Friday, August 28, 2009

Aalto's Design Factory Startups: PowerKiss (wireless charging solutions)

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Aalto's Design Factory Startups: PowerKiss (wireless charging solutions)

During my visit to Finland, I had the chance to visit the Design Factory from Aalto University ; a passion-based co-creation platform. There, students, researchers, and entrepreneurs work together to create design solutions taking a user-centered approach.

One of the startups hosted at the Design Factory is PowerKiss, a company that uses induction technology integrated into forniture to charge mobile devices like cellphones and laptops. As Maija Itkonen (founder) explains in this video, PowerKiss is already taking orders for their products and commercialization is expected to start in two months time.

I personally love the concept; imagine being at home or at a cafe and by simply positioning your cellphone or laptop on the desk, it gets charged. Great! Moreover, with the adoption of micro-usb as standard charging plug in cellphones, the possibilites expand beyond charging, including transmission of data. In this case, hyper-local data; a single table can transmit different data depending in which part of the surface you are positioning your device.

It's time to get rid of the spaghetti cable!

PowerKiss
PowerKiss on Threehugger
Aalto University Design Factory