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Something like this?

http://www.paramountzone.com/tqualizer-tshirt.htm

Reliable, rugged, inexpensive... aren't you describing a mobile phone? :-)

If you're a farmer in Sudan who doesn't need, want, or have electricity at home, you'll still make a trip to the nearest town every week to sell your produce, to get news, etc.--and while you're there, you can recharge your phone. This is exactly what happens in the countryside throughout the region. And hand-cranked chargers do exist (if overpriced for first-world consumption).

In Bangladesh a couple years ago, rural villagers used to buy phones on credit, then recoup the costs by sharing them among the rest of the village. Handsets nowadays cost around $20-25, which makes them even more accessible.

Ok: http://www.paramountzone.com/rphone.htm

Being fair it's not a wind-up phone, but a wind-up charger for common phones.

So where's my laptop with 15 hour battery life that recharges in an hour?

My sister got a SAM, a Synthetic Automated Moggy. It's a cat that looks pretty real and breathes and purrs, but runs on batteries. Pretty weird. . .

There are now various websites selling 1 acre plots of the moon on his behalf (amazingly, one of them claims 1-3 days for delivery).

Apparently, no country owns the moon.

It seems that these people do,
and these people do,
and these people do,
and these people do,
and these people do...

Wow, acording to google, a lot of people do! But no, no countries.

Some portable CD/MP3 players also have the ability to play VideoCD. Here's an example.

Something very much like this was released by a mysterious company called Mega Joy -- an N64 controller that contained 50-odd Nintendo games. The Register has details. [theregister.co.uk]
A friend of mine bought this and likes his a lot, although he's not much of a gamer. The Reg mentions them selling for ten pounds in the UK; I think my friend says his was about ~$20.

It seems you can't buy them any more, of course. There are none listed on eBay, and googling for them some time back didn't turn up anything, so I assume Nintendo burned down the factory producing them, and seeded the ground with salt.

Quick GOOGLE result for "Meja Joy"
http://www.paramountzone.com/megajoy.htm

http://www.gadgets.co.uk/megajoy2.html

Downside is this blurb - "(This product is not designed to work in the USA or any other country using the NTSC system.)" Sorry, unless you've got a PAL TV set or got a PAL converter (or an old Amiga monitor that can display a PAL signal [hint hint]) I guess you cannot use it.

Here's a site with a PAL > NTSC converter for $59
http://www.xbox-online.net/flash/x6c.htm
(Sorry about it being on a BugBoX website, still at the moment it is the cheapest I've found)

Another note - DAMN! They have MAPPY on it. I love that cute mouse being chased around by adorable kittens with a delightful tune in the background as they rebound off trampolines to each level.

One more thing Jackie Chan!
(Found this in the search)
http://www.protectv.com/
Q. How does PROTECTV work?
A. PROTECTV works through the captioning that runs through television programming, videos, and DVD's. PROTECTV works with both the audio as well as the written captions that are available. Every time an offensive word is spoken it is compared to a dictionary of over 400 words and phrases and if the word or phrase matches, it is deleted from the soundtrack and captioning. The viewer will experience a momentary gap in the audio and for viewers reading the captions, the undesirable written word is replaced by XXXX's.

(Goes into old lady Jewish mode)
"Go ahead... discuss."