Ball-IT's Blobo Sparks Interactive Children's Game Show In China
Oulu, Finland-based Ball-IT's product, blobo, is a golfball sized soft ball that can sense movement, rotation, magnetic fields, and even pressure. You can compare it to a Wii controller or Playstation Move, yet because of its size it offers unique opportunities available for gameplay-- such as throwing the ball up in the air or placing it in a players pocket to sense macro physical movements like jumping or running.
The device has seen the creation of a children's TV show in Finland, but Blobo is now being taken to China, where the Shanghai Media Group's children's channel, Toonmax, is turning it the game system into an interactive TV show. On the show kids take each other on in front of a live studio audience, who watch their avatars compete on a large screen. Meanwhile the viewers at home can play blobo at the same time using their computer and compare their results with the TV contestants.
Fromdistance Acquired By U.S. Based Numara Software
The Finnish/Estonian mobile device management service, Fromdistance, was acquired on Tuesday by Tampa, Florida based Numara Software. Fromdistance was founded in 2004 and is located in Tallinn, Estonia.
Fromdistance's mobile device management software offers the ability for a company's IT to manage a fleet of wireless devices using a standard browser interface. And as the name implies, Fromdistance allows this software management to take place remotely with no physical contact. The service has been gaining popularity among IT professionals, and is even used to manage the Finnish Parliaments' range of Nokia phones for installation and application management purposes.
AW-Energy Launching Pilot Wave Project in Portugal
AW-Energy, the Finnish wave energy developer, is launching its pilot project in Peniche (Portugal) in October this year. The goal of the project is to demonstrate its Wave Roller technology on a significant scale, including the manufacture and deployment of the first grid connected 300 kW WaveRoller unit. The deployment, which has a one year test period, is scheduled for the summer of 2011.
"The key difference between the demonstration unit and commercial scale unit is the nominal capacity. The demo focuses on validating our results from the prototype testing, CFD simulations and tank testing." explains John Liljelund, the new CEO of AW-Energy. "After the demon
