Some of you may be familiar with the mobile accessory company Powermat. The New York City based accessory manufacturer creates a line of cell phone battery covers and battery packs that aim to simplify and add greater convenience to your mobile life. We stopped by the company’s booth at Mobile World Congress and got a glimpse at where the company is now, where they hope to be, and what’s next. Spoiler: if Powermat has its way, you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more about them in the future.

Powermat first came to market around 16 months ago with an innovative, but bulky, line of cases for the iPhone, the iPod touch, the Nintendo DS, and a handful of BlackBerrys. With the case attached to your mobile device, you can place the handset on Powermat’s power mat charging-base and enjoy a cordless charge. Pick up the device, it stops charging. Put it down, it starts charging again. Fast forward to today: the cases have slimmed down, the mat has been sexified, new mobile power accessories have been announced,  and the company is looking to expand its position in the smartphone market place and take its proprietary technology beyond the mat. Hit the jump to read about how Powermat wants to keep you powered on, sans cord.

The technology used in the Powermat’s charging systems is magnetic induction, which, since it doesn’t generate much heat, lends itself to a host of other uses. Where might you see Powermat down the road? In the airport, car, and kitchen for starters. The company has already inked a deal with Arconas — maker of airport seating — to include Powermat charging surfaces in a new line of seats. The seats will be rolling out in 150 airports worldwide and will also feature — for those of you who are currently inductively challenged — standard AC outlets. The company has also forged a partnership with U.S. based car manufacturer General Motors. The center console of the electric Chevy Volt will be Powermat capable (death to car chargers!) and GM has plans to expand the feature to additional model families.

The kitchen piece is really interesting. When we asked Scott Eisenstein, VP of Communications for Powermat, why his company was trying to maneuver its way into our kitchens the response sort of shocked us. “We’re woking with Haier to create Powermat enabled appliances. Picture taking your blender out of the cabinet, putting it down on the counter, and it just works… anywhere. You don’t need to be near an outlet.” The company has said it can make any typical counter surface (aside from metal) a giant Powermat. The company can do this from under the surface — even through granite — without making any cuts, slices, or holes in your kitchen-top.  “Since it’s magnetic induction, the appliances are extremely water tolerant, making them safer,” continued Eisenstein. “We could even get to the point where a Powermat-enabled electric appliance is dishwasher safe.” It’s definitely a new and interesting direction for the company.

Beth Harrison Meyer, the company’s VP of Global Marketing, told us that PM is currently working with smartphone OEMs and we should see a device shipping from factories, Powermat ready, before the close of 2012. Meyer also noted that PM is working with notebook OEMs to get the technology integrated into laptop batteries for drop and go charging — again, direct from the factory.

Powermat has some really cool, and really functional charging technology; we definitely got way more than we bargained for after wandering into the Powermat booth. The company has over three million Powermat systems in-market and is growing globally. What do you think? Do you see wireless charging in your future?

If you are a Mercedes owner and a BGR reader, you might have noticed that your car falls a bit short in the technology department regarding music and video playback (any model Mercedes). The Media Interface Plus accessory is a just-released plug and play Bluetooth box that’s now available for purchase, and since it offers a whole heap of enhancements, we decided it was worth checking out for ourselves. For starters, here is what the Media Interface Plus can do that your Mercedes currently can’t: control the Pandora app from your iPhone (including changing songs and even rating songs thumbs down or thumbs up from the steering wheel), streaming music from your Bluetooth device (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, iPod touch, etc.), allowing you to view your SMS messages from the car’s COMAND display, and even playing back iPod video from your iPhone or iPod. Hit the jump to find out what else this little accessory can do, and check out our video overview.

The box itself is pretty clunky and much bigger than we had imagined, but physically connecting it is dead simple — just unplug your current iPod/media interface cable if you have one, and plug this in instead. You then have to first pair the new box via Bluetooth to your car, then you can pair your devices to it. A total of five phones/devices can be paired with only one active at a time. One of the first issues with the Media Interface Plus is: if you normally connect your phone via Bluetooth to your car your device can only be connected to either the car (for using the telephone) or the Media Interface Plus (for music).

While the expanded options the MIP offers is great, the device requires you to keep your phone or iPod physically connected in order to use most of the features properly. To control Pandora for instance, you’ll have to manually launch the app on your iPhone and start playing a station while the phone is connected. Then you can control it from the steering wheel and/or COMAND console. Video playback requires the device to be physically connected as well, streaming Bluetooth music doesn’t obviously, and SMS viewing does not as well. We couldn’t get SMS viewing to work on our iPhone, and streaming Bluetooth playback sometimes takes a while to start and get going properly. We also couldn’t make a downloaded TV episode play from our iPhone though the audio played back just fine.

All in all, the Mercedes Media Interface Plus enhances the existing offering, while adding the capability of streaming your music wirelessly via Bluetooth. If we wen’t into this with that mindset, we’d have been a little happier, we just assumed you could do most of what the device promised without physically connecting your phone, that’s all. At $298 for the accessory, it’s a bit expensive for just enabling Pandora playback/control, streaming Bluetooth, and iPod video playback — but hey, we won’t judge you if you take the plunge.

Let’s take a trip down Memory Lane to the late-90′s. Back to a much simpler time when cheap gas, overinflated technology stocks, and unattractive computer hardware (and haircuts) reigned supreme. If, during this time, you happened to be the proud owner of a frumpy laptop (unattractive haircut optional), there is a good chance you had a certain connectivity peripheral protruding from the side of your machine… a PCMCIA network interface card (NIC).

PCMCIA stood for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, which was the name of the group that governed the cards standards. PCMCIA NICs adhering to the standard had a dual-row 68-pin configuration, were 54mm wide, and came in a variety of thicknesses — depending on which type of card you had (Type I, II, and III were the most common).

The PCMCIA NIC card was a standard after market accessory for laptops in the late 90′s. If you were interested in using your portable computer on the Internet with that new-fangled “ethernet” technology you were going to need one of these bad boys as ethernet ports were still not standard on laptops at this time. Often accompanied by a dongle, the PCMCIA ethernet adapter provided users high-speed connectivity in a dial-up world. 3Com and Xircom were two of the major PCMCIA manufacturers.

The general consensus around the BGR office is that these cards were one of the least reliable pieces of hardware one could own. Jonathan, Zach, and myself can all recount buying, returning, and exchanging, multiple PCMCIA NIC cards due to various hardware failures, driver issues, and software incompatibilities. But, at that time, they were a necessary evil.

What say you? Can you remember the days of yore when ethernet was a privilege and a bent pin or lost dongle could totally ruin your day?

BGR’s Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear.

Mercedes-Benz is on an environmentally conscious tear as of late, launching two hybrid vehicles last year, and now an entirely zero emission fuel cell car this December. We were given an opportunity to test drive the new F-Cell vehicle in Manhattan and learn more about the car. For starters, when thinking about what Mercedes has done with this specific vehicle, it’s mind blowing in itself. A non-combustion engine car that is powered off of hydrogen with zero emissions. Did you ever think you’d see the day? As a car lover, just hopping into the driver’s seat of the F-Cell was an experience. Zipping around downtown New York City in the car was… just like driving a gas-powered vehicle, except, there was no noise. I’ve driven dual-mode hybrid cars before, and I have gotten used to not hearing an engine at some times, but no engine sound at all? Borderline ghostly. While the B-Class-based F-Cell has an all electric motor rated at 136 horsepower and 214 pounds of torque, it definitely didn’t feel underpowered. Plus, once we got over the sound of no sound from the engine, there wasn’t much to complain about. It’s the first fuel-cell car from Mercedes, and while it’s not exactly the most luxurious or stylish model in their lineup, neither is a Prius. Being powered 100% by hydrogen lends itself to one main issue: finding a hydrogen refueling station. Now, there are a couple around the NYC area (White Plains, NY, Wallingford, CT, Bronx, NY), but when the F-Cell touches down in December for consumer leasing, it’s going to be heading to the state of California — mostly Los Angeles and San Francisco where there are plenty of hydrogen stations. You might notice how we said leasing and not purchasing, and that’s because the car will only be offered by way of a lease, and while Mercedes wouldn’t confirm pricing information to us, we’ve heard it will run around $550-$750/month. Definitely on the higher end of the spectrum, but for a car that literally emits water instead of toxic sludge — representing the future of the automotive industry — all we can say is, sign us up.

Click on over to our Mercedes-Benz F-Cell vehicle gallery!

Yesterday, we reported on the Chevy Volt electric car and it’s $41,000 price tag. Now, we know some of you were probably thinking that a Chevy doesn’t exactly fit your personal steez, but we might have something for you. The Porsche supervisory board has green lighted the production of the 918 Spyder hybrid, complete with a 500-horsepower V8 and 109-horsepower electric motor. The new Porsche will allegedly net 78 miles per gallon and will retail for slightly more than the Volt, at around $650,000. We’re unclear as to how a 500-hp Porsche is going to get 78 mpg while a 140-hp Prius gets around 40 mpg… but hey, here’s to hoping those crazy Germans know something we don’t!

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Mobile giant Nokia and car-systems specialists Clarion have announced a partnership to push a technology they are calling Terminal Mode. As the press release reads, “Terminal Mode, [is] a technology that will enable a totally new way of mobile devices and car infotainment systems to seamlessly work together.” This is a technology that Nokia and Clarion plan on supplementing with content from Nokia’s Ovi Store, and one hopes will be and “industry standard.” The idea is to create a back-end system, and front-end interface, that will become the standard for car manufactures, allowing both OEMs and consumers to customize and tailor their in-car experience. We’ve got the full release for you after the bounce.

Clarion and Nokia Team Up on Connected Car Technology

TOKYO, June 22 /PRNewswire/ — Clarion Co., Ltd., a global leader in car audio and electronics, and Nokia Corporation, the world’s leading mobile device producer today announced that they are collaborating on Terminal Mode, a technology that will enable a totally new way of mobile devices and car infotainment systems to seamlessly work together. Both companies say this collaboration will further boost the development of next-generation smart car infotainment systems.

Through this partnership Clarion aims to develop the smartphone interface that Nokia and Consumer Electronics for Automotive, CE4A are proposing as industry standard, as well as to build an application service business for in-car devices utilizing the Ovi Store application service by Nokia. Clarion is also targeting accelerated development and greater commercial dominance of in-car information systems for the Europe and North America markets where Nokia has a strong presence, as well as China and other emerging markets.

“By integrating the Terminal Mode technology into in-car information systems such as car navigation developed by Clarion, we will be able to bring to customers the vast array of applications and services available to smartphones on in-car devices. The integration of in-car devices with smartphones will provide better user experiences for consumers and lead to radical changes in in-car information systems,” says Tatsuhiko Izumi, president of Clarion.

“Through a stronger collaboration with Nokia and NAVTEQ, which supplies map information for our car navigation systems in overseas markets, it will be possible to utilize smartphone functions and services for in-car information system functions and support services such as intelligent transport systems (ITS), advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and navigation coordination.

“Nokia believes that Terminal Mode is an ideal base for industry innovation, allowing existing and new kinds of services to be extended into the car,” says Vesa Luiro, Automotive Director at Nokia. “We are already committed to collaboration with the automotive industry and this alliance with Clarion will further improve the user experience in the car and enable consumers to access their favorite internet services and smartphone applications, wherever they are.”

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In-car video entertainment is hardly something uncommon these days. Any run-of-the-mill mini van or SUV can be fitted with a nice DVD / console entertainment system for a fraction of what it used to cost, typically directly from the dealer. If you want to give your front passenger something to focus on during those long trips however, it’s a slightly different story. Sure you can have your local shop slap a flat panel into your passenger-side visor but unless you’re a teenager you’re or prepping for an appearance on Cribs, you might get a few funny looks. Don’t sweat it though, Mercedes-Benz and Bosch might just have the cure for what ails you – assuming you can squeeze a new S-Class into your budget next year. The duo have developed a new display technology dubbed SPLITVIEW that will allow a single screen to display two different pictures depending on the viewing angle. Using a combination of clever pixel placement and a unique filter, SPLITVIEW will allow a centrally-located monitor in the dash to display navigation or control information to the driver while displaying a DVD or even TV channels to the passenger. The passenger will also have the option of using headphones, freeing up the car’s speakers for music or turn-by-turn navigation instructions. Pretty slick, eh? Expect SPLITVIEW to make its first appearance in production 2010 S-Class cars this summer.

Thanks, Robby!

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