You just love drinking your coffee outside on some bar's sunny terrace. But what do you do if your iPod's or your mobile phone's battery is low? Well, now technosexuals (or 'technological geeks', if you like) that love to spend time in open air will see their dream come true. This is better than the solar powered backpacks and solar-paneled LCD mobile phones from Motorola.

The Italian fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna Holditalia SpA (Zegna) will release the Solar-Powered Jacket, the most practical and best-looking method to charge your mobile gadgets. The Italian firm presented the model in September 2007 in Florance, Italy, taking fashion to a whole new level.

The jacket can charge every small gadget you might own, from cell phone and iPod to even tiny vacuum cleaners for keyboard ($ 12) or eight-inch (16 cm)-tall minirefrigerator ($ 30) (that can chill one can of soda). Yes, sun heat to cool down your drinks... what can be better than this?

The silvery-gray bomber jacket is made of a breathable fabric named Microtene. Two-inch-by-three-inch (5 cm x 7.5 cm) silicon-based polycrystalline solar panels are embedded in the jacket's removable Nehru-style collar, being capable of converting 1 watt of sunlight. And there are no bulky wires in your pockets, as all power is sent through conductive textiles that flex, following your body's movements.

The energy can be used to directly charge your device or through wires sent to a battery in the breast pocket having the size of a card deck (70×60x13mm, 100g), to store power for later use. A 5-volt USB connection charges your iPod and a 6-volt connection charges your mobile for about four hours, but the battery is completely loaded in 8 hours of sun exposure. "The Solar JKT is based around Interactive Wear AG's iSolarX technology, and sports a number of solar modules around the neoprene collar that can pass energy through conducting textile leads for storage in a buffer battery or to charge a connected device directly." reported Engadget. Some are worried about the price of the jacket. Well, you know how Italian designers' products always have high prices...

In the end, that's exactly what we needed after smart fabrics, like that one developed by New Zealand firm Zephyr and offering data on our heart beat, skin temperature, posture, activity and breathing rate. The smart fabric allows athletes to determine their performance by measuring in an extremely simple way their physiological reactions.