AirGate Technologies, a subsidiary of The X-Change Corp., said it has completed a radio-frequency identification (RFID) prototype for car child safety seats. The prototype uses the company’s “Smart Buckle” technology incorporated into a standard child seat. Miniature RF transmitters send a low-power signal to a reader mounted on the dashboard or visor and trigger a warning if the seat’s straps are not properly buckled. The product also sounds an alarm if the car is parked and the ignition turned off but the child seat remains engaged, indicating the child may unintentionally have been left in the car. www.airgatetech.com
Matsushita
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., which develops products under the Panasonic name, announced a multimedia processor-based platform that can be used with mobile phones and other digital appliances. The platform can accelerate speed to market by five times the current rate, develop higher sound and image quality, lower power consumption, fortify security and enhance responsiveness, said the company. “At the core of the platform is an advanced, highly scalable and configurable multimedia processor allowing the platform to adapt to a wide range of applications,” said Dr. Susumu Koike, senior managing director and chief technology officer at Matsushita. “Unlike conventional approaches to developing software for each segmented product category, this new flexible platform can be applied to a broad range of products, while realizing faster development time and higher performance.” The company said it will begin using the new technology in future models of its consumer electronics devices starting in April 2005. www.panasonic.com
Zi
Zi Corp. has released an updated version of its eZiTap Front End Processor, a downloadable version of its embedded eZiTap predictive text software. Version 2 of eZiTap FEP is being offered through Handango’s 100 download portals. In addition to English, it features French and German language capabilities and will include Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian in coming weeks. The software also works on the Sony Ericsson P800 and P900 series of smart phones. www.zicorp.com
Alphamosaic
Building on its original VideoCore solution, Alphamosaic has launched the VC02 Mobile Multimedia Processor chip. The solution is designed to display video on 3.5-inch color displays and to capture 8-megapixel images, optimizing the experience of watching television, making videos and taking photos on multimedia mobile phones. According to Alphamosaic, the VC02 can be operated for many hours on a battery charge. “Working in close collaboration with our mobile-phone VideoCore customers has given us a deep understanding of their multimedia needs,” said Jalal Bagherli, Alphamosaic’s chief executive officer. “This has enabled us to design a chip with the optimum feature-set for their next generation of products, anticipating the trends in handheld multimedia and video-enabled mobile phones.” www.alphamosaic.com
