Here are this week’s seven cool gadgets.

Cleanroom Chair and Cabinet-Chair by Ontwerpers

This new furniture design features a laptop pad built into a chair. No word on what the material is — I don’t know if it’s wood, or foam-coated wood, or plastic, but I think the design is really neat. As you can see below, there’s a chair built into a cabinet as well, which means you’ll have an all-in-one unit where you can sit, use your computer, and store your books and other stackable media.

[via LikeCool]

Sanyo eneloop Rechargeable Batteries

The Sanyo eneloop batteries have a very low discharge rate, unlike other rechargeable batteries, which means they’ll still retain up to 85% of their charge, even after 1 year. They also come pre-charged from the factory, which means they’re ready to use, right away. And they can be recharged 1,000 times or more.

Sounds like I need to get some of these batteries myself. My Energizer rechargeables have no charge left at all after they’ve spent a 2-3 weeks in their storage case.

The eneloop batteries come in AA and AAA sizes, and should you need them, they have adaptors for C and D sizes as well.

[via Your Photo Tips and Sanyo and Trevor Carpenter]

5-Minute Candles

The concept is so simple, and yet that’s what makes it cool. These are mini-candles packaged in a small matchbook. There are ten of them in each book. Carry them with you for any special occasions. They can be stood up inside the package or placed on a cake. A pack of 4 matchbooks at 10 candles each (40 candles total) sells for $6 from Pokito.

[via Trusty Pony and Poketo]

Verbatim Speaker Keyboard

Verbatim has a new keyboard that will work with both Macs and PCs. The neat thing about it is that it has built-in speakers and backlit keys. The built-in speakers will reduce the clutter on your desk, and the backlighting will let you type accurately at night.

[via Beta News and Verbatim]

Levitating Light Bulb

The levitating light bulb is a project that uses Nikolas Tesla’s wireless power transfer technology, invented in the 1890s. The bulb and the casing contain hidden circuitry that uses electromagnetic feedback to keep the lightbulb in the air, approximately 2.5″ from the lower surface, while also transferring electric power to it wirelessly. As you can see from the demo video on YouTube, the technology isn’t perfect, and the light isn’t constant, but it’s still a wonderful step forward, and as a science project, it’s very interesting.

[via LikeCool and bea.st]

Stainless steel Ofuro

A Japanese-style hot tub that looks like a cooking pot. It’ll set you back a pretty penny with its $20,000 price tag, but if you’re a spender with a lot of money, what’s $20K… On the plus side, it’s built of a 14-gauge steel and chromium alloy, and has insulation built into its walls, so it retains the water temperature. I like the design, but it’s too much for my wallet.

[via LikeCool and Hammacher-Schlemmer]

The Covert Carry On

This rolling duffel bag is actually made of two parts: a regular duffel bag, and a lower part, which contains the bag frame and rolling wheels. You zip them together when you enter the airport, and when you reach your seat on the plane, you zip apart the top, which can be stowed under the seat, and put the bottom part in the overhead bin. This allows you easy access to the various items you may need during the flight, such as snacks, a pillow, or a book. It’s a great idea.

[via Trusty Pony and Hammacher-Schlemmer]

Here are this week’s seven cool gadgets. Did you see last week’s edition of Gadget Monday?

Parans luminaires

A company called Parans has come up with a way to bottle sunlight and deliver it inside office spaces or homes as natural lighting.

The concept is remarkably simple yet works wonderfully. They have sunlight collectors sitting on the roof or exterior walls of a building. They look like this.

The light then gets concentrated and carried through special fiber optic cables created to preserve all of the light’s characteristics.

These cables are then connected to special light fixtures that diffuse the natural light indoors. They can be panel lights or floodlights.

With this new lighting method, employees or home owners get all of the benefits of natural sunlight in rooms where they normally can’t get it and don’t need to spend money on electricity or electric lighting appliances. I’m not sure what the cost is, but I’d love to see companies take up this new lighting method. Just think, all those employees sitting in tiny cubicles under fluorescent lighting, not seeing the light of day, all day long, all week long, could instead be bathed in natural light, which would cheer them up and boost their productivity.

Images used courtesy of Parans.

World Clock

Someone has come up with this world clock, built in Flash. It shows the time of day where you are in the world, but it also lists all sorts of important statistics, like world population, births, population grown, divorces, cancer incidence, forest lost, species extinct, and deaths. The death statistics are interesting because they’re broken down by reason, such as TB, AIDS, malaria, cancer and others. You can click on buttons that re-calculate the statistics per year, month, day or now. It’s definitely worth a look.

Altec Lansing expressionist CLASSIC speakers

These speakers would go great with an iMac or an all-in-one PC. They have a clear, square face that holds the cylindrical enclosure for the speakers. They connect to your computer through a regular 3.5mm audio cable, and they have an auxiliary input for iPods or other MP3 players as well. The output is 7.5 Watts per channel.

[via Cult of Mac and Altec Lansing]

Addonics NAS Adapter

This little device, slightly bigger than a C battery, will turn any USB external drive into a network drive. You simply plug the USB cable into the Addonics NAS Adapter, and you connect the adapter to your router with a standard network cable. Its USB port is powered, which means you can even plug in a small portable USB drive, and you won’t need to worry about connecting it to a separate power supply.

The adapter is compatible with any version of Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (2.6.x and higher). It supports the Samba protocol for up to 64 clients, has a built-in FTP server for up to 8 clients, and can be used as a print server or Bit Torrent client. You can manage it through its built-in web interface. The best part is that it retails for only $55. At that price, it’s a must-have.

[via Engadget and Addonics]

FloDesign Wind Turbine

This new turbine, created by Massachussetts-based FloDesign, uses jet engine aerodynamics to extract more energy from the wind. It is still a horizontal axis turbine, but its patent-pending design focuses air flow and speeds it up, which means its blades can rotate at lower wind speeds. Because it uses jet engine technology, which is an enclosed design, this means it can also rotate at much higher speeds, and is also safer to be around. The blades orient themselves to the wind automatically because the turbine is equipped with a fin that acts as a windvane. The product hasn’t launched yet, nor is the company taking orders yet, but I for one look forward to seeing this on the market.

There’s also a demo video on YouTube, which explains the technology in more detail.

[via Gizmag and FloDesign]

musicPower Encore Portable USB Power Supply

This neat gadget has rechargeable batteries inside. You plug it into an outlet while you’re at home to recharge its batteries, then take it with you while you travel. If you run out of juice for your iPhone or iPod, you simply plug those devices into the musicPower Encore, and they recharge using the energy stored inside. It’s a neat way to transport the energy you need to keep your toys working. It sells for $20 at ThinkGeek.

[via Geeky Gadgets and ThinkGeek]

SDXC Memory Cards

The next-generation SD cards, called SDXC (Xtended Capacity), will have increased storage capacity, up to 2 TB, and will have increased read/write speeds as well, anywhere from 104-300 MB/sec. The official specs are due to be released by the SD Association in Q1 of this year, 2009.

A 2TB SDXC card will be able to store about 480 hours of full HD recording, or about 136,000 high-quality photos. Keep in mind the USB 3.0 spec has also been released recently, which means we’ll have USB 3.0 card readers. We’ll be able to store and transfer more data than ever before. I for one wonder if CF cards will continue to be the staple storage device for DSLRs, or whether SDXC cards will replace them altogether.

[via Gizmag and SD Association]