I had a chance to join an Fintech event last week in Tokyo, organized by FinoLab. FinoLab is an organization founded by a group of financial visionaries who aim to revolutionize financial technology from Japan to a worldwide scale.
In the event I came across a very interesting product named Estimote Beacon – by Estimote Inc. in Poland. Had a chance to talk to Marta Kosmala, Account Manager of Estimote Inc., I found that Estimote graduated from Y-Combinator. They currently have approx. 60 employees in The States and Poland; they are seeking opportunities to expand their product to more countries.
The Beacon is a little device that can detect motion, temperature, ambient light, pressure… and even has a magnetometer sensor built-in. They are especially capable to detect micro-location like within a mall, shop, house, etc. Because of this capability, lots of innovative interesting applications can be built.
Imagine you are finding a little screw-driver in a huge supermarket and you spent 20 minutes wandering, finding staff to ask but nobody around. What if, your mobile phone shows you the shortest path pin-point to the rack of the screw-driver? What if you mobile phone guides you to the train station entrance in airports that you are not familiar?
Further, Estimote released a new product named Estimote Mirror, which is another small colorful device to plug to the TV – imagine in a shop, the TV displays goods that based on your taste and shopping behavior when you get close to it. Ads are personalized – isn’t that Google has been trying to do for the past decade?
Enjoy the short video on Estimote website.
