Simplify your life with ‘Wafer’ tag for your smartphones

Nagarjun is not just another student pursuing engineering in Goa, he is making products to 'Simplify our Lives'. This tech-freak (as he calls himself) has been working on 'The Wafer Tag' for the past 3 months and has been experimenting with Embedded Sytems, Arduino, Bluetooth, Wifi modules and RFID for the last 3 years.

Wafer is Indiegogo crowdfunded backed project and the Goa based startup company was founded just 4 months back. With the crowd funding campaign currently running on Indegogo.com for their first product 'The Wafer Tag', Nagarjun is confident about packaging and shipping their products from early august. In an interview with him, we learnt all about how The Wafer Tag can make so many things in our life so simple with just a tap.

Practical uses of an NFC tags are limitless, for example a Wafer NFC tag could be embedded into a political flyer. Tap the tag, and you're directed to a Web site touting a candidate's credentials. At the same time, you also instantly receive a snappy biography in the form of a text file and image or, at your favorite restaurants, you can touch your phone to an NFC tagged menu and voila you have the entire menu on your phone, along with nutritional information and mouth-watering descriptions of the ingredients in your favorite dishes.

"The wafer tag uses NFC. NFC (near field communication) is a short- range wireless technology which allows for the transfer of data between two NFC enabled devices. Almost all the smartphones have NFC. Our tag has a microchip that allows you to store data which can be accessed by any NFC-enabled device, when it is within range." He says.

One of the USP of Wafer tags over other existing NFC tags available in market is its cheapest price and also that it has more memory, maximum device compatibility and is customizable with your own text.

On asking how it makes things simple for the users, he said, "Like for example, sharing your contact with someone. We physically give away a business card, which can be easily misplaced and it is also cumbersome to keep so many business cards. The Wafer tag allows you to store your contact on it digitally and lets you share the contact via a simple tap using your phones NFC technology. This is just one of the many applications of the Wafer tag."

Wafer has worked on making their product excessively user friendly and secure where the user can lock their device and prevent overwriting/theft of data. The Wafer tag can store 512 Bytes of data and is cheaper than competitor products in the market with an option to customize it. Compability with all NFC Devices (old and new) and strong app support by Windows, Nokia, Android and Blackberry makes it a must have for everybody. This top notch product makes sharing, discovering, updating and managing things so much easier. It is versatile product and can be used in any environment, for any task.

A very down to earth and positive person, he strongly believes that Success is directly proportional to the efforts put into work. When asked about the difficulty faced while starting up, Nagarjun said "Indiegogo did give me a nice boost in the first week, however it got really hard when the traffic to the page decreased. We then had to get in touch with various tech enthusiasts who finally brought our campaign back on track. By crowd-funding our product we not only want to fund this project but want to build an audience for our company. An audience that will believe in us and help us build products that they will love." Nagarjun plans to recruit people once the project is crowd funded.

Power8 is a Ultra-Lite Smart Solar Kit that smartly charges phones, tablets, laptops

We've all faced the frustrating issue of our smartphone running out of power, just when you want to make that call, send a message, or find where you are on a map and you are in middle of somewhere where there is no source to electricity and other alternative power source.

Power8 is a new powerful and ultra-compact solar power kit that efficiently charges phones, tablets, and laptops. Designed by Italian entrepreneur Vincenzo Lufino, the Power8 solar power kit overcomes shortcomings of portable solar power kits on the market, and Lufino has launched a crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo to raise $25,000 by June 29 to help get the product to the international market.

But how it is different with other portable solar kits?, well Power8 ultra-Lite smarter to typical solar kits as it keeps charging after sunlight interruptions and can charge the Flashlight Battery together with your device. As typical portable solar kits don't automatically turn back on when the sun reappears. So you constantly have to babysit the panel to make sure it is working, thus Power8 come with APS i.e. Auto Power Switch.

The Power8 was designed in Japan where founder Vincenzo Lufino has lived for more than a decade and experienced the type of emergency for which the Power8 kit was designed. “After experiencing the great East Japan earthquake in 2011, I was immediately turned on to solar power and how it could be used in an emergency situation,” said Lufino. "I noticed that the products on the market were not powerful enough. They also lacked style and convenience."

The Power8 solar kit’s four-watt combination panel and storage unit is compact enough to fit in a pocket and can charge an iPhone 30 percent in an hour. The super-small and stylish storage unit doubles as a water-resistant flashlight and holds enough charge to bring an iPhone from zero to 100 percent charge. It comes in a choice of five colors – green, blue, dark grey, light grey, and pink.





The Power8 kit was designed with two smart technologies to eliminate needless shutting off due to intermittent sunlight and to allow charging the device and battery at the same time. "It was important to me not only that it outperform similar products on the market but also that it has a sleek design," said Lufino. "The Power8 is designed so that you will want to carry it when you travel."

Several prototypes were created until a mass-production model was achieved last year. The Power8 is dependable and stylish and works well in the city, in the country, and in emergencies. “We have covered our manufacturing bases very thoroughly, and we are ready to deliver,” said Lufino.



Contributors to the crowdfunding campaign will receive discounts on Power8 products. Early birds contributing $30 will receive on Ultra-Lite Smart Battery Flashlight, and those contributing $45 will receive on four-watt Ultra-Lite Smart Solar Panel. Early contributors giving $65 will receive one Ultra-Lite Smart Solar Kit, which includes the four-watt Smart Solar Panel and Smart Battery Flashlight.