Irish companies are using new remote technologies to help us work harder and have more fun playing, too
DONSEED: Real-time management
Last month, Tralee-based company Donseed Ltd announced that it was going to invest €1.2m to accelerate its international growth. Donseed provides web-based workplace management solutions to the construction, retail and energy sectors, and the company's Workplace Management Services (WMS) monitors the signing in and out of all people entering and leaving construction sites and other, non-construction locations, including employees, subcontractors, project managers and visitors.
Data is captured using biometric devices such as finger recognition and is transmitted securely, in real time, over the internet or over mobile or fixed-line network connections, and the data is integrated with payroll, HR and other operational systems.
"Our customers use Donseed to efficiently manage subcontractors across multiple sites," explains Donseed chief executive Philip Lynch.
"All other finger biometric solutions require broadband or telephone lines, but ours uses the mobile network to send information to and from the clock. This means it can be set up quickly and at short notice.
"When we looked at construction, our research showed that a lot of companies won't have a phone line on site, and getting broadband on site can be troublesome. We have come up with a solution where they wouldn't require either. We have a data card in our box and every five minutes it sends a packet of its data to the Donseed server. If I clock in at 8 o'clock in the morning, my boss will be able to see that I am on site five minutes later."
But the company is about more than just time sheets and attendance, according to Lynch. It also allows users to share project-specific information such as drawings or health-and-safety minutes across the contract team in a secure environment, using its document management module.
The company is working with construction companies in over 100 sites across Ireland and Britain. The €1.2m investment, with support from Enterprise Ireland and the AIB Seed Capital Fund, will enhance the company's in-house R&D and sales functions and create 26 jobs over the next two years.
SENTRY WIRELESS Child minding goes mobile
A few years ago, Catholic schools in New Zealand tried to restrict the use of mobile phones by students following incidences of "text bullying" that had been linked to student suicide in at least one case.
If anything, it highlighted that text bullying is a growing problem among schoolchildren. An Irish-based company, Sentry Wireless, has developed mobile parental-control software to combat the problem. Sentry calls it a "net nanny" for mobiles. Its product, Kidsafe, allows parents to choose who can call and text their children, ensuring only approved numbers get through, not strangers.
"The average age of a first-time mobile user in Europe last year was eight and it's 10 in the States," explains Sentry Wireless chief executive Ciaran Bradley.
"That means kids as young as five or six are getting phones. You're giving kids phones that were designed for adults. It's great technology, but unfortunately there are some downsides."
Kidsafe provides a mechanism to allow parents to customise and control their children's mobile phone use.
Parents can allow or prevent defined phone numbers from contacting their children by SMS or voice call, allow or prevent their children from making calls and sending SMS messages to defined phone numbers, monitor the activity of their children's phones, and control the times when a phone can be used.
Sentry Kidsafe is a patented Sim-based firewall application. It does not touch the mobile operator's core network and is completely device-independent.
BREAKOUT GAMING CONCEPTS Gaming gets physical
Money and recognition are two important factors for any start-up business, and Dublin-based company Breakout Gaming Concepts has made considerable progress on both fronts by scooping the Docklands Innovation Park Enterprise Awards 2008, winning €10,000 for having the best new investment proposal.
Breakout Gaming Concepts designs, develops and produces computer games and peripheral devices, like game controllers, for the computer games industry.
The current goal of the company is to create a successful business around its patented Mimics action figure controller technology through international licensing and partnership with specific game publishers, game developers and console vendors.
Breakout Gaming Concepts was established by Brian Quigley and Andrew Deegan.
Quigley is currently reading for a Bachelor of Technology degree while continuing to work full-time in his role as a software consultant. Managing director Andrew Deegan is a BSc Honours Product Design graduate of DIT and the award-winning designer of the patented Mimics action figure controller design.
He has a wide range of experience, including work with the Lego company as a product designer.
Methods for controlling computer games are changing, says Deegan, adding that Breakout Gaming Concepts will engage these changing needs with the first action figure controllers on the market.
"Other controllers out there have thumbsticks and buttons. We have an action figure which has sensors integrated into it.
"When you play with the character, you control the character on the screen - using a voodoo doll, essentially," he says.
The company is currently building a network of game publishers and gaming platform partners for the development of controllers for current and new-generation computer gaming console platforms.
"The hardware growth for the business has mostly been due to the Wii coming out with its new macro interaction, rather than the micro interaction which had been going before," explains Deegan.
"In past times, keyboards, mice and simple digital buttons have been used. Now they are bringing in gyroscopes, tilt sensors - which opens up a whole new avenue for cool, better interaction designs for controllers for computer games."
ELEVEASE Razor sharp innovation
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but some innovations owe their origins to sheer frustration, according to Aoife O'Driscoll. Frustration with the everyday task of leg shaving led to the DCU graduate coming up with the idea for the ElevEase.
It's a shower step which easily fits into the corner of any shower unit at knee height and eliminates the need for awkward bending and stretching while carrying out tasks such as leg shaving, exfoliating and applying tanning lotion. ElevEase also has a built-in space to fit most razor sizes.
O'Driscoll, who is now sales and marketing director with the company producing the product, came up with the concept of the Shower Step while in her second year in college and discussed her plans while interviewing Dave Brennan, a successful entrepreneur, as part of a college assignment. Brennan instantly recognised that the idea had huge potential and since then, design and technical director Andrew Middleton has been developing the concept with his business contacts in China.
The trio have formed a company, Concepts Plus, to market the product and come up with other consumer-friendly designs.
The shower step has already received a lot of interest from retail chains, hotels and fitness centres and the company is in negotiations with Heatons, Dunnes and a number of bathroom outlets to stock the product.
