Keyssa, a start-up backed by Tony Fadell, one of the fathers of Apple’s iPod, announced it is working with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and others on a new way for mobile phones to transfer large amounts of data without using wires or Wi-Fi connections.
Keyssa chief executive Eric Almgren said his firm had raised more than US$100 million from Fadell, the venture arms of Samsung and Intel Corp, and others.
The company’s “kiss” technology allows two devices to be held near each other and transfer large files such as movies in a matter of seconds. The goal is to remove the need for cumbersome and bulky cable connectors inside devices like phones and laptops, which are growing ever lighter and thinner.
If Keyssa is successful, the wireless data transfer technique could eventually be available in a wide range of devices.
Keyssa in October last year announced together with Intel that it had come up with a design that could be embedded in so-called two-in-one laptops, which feature detachable touch screens.
The alliance with Samsung and Hon Hai is aimed at creating a design for mobile phones.
Samsung Catalyst Fund head Shankar Chandran said the management team at Keyssa had previously developed the technology behind the HDMI standard for video connections.
Samsung hopes the new technology might become similarly widespread.
“Standards tend to get ecosystems built around them in a fairly complicated way,” Chandran said in an interview. “What’s needed is a bunch of industry players across the value chain saying they’re going to build to that standard. And that’s really what we have.”
One of the first places a wireless transfer feature could show up is the Essential Phone, the device designed by Andy Rubin, the father of the Android mobile operating system. Essential has said its US$699 phone will feature wireless data transfer, but it is not clear where the technology is coming from.
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