An engineer from St. Lorenzen ob Murau has launched clever developments for the festive season – digital Christmas greetings and a Christmas tree registration.
The run-of-the-mill greeting card with funny animal or frosty snow motifs has long since had its day with him. And so is the accompanying traditional gift voucher, which is increasingly ending up under the Christmas trees in the family circle.
Walter Dulnigg, a keen inventor from St. Lorenzen ob Murau, now only sends colourful parcels/ gifts “garnished” with an individual “touch”: including a Christmas carol he sings himself, a personal mobile phone greeting video or a voice message with a heart.
How does it work? The Upper Styrian has developed a sticker in various designs that contains a tiny microchip. “You download our ‘Hallotag’ app and then connect your mobile phone contactlessly to the sticker. Then you can save your video in the app,” Dulnigg explains. Especially in times like these, when personal contacts are to be avoided, “emotions” could still be transported in this way.
“For example, if the granddaughter puts the sticker with a song sung by herself on it, grandma only places the back of her mobile phone over the sticker – and the personal audio/ video recording is played,” reports the technician. The user-friendly innovation here is that the recipient does not have to install an app himself.
The sticker is available for 9.90 euros per piece in the company’s own webshop (www.hallotag.com) and is also popular abroad – such as Great Britain, Germany, Denmark or Switzerland.
„Management“ for Christmas trees
Dulnigg’s second “Christmas invention”: labels with which farmers can mark their Christmas trees on the plantations. The “core” here too: small chips. If the firs or spruces are later cut by the hundreds, a machine registers all the delivered goods. “This allows farmers to keep track of everything.”