Bruno Giussani is a writer, the European Director of the 
(Running notes from LiftAsia08, in Jeju, Korea)
A session with short presentations ("elevator pitches", really) by 6 young Swiss startups that were selected for a Korea entrepreneurs tour by AlpicT.
Pixelux Entertainment (represented by Raphael Arigoni) started in 2003 and does 3D software for entertainment and movies, based around the physical properties of the objects realized (they call the tecnology "digital molecular matter"). The results are spectacular: think of scenes where anything bends, fractures or breaks: objects realized with Pixelux technology deform and flex in a very realistic way, looking like they would do in the real world rather than looking cartoonish. Arigoni says that the tech also makes realizing these sequences cheaper. They've worked with LucasArt on the "StarWars - The Force Unleashed" game.
Arimaz (represented by Pierre Bureau) works on entertainment robotics. One of their products is Mydeskfriend, a small robot that looks like a Tamagotchi, connected to the Internet; it can read messages and RSS feeds, be a character in games, etc.
Secu4 (represented by Ralph Rimet) develops a protection system for valuables, based on wireless tech. 3300 laptops are forgotten, lost or stolen every week in the 8 biggest airports in the EMEA Europe, Middle East and Africa) zone. The idea of Secu4 is to insert a small bluetooth card, connected with a cell phone. For ex, put the card in your purse. If someone picks up the purse you've put besides your chair; or you forget it there and walk away; as soon as the purse-with-card is out of range (a few meters), the cell phone rings to alert you.
Poken (reprensented by Stephane Doutriaux) is a little keychain accessory. It's a funnily-designed USB key that lets you "touch" another person's poken to connect with that person in social networking sites almost automatically (plug in the USB and automatically upload your new connections, and there you go). It also captures a time stamp of the meeting.
Lighthouse (represented by Robert Tibbs) does security software for cell phones and wireless communications.
KeyLemon (represented by Gilles Florey) has developed an easy-to-use face- and speech-recognition software that can be used through a normal webcam. That allows continuous authentication by face recognition: your computer "recognizes" you. If someone else sits in front of your computer, the software locks it. The software can be downloaded for free from the KeyLemon site (Windows only for now; Mac under development, cell-phone version too, although it needs more powerful processos).
I met the founders of Poken at the techcrunch meetup in Zurich.
They where one of about 50 startups and on my opinion one of a few that have a chance to find an investor. The idea is good and should work, the questions is though, how to get the keychain tool amongst the people.
Posted by: Philipp Sauber | September 07, 2008 at 01:49 PM