Keeping up with current trends is important for companies to keep up with society's changing needs

PARKMAGIC Pay and display

Limerick-based company, ParkMagic, the mobile payment and wireless technology company, achieved its biggest coup this summer when it saw off 13 global parking solutions companies to secure the contract to implement a new mobile parking payment system for the city of Chicago. The initial project will see the system supplied to 1,000 commercial users, expanding to consumers throughout the greater Chicago metropolitan area within a year.

Last month, a new online reservations system which ParkMagic developed, in association with Paxton Access, was launched by QuickPark, at Dublin airport.

ParkMagic was founded in 2005 by Philip Hayes and Paul Fitzgerald and has pioneered a new method of pay parking in urban centres. Instead of the ticketing system, which can be inconvenient for drivers and costly for local authorities, ParkMagic's product is an in-car parking display unit, which can be activated by the driver's mobile phone.

The driver will have a pre-paid parking account, similar to credit on a mobile phone, from which he or she can activate the unit. The driver can also register online to get credits by credit card or to set up a direct debit to have unlimited parking with a monthly bill.When they park, they make a quick call to ParkMagic's automated system which lasts typically about 15 seconds. The system checks the account and, if credit is available, it deducts the parking amount and sends the parking permit to his or her display over the air.

The new QuickPark system allows customer to log onto www.quickpark.ie and reserve their car parking in advance.

Customers logging on to the website enter the date, time of arrival and duration of their stay and can then check the availability of car parking spaces. The space can then be reserved with payment by credit or debit card. A pin code is provided to the car owner which is entered into a Net2 keypad on arrival at QuickPark where a space will have been pre-allocated.

The same pin code is used on exiting the car park so no more queuing at the payment machine . ParkMagic will also be offering its existing customers the facility to use their ParkMagic account to pay.

NEWADDRESS.IE Moving it altogether

Moving house a couple of years ago led to Derek Quinn setting up NewAddress.ie, Ireland's first change of address notification service.

"I moved house a couple of years back and having gone through the experience of having to contact close on 20 different companies, I realised you could use internet technology and software to make it much easier. You're basically saying the same thing again and again and again to all of these companies," says Quinn.

Along with his colleague Kevin Gill, he was already running an internet business called MovieExtras.ie, an online directory service of film extras, models and background actors.

Following the hassle in changing his address, he sat down with Gill and ex-O2 corporate sales executive Bob Hoffman and they came up with the idea for NewAddress.ie.

The service promises to make the house moving process more efficient and cost effective. It will enable house movers to notify Ireland's leading companies of their change of address free of charge and in a number of easy steps.

"You have, on the one hand, people who move and, on the other hand, all of these companies which need to know and its just literally getting the connection through to the two," says Quinn.

NewAddress.ie is advising up to 70 companies of a change of address and it has enjoyed significant success in the Leinster region and around urban centres nationwide.

"We are in the position where we have some of the top companies in Ireland such as ESB Customer Supply, Eircom, Bord Gáis, Bank of Ireland, O2 and Vodafone," he says. Businesses that subscribe to the service will cut costs, deliver better customer service, enjoy improved customer retention and eliminate returned bills and direct mail, says Quinn.

Research by the company indicates that 25 per cent of the population bought new homes or changed new homes in the past year. The company has already 11 per cent of that market.

NEUTEKBIO Adapting to new uses

The best innovators know that their initial concept or product has more than one adaptation and that is certainly the case with Galway-based biotechnology company, NeutekBio.

Set up in 2001 by Robert Erickson and Dr Michael Tovey, Neutekbio's products are based on technology discovered at the Centre National Recherches Scientifiques (CNRS) in Paris, and developed at CNRS and the NeutekBio's labs at the National Diagnostic Centre in NUI Galway.

The company's initial product was a diagnostic kit which could determine within 16 hours if somebody had an active virus, but it has since changed direction. "Technology moves so fast now, there are more precise ways to measure viral infections using DNA probes," explains Erickson.

Instead, the company developed its products to determine whether a patient will respond to a drug called interferon which is used to treat diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and they assess how a patient is responding to treatment.

"Our products are different that anybody else's that are on the market," says Erickson. "They measure the biological activity of these drugs rather than just the presence of the drug. That is important because the body forms natural inhibitors to block these drugs."

NeutekBio's products are aimed at increasing the effectiveness of critical drug treatments which, he says, has positive benefits for drugs companies and patients.

GSS Protecting the priceless

It's rare that a company's product can for be used in sectors as diverse as food packaging to art conservation. But a new DCU company developed technology to test packaged food and other sealed goods is now also being used to help protect priceless paintings.

Gas Sensor Solutions (GSS) has signed up the Tate Britain Gallery in London - home of the UK's priceless Turner collection - as a customer for its unique product.

GSS is commercialising technology developed at DCU's National Centre for Sensor Research to test oxygen levels in sealed packs - without breaking into the pack.

The technology was packaged into a company as part of an investment agreement between DCU, Invent and life and bioscience investment company Growcorp and the European Bioscience Fund.

The Tate Gallery intends to use the company's sensor expertise to prevent the fading of its priceless collection.

Modified Atmosphere Packaging (Map) is a process whereby the gas inside a pack is altered in order to maximise the shelf-life, colour and/or freshness of the packaged food. GSS has the ability to place an oxygen-sensitive label on the inside of a pack, print a sensor directly onto the packaging via an industrial ink-jet printer or apply an oxygen-sensitive coating to the entire surface of the packaging. If oxygen finds its way into the pack, this can be picked up using a scanner.

But GSS can now also has intelligent plastic. The sensing capability is delivered directly in the packaging material, which means that no post-production work is required to impart oxygen sensitivity.