A Poken made for suit pockets

Created to help people swiftly exchange contact details without using business cards, Poken is a cute plastic creature that uses RFID to transfer data. When we featured Poken back in February, we added: “there’s plenty of mileage in this idea, including bringing it to other audiences. Unless we’re wrong of course, and professionals *do* want to high-five their pandas after a meeting.” Turns out that Poken ran into this issue—many business professionals weren’t comfortable whipping out a plastic zombie, and the 64 contact limit on the original Poken was too constrictive. Smartly, they responded and today launched Poken Pulse, a sleek sibling to the first product line. Poken Pulse has room for hundreds of contacts and includes an integrated 2GB USB memory stick, which explains the higher price of EUR 29.99. No software installation required, and it works with any operating system. In addition to slick black and white, Poken Pulse also comes in a few colourful versions, designed by Dutch artist Gaby Zwaan. Future features include flexible flash memory capacity, and allowing developers to create applications for Poken. Great to see a young startup rapidly responding to consumer needs it may not have anticipated!