The mobile world would experience a renewed mobile innovation war as California based smart phone vendor, Sunnyvale debuts with a device, Touchstone, that can charge a phone without traditional plugs and wires. Reports PRINCE OSUAGWU.
Mobile innovation began a gradual momentum from the tap system where phone users tap on a combination of pre arranged numbers on the phone key board to make a call, to smart system where the joy stick phenomenon crept in, giving users a different experience of using stylus to tap the numbers before a call is initiated.
But Apple was yet to knock these initiatives off when it debuted with Apple iPhone 3G. The iPhone, pioneered the touchscreen functionality, where a user only needed to touch the screen of his phone to bring it alive.
The touchscreen system rules the mobile application today, giving Apple the big brother status in mobile application. But events in recent times have proven that smart phone vendors are not ready to let Apple continue to dominate the world of mobile innovations for too long.
Apparently as a checkmate, California- based smart phone vendor sunnyvale, has come up with innovation to allow electronic devices such as mobiles to be charged without the need for traditional plugs and wires.
The device Touchstone, comes with its new mobile phones, the palm pre. Palm pre is expected to be launched into the market by the middle of this year and would balance the history which Apple has made with pioneering the Touch screen functionality in mobile phones.
With the innovation as the first phone to be charged by a collection of magnetic induced force energy without traditional plugs, the war on mobile innovation seems to be raging on. The company achieved this by shipping the device with an accessory it calls the ‘Touchstone’ charging dock.
When combined with a special back cover for the phone it said would be sold separately, placed on the pad, the device begins to charge while being held in the correct position by magnets. According to Palm President and Chief Executive Officer, Ed Colligan, “when you attach this charging dock to your desk, watch how quickly it becomes home for your Palm Pre phone.
Simply place your Palm Pre on the Touchstone charging dock, and magnets in the dock quickly align your phone in the correct position for charging. Charge while you’re checking your calendar or watching videos in portrait or landscape mode.
Set your Pre on the dock when you’re on a call and the speaker phone automatically turns on. And when you take your ringing phone off the dock, your phone answers the call The device can then be charged in roughly the same amount of time it would take with a standard wall charger”.
Colligan said that “the much-anticipated launch of the Palm Pre remains on track for the first half of calendar year 2009, but as expected we’ve got a difficult transition period to work through. “Despite the challenging market environment, the extraordinary response to the Palm Pre and the new Palm webOS reaffirms our confidence in our long-term prospects and our ability to reestablish Palm as the leading innovator in the growing smartphone market.
Features of the phone includes Connected calendars and contacts “Pre uses the Palm Synergy feature to bring your Outlook, Google, and Facebook calendars together for one logical view and if you have the same contacts in different places, Pre can link them together, making it easy to find the information you need.
Multiple activities: The device keeps multiple applications open aiding an easily move between email, maps, photos, websites. Notifications bar, which makes things like text messages and calendar appointments appear as notifications at the bottom of the screen to help users know what’s going on without being completely interrupted or losing train of thought.
There are also Browser and Integrated Applications: An incredibly fast browser which brings websites the way they are meant to be seen. Users can also buy movie tickets, for example, and add the times right to the calendar.
The phone also has in-built Email, Wi-Fi, and GPS platforms which makes it easy to check email from Outlook or personal accounts like Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo on it. The Wi-Fi hotspots is said to be a wonderful experience as users can look up directions or nearby points of interest using GPS on the go.
According to Mark Eastwood, senior product manager at Palm.
The Touchstone is the first high-profile mobile product to use a technology known as electromagnetic inductive coupling, which can enable wireless energy transfer over short distances by passing voltage between a transmitter and a receiver.
But experts say the technology is not new , adding that it has been around in one form or another for over 100 years. It is also said to be already widely used to wirelessly charge devices such as electric toothbrushes even as it has the potential to power everything from digital cameras to power tools.