Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > October > 19
Monday, October 19, 2009
Two tech commercials charge aggressively into the holiday season
Over the weekend, I caught two commercials involving tech products that seemed to follow me wherever I went. I saw the commercials at the gym, I saw them at home and I read about them on tech blogs.
The first one was for the Powermat, a device that wireless charges cell phones, portable game systems and other devices (wireless if you have the right adapter, but more about that in a moment).
We ran a review of Powermat and a lower-priced competitor in today’s paper. The commercial below expresses the “WOW!” factor, but I worry that people who see the commercial (which, by the way, is extremely tacky) won’t grasp the downsides of a product like Powermat.
For one thing, it’s not completely wireless unless you purchase separate sleeves or cases for your devices on top of the $99 price of the main Powermat device (which can charge three devices at a time).
The Powermat comes with three little “Powercubes,” white blocks that can connect to your phone, PDA or other devices via a tiny wire and interchangeable connectors. The Powercube lies on the Powermat and charges the device through that little cable. Unfortunately, it’s not really wireless if a wire is involved.
The sleeves, sold separate, cost about $30 each and double as a case. They eliminate the need for the Powercubes and, as such, are more true to the promise of the Powermat. If, say, you have a BlackBerry, you can buy a sleeve for it and keep it on all the time and lay it on the Powermat to do the promised wireless charging.
Obviously, buying all those sleeve/cases can add up (three devices, three sleeves… oh, that’s about another $100) and they’re not particularly attractive as device cases. The one for the iPhone has a pass-through connector for mini-USB syncing, but you’ll have to take the Powermat sleeve off to use any of the thousands of other accessories that use the ubiquitous squat iPod connector.
The store display I saw at Target had plenty of these device sleeves right next to the device, so many I’m underestimating people’s ability to understand how it works. It’s certainly great technology, but it will be even more impressive when smartphones and other electronics have the ability to charge wirelessly built in. I’m sure it’s a technology we’ll see commonly used in the next three to five years, if not sooner.
Did I mention the commercial itself is pretty tacky? Here it is:
The other commercial I saw is for the upcoming Motorola Droid phone, which is clearly positioning itself as the Google Android platform’s answer to the iPhone. The commercial points out the things Apple’s phone doesn’t do, hinting at all the features the Droid will do.
Will it deliver on the promise? Hard to tell when we can’t even see the phone itself in the commercials.
As a shot across the bow, though, it seems very effective. My curiosity is definitely piqued.
Here’s the Droid commercial:
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Gadgets, TV
First set of SXSWi ‘10 panels announced
The first batch of panels for South by Southwest 2010 have been posted this morning on the official site.
SXSW says that more than 2,300 panel ideas were submitted via its Panel Picker and that a second round of panels will be announced on Nov. 9. In all, more than 300 panels will be part of the fest March 12-16.
Among the panels that caught my eye in this set of about 110 were, “2009 Iran Election: Women’s Revolution? Twitter Revolution?,” “From Trolls to Stars: The Commenter Ecosystem,” “Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies,” and “What Guys are Doing to Get More Girls in Tech!”
Also sprinkled in the list are panels whose topics I feel like I’ve seen 3 or 4 times before, or panels that are mostly about a Web celebrity who has already spoken at SXSWi, which is unfortunate.
For newcomers to the fest, this is a tantalizing early list, but for those who’ve attended before, a lot of the panels listed so far either seem too general (“Future of Context”) or panels that have literally been on the schedule in some form or fashion for 10 years (“Writing Web Content For A Living”).
Excited to see how the next batch of panels varies from this one.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW, SXSW 2010
