Wild Thing, You Make My Battery Sing

October 14, 2008 | Bob Snyder | AccessoriesPDFPrintE-mail

At IFA, we got a private showing of The WildCharger, a flat pad with a thin but conductive surface. Place a cell phone (or device) enabled with WildCharge technology on the pad – anywhere on the pad—and, despite orientation, – it will receive power from the pad. Charging speed seems to be the same as if plugged to the wall.

WildCharge was not showing at IFA, but we caught up to one of their European executives who was visiting potential distributors at the show.

WildCharge expects roll-out in Continental Europe in October (after UK in September.)

The first question one has, after being impressed with ease of the technology, is how do you “enable” a device. The answer is WildCharge provides an adapter that either attaches to or replaces the back cover of the device. This adapter uses small “bumps” as contact-points that come in physical contact with the pad.

 Charger

WildCharge also sells an enabling “skin” for the Motorola Razr. Skins for the popular BlackBerry Pearl and Curve smartphones will be launched in US in the beginning of October.

Of course, WildCharge wants its technology to be integrated inside cell phones and other devices and is talking directly to manufacturers.

Go Wild, Go WildCharge

$10,000,000 Google Android Winners

October 05, 2008 | Bob Snyder | Cloud, Apps & SoftwarePDFPrintE-mail
The winners of Google’s $10 million contest for innovative Android apps.

Cab4me
cab4me lets users call a cab. GPS locates the user's location and the location of a nearby taxi company, then the app calls the taxi company via a click on Google maps.

Locale
Locale lets cell-phone users manage settings on their mobile devices. Unlike normal settings managers, Locale can automatically change settings based your current location, for example turning the ringer to vibrate when you enter work or class, or automatically forwarding calls to a landline when you are at home.

PicSay
A drop-and-drag picture editor for your phone, PicSay can also create invitations or greeting cards.

Softrace
Set up a race and track progress in real time. Whether on motorbike, foot, or cross-country skis, Google Maps help this app to track each user's progress, (even stores statistics on Android's SQLite database)

TuneWiki
TuneWiki lets users share their listening preferences with each other—and use Google Maps to find what users around the world are listening to. An open source music-based social network, this app creates a library of songs and via internet suggests similar songs or artists.

Wertago
This should have been named "Where2go." It lets users share social events with friends, rate their nightlife hotspots and profile favorite locations. Wertago uses Google Maps API to map out different clubs, restaurants and theaters. And targets iPhone, too.

Life360
Life360 was conceived in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when so many lives were thrown into a state of chaos. Now, with a single subscription, no specialized hardware, and in less than 5 minutes, families can have access to a tool that does everything from family GPS tracking, to document warehousing, disaster planning, and emergency messaging.

GoCart
GoCart lets consumers scan any product's barcode with the phone's built-in camera. Then GoCart searches the Web for the best prices (best reviews) on the product, displaying the lowest prices online as well as at nearby brick-and-mortar retailers (identified through GPS and reverse geocoding).

Ecorio
Call it your Carbon Conscience, Ecorio runs in the background on your phone, keeping track of your movements and tallying up the trips you take. If you select Offset you see the carbon output calculated for your trips.

Compare Everywhere
Another shopper empowerment app, this will scan any barcode and instantly search prices at dozens of online and local stores.

OUR SUMMARY: These ten each won $275,000. We don’t know about you but we are rather disappointed. Some of these apps are interesting but will the world be worst off (or will people switch from iPhones?) if these don’t exist?

Go Android Challenge to see the other $100,000 winners and runners-up.

Napster: Why Best Buy Will Play This Tune

October 05, 2008 | Bob Snyder | Retailer NewsPDFPrintE-mail

Best Buy will pay $121 million for Napster and its 706,000 subscribers of online music. Napster holds about $67 million in cash and investments so Best Buy is really paying only $54 million for a better chance to rival Apple’s 70% market share.

The price is a very insignificant amount of money for Best Buy. By acquiring Napster, Best Buy instantly gains 700,000 customers and $100 million in annual revenue for only $54 million. They are getting Napster on the cheap.

There’s more to this story and we think the press missed it.

Go Best Buy’s "Best Buy"

Our Winners Get Orbitsound T12s

October 05, 2008 | Bob Snyder | Trade Shows and ConferencesPDFPrintE-mail
The Reseller Park of IFA, in cooperation with The Distribution Channel Ltd. who publish On CE, drew two random prize winners from industry visitors to the trade-only Reseller Park.
        

Each will receive an Orbitsound T12. A powered stereo sound bar and subwoofer with omnidrectional airSound technology, the T12 offers a simple big screen sound upgrade with dock and remote control.

Congratulations to Marcus Mueller, Junior Key account at DUG Telecom AG (in Oberkramer in Germany) and Bernd Baesler, Strategisher Einkauefer Non-Food at REWE-Zentral in Cologne.

Go Reseller Park

Go Orbitsound T12

CEA Names Top 15 i-Stage Finalists

October 05, 2008 | Bob Snyder | Trade Shows and ConferencesPDFPrintE-mail

It could have been you…The CEA names the top finalists in its new i-Stage competition. The 15 finalists will unveil their products before a live audience on October 20th at CEA’s 2008 Industry Forum in Las Vegas.
         The winner of the i-stage competition will receive $50,000 to develop its product line, as well as free turnkey exhibit space at the 2009 International CES (organized by CEA) in Las Vegas on January 8-11.

Which products are so hot as to be finalists?

Click Top 15.

Go iStage for event details

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