We all know Powerkiss from before, but to be honest you can get only so excited about wireless mobile phone charging.
But Powerkiss is not really what it looks like on the surface. One could easily think their core offering is wireless charging. Think again. Increasingly in the future it will be centered around Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled service platform which acts as a glue between different consumer services. Think location based advertising, where the location has been pinned down to the level of a restaurant table, or really selling any other service that is tied to a location. The variations are endless.
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People often forgot to unplug their chargers. If all Nokia cell phone users globally would plug off when battery is full charged, energy savings would be as much as 100.000 average-sized European homes annual consumption.
Powerkiss provides a new charging solution, which transforms a charger in to public product, instead of private accessory. The company has two products: a module integrated into furniture and a charging stick plugged in the device (cell phone or a laptop). The stick is plugged in and the device is placed on the charging table top. The battery is charged automatically. The charging time remains almost the same, depending on the device. Right now, the Powerkiss is able to power devices up to 40W, next year up to 100 W.
Powerkiss has signed the first deals with furniture manufacturers Martela and Isku on commercialization during autumn 2009. By the end of this year, Powerkiss will introduce the charging sticks for Nokias and mini-USBs (by October), Apples, micro-USBs and netbooks (by November). The company targets to introduce bigger laptops on the portfolio in Q1 2010. Continue reading »
Espoo Otaniemi boomed of startups and investors when Invest Tech Finland was held for the first time on last Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a real mix of companies from all round consumer web, nano, medical and material tech.
We got some taste of new startups, more seasoned companies seeking growth and some familiar faces marching forward with their plans. There were quite a few interesting companies to write about, the full list can be found here – check these out. Note that most of companies presented at the event already had some prototypes, partnerships, customers or revenues. Here is some of my picks (not in any particular order):
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