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Tech
Ford has developed a prototype robot charging station drivers operate via their smartphone from inside their electric vehicle.
It’s a move that could enable disabled drivers to stay in the car while charging – or leave the car while the robot does all the work.
Once activated, the station cover slides open and the charging arm extends towards the inlet with the help of a tiny camera and after charging, the arm retracts back into place.
Disabled drivers have already identified ease of charging as a key purchase consideration for electric vehicles.
“Ford is committed to ensuring freedom of movement and right now refuelling or charging your vehicle can be a major problem for some drivers,” Ford’s Europe Research and Innovation Center engineer Birger Fricke said.
“The robot charging station could be an added convenience for some people but – absolutely essential for others.”
The company is already planning to trial the robot in real-life situations.
The robot charging station could be installed at disabled parking spaces, in car parks or at private homes and the process could even become fully automated, with minimal or no driver involvement.
Marketing tech player XPON has reported record quarterly revenue of $3.7m, up 63% YoY, and record quarterly gross profit of $2.5m, up 85% YoY.
XPON’s recurring revenue is earned by selling proprietary software licenses for its Wondaris customer data platform – which centralises customer and marketing data, leveraging Artificial Intelligence for automated advertising activation – and its Holoscribe extended reality platform (XR) for quick and easy publishing XR and 360-degree content.
The company’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth of $1.9m represented a $0.5m improvement on Q3 FY22 – and across the FY22 year, ARR grew by 78%.
“We were also pleased to announce the expansion of our relationship with our valued partner Google,” Founder, MD and group CEO Matt Forman said.
“Wondaris now joins a group of 3rd party integrators approved by Google to upload Customer Match Segments within the Google Ads platform, thus extending the reach of Wondaris and driving awareness of the platform to millions of Google Ads customers.”
The loyalty and rewards program developer announced cash receipts growth in Q4 FY22 of $12m – that’s up from $3.2m in FY21.
Total actual Group FY22 revenue (unaudited) was $12.1m, up 279% vs FY21 and delivered Q4FY22 revenue (unaudited) was $3.8m, up 190% vs Q4FY21.
The company says the development and integration of Mosaic into Seagrass Hospitality Group is on schedule, with the first restaurant to go live by the end of July 2022.
“Gratifii anticipates FY23 to deliver another year of continued revenue growth, fuelled by the post-pandemic re- emergence of retail and hospitality and a heightened focus on customer retention/loyalty due to potential economic uncertainty,” CEO and MD Iain Dunstan said.
“The new front-end and mobile app functionality delivered to Seagrass, will ensure that new client implementations going forward are delivered in a shorter timeframe resulting in monthly SaaS revenues coming on-line faster.”
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