability and durability, ZenTreks mobile-power backpacks provide 30 percent more electricity than currently available from a similar device, the company says, in a compact design featuring carbonate-hardened ballistic fiber materials three times stronger than leather. This fabric

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Mobile devices are here to stay – and according to Cisco Systems will outnumber humans by the end of the year.  This leaves very little use for phone booths for making calls, so architect John Locke came up with a new purpose for them – as a small public library.

Part of Locke’s Department of Urban Betterment, the second DUB library is a set of pumpkin-orange shelves attached to a rarely-used New York City phone booth, filled with donated books.  The first attempt at a free book-sharing system was in a less busy area and saw both books and shelves disappear entirely.  Locke is more hopeful about his second attempt, located on 96^th Street.

Both of the libraries purposefully avoid giving directions to those who pass by, something Locke is rethinking.  While the conspicuous location and logos on the book spines have so far discouraged vandalism, the libraries have not seen as much borrowing as their inventor would hope.

The Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G for T-Mobile was announced in January but the release date was not specified. Fortunately, Samsung and T-Mobile decided to announce that the Galaxy S Blaze 4G will arrive next month in carbon black for $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate card, with a two-year service agreement and a qualifying voice and data plan.

To be honest we would prefer a more specific release date for this upcoming Android smartphone. But I guess we need to wait for a while to get it. Luckily, the announcement revealed some of the specs and features for the device. 

The T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G boasts of a 3.97-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, and a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm dual-core processor.

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Obama’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is designed to address online privacy issues, but wary Web users aren’t sure if it will have a real impact.

I have this strange feeling that I’m being watched. Gmail is hinting in an ad that I should consider self-publishing that novel I’m working on. Thesaurus.com seems to know exactly which jackets I looked at recently on Backcountry.com.

The Obama administration’s recently unveiled Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is supposed to tip the balance of power back to Web users. It gives them the right to control what data is collected, how it is used and shared, and to have that data secured. Enforcement information, however, is still sketchy.

The document is expected to be used as the basis for new privacy legislation.

Online privacy is a sizzling topic in light of Facebook privacy missteps, Google’s consolidation of privacy policies, and sneaky data collection by mobile apps.

There are signs that major tech companies won’t kick and scream against the idea. Google, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo are committing to Do Not Track technology for Web browsers.

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Introduction:

Do you consider yourself an audiophile? Do you just so happen to have $200 laying around and can’t stand it? If you answered ‘yes’ to either of those questions, stop whatever you’re doing and go grab Monster Cable‘s new Gratitude headphones right now; don’t worry, I’ll wait. Needless to say, I’m a bit of a fan of these headphones, which can be described as simple audio bliss.

Styling:

Just in case it isn’t immediately obvious from the pictures, the Gratitude headphones are simply stunning to behold. The rose gold finish pops without being overly gaudy, and while wearing them around I had several people ask what brand they were, etc. I also very much appreciate how tastefully the Monster/Gratitude logos are placed on the headphones themselves; they are prominent and easily read, but not pasted all over the product.

Strangely,

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When it comes to alternative payment methods, PayPal is pretty much the leader right now, but when NFC comes to fruition will it be overshadowed? The company says no.

Over the last several years, Paypal has built up an incredible brand in a market where it has almost zero competition – an alternative way to pay for products and services that doesn’t involve using a credit card.The alternative payment provider has even dabbled in the world of retail stores, offering dedicated terminals at select pilot locations. It perhaps has the most to lose if an advancing technology like NFC takes over.Paypal has actually developed its own NFC app that allows users to tap two phones together to transfer money to and from their respective Paypal accounts, but the company says this is not where the evolution of payments lies.The whole point of NFC is that you can use your phone instead of a credit card at retail point-of-sale locations.

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