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San Francisco- Startup company Regen is promoting solar-powered iPod-docking speaker systems and LED desk lamps as overcoming the practical drawbacks that prevent other solar-powered consumer electronics from gaining widespread appeal.
Many solar-powered consumer electronics products are not useful because they take too long to charge or do not provide enough hours of usage on a charge, said Robert Brunner, one of the company's founders. "You can't slap solar cells on something and expect it to work," he explained.
With that in mind, Regen developed what is called a "Smart Architecture" platform that builds energy-efficient designs into the products and boosts usability in several ways. For one thing, the products plug into a home's power outlets when their...