More Power Please
There are so many consumer electronic devices that people use daily that charging becomes a factor in daily life. You know the scenario, you are in the airport and heading to your connecting flight and your phone battery is about to die....what can you do? Until now it meant searching for that one, very popular, outlet at gate 37 and you are at gate 15. Samsung has installed power stations that are becoming very popular and they have stated that they are going to increase the number of installations in the future and expand to university locations. This is a very nice sight when you need to kick out that last email or SMS before your flight. Look for the expansion of this and other charging stations in the near future.
As out tag line says, "and a cool technology or two...", this is one of those. Our team investigated this technology several years back and it just wasn't ready to productize. This last year, two companies, WildCharge (now marketed as Pure Enegry Solutions) and Powermat released solutions that use inductive charging techniques for consumer electronic devices. These are now affordable and enough devices use some form of USB as a mechanical interface that the popularity will only grow. WildCharge actually licenses their technology to others for a branded solution. This is a great approach and will only enhance their position. I believe we will begin to see this technology to be included in the handset design, like the Palm Pre/Pixi Touchstone, very soon. Once that proliferates across the major hardware manufacturers, we will begin to see integration within the automotive industry. How cool would that be to have a charging pad on the dash for all of your re-chargables?
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