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Meet the £35 lightbulb and the phone charger that drinks alcohol

Toshiba is as keen as mustard to help save this nasty little planet we sneeringly call home. This week the Japanese company introduced us to a couple of products that will help keep those polar bears alive and well and ripping the heads off seals for years to come.

First up is a brand-new LED lightbulb (pictured above). This little beauty uses just 5.5W to produce a very bright light. Unlike traditional energy-saving lightbulbs, they aren't fragile, so klutzes like us can drop them without any worry of them breaking. And because LEDs aren't in a rush to burn out, Toshiba says these new LED bulbs can last 15 years.

Does that tempt you to part with £35 per bulb though? We suspect that no matter how long it lasts, that's a little bit pricey for most people to swallow. If you're one of those dudes who eats lighbulbs for a living, it might be easier.

Some technology we saw that isn't yet available in the UK is a new methanol power cell. This portable recharger's battery is juiced up on the go using a simple chemical reaction. To kick this power plant into action, you just squirt in some methanol. This starts the reaction, and electricity is generated. It's reasonably cheap and fairly clean.

Just don't drink the methanol, because apparently sucking down just 10ml of it can make you go blind. Watch our video for more, then click 'Continue' for pictures of it in action.

Methanol is cheap to produce, and doesn't have a terrible ecological footprint. Just don't get any ideas about drinking it.
The unit looks like a radio, and is about the same size. It generates quite a bit of heat along with the power, but we just love the idea of being able to charge our devices when we're nowhere near a power socket.
And there you have it -- iPod charging via hippie juice.

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