Odds are that you've probably never heard of Keyssa, a US-based startup that's one of thousands of companies on display at CES this week. They first surfaced late last year with the promise of speeding up data transfers between storage devices while simultaneously doing away with wires and I/O ports. Sounds appealing, right?
Keyssa is showing off its technology at CES this week and by all accounts, it's incredibly impressive. The company uses a connector about the size of a coffee bean that can be integrated into any number of devices. The connector uses an extremely high-frequency, short range radio band to transfer data between smartphones, tablets, notebooks and more with virtually zero battery drain.
And it's really fast with a transfer rate of up to six gigabits per second.
The idea is to eliminate those unsightly connectors on our devices. Just imagine how much nicer your high-end smartphone would look if the perimeter wasn't littered with I/O ports.
It certainly seems like a great idea and apparently I'm not the only one that feels that way. After five years of developing the technology in the shadows, the company has raised $47 million in funding from investors like Dolby Family Ventures, Intel and Samsung.
What's more, Nest founder and designer of the original iPod, Tony Fadell, serves as the company's chairman. The executive said he expects it to spark an immediate wave of industrial design innovation.