I find it very odd that airports, as modern structures meant to serve travelers, do not seem to have outlets available to charge up all of those laptops, cell phones, mp3 players, game systems and PDAs people tote around these days to keep themselves occupied on flights. You'd think the airports would figure out some way to make up the extra cost of used electricity, hopefully without charging the consumer, although I hear that Boston's Logan Airport now has outlets that travelers can use at $7 a pop.

In any case, those SmarteCarte people (the ones that have baggage carts for rent at $2 a piece) have their own solution that they introduced back in March: a 12 station charging unit called the Chargecarte that has hookups for things like iPods, Treos, Blackberries and a number of different cell phone brands. For $7, you get half an hour of charging that's supposed to fill your gadget's battery to 50%, at a rate higher than your standard outlet. Not a bad thing to have around if you need to make that all-important phone call or you're facing a long flight without some music.

Via O'Grady's PowerPage