TEchnoLogy

Inventors display eureka moments

Zone at Las Vegas electronics show is designed to give entrepreneurs exposure to potential investors

By Benny Evangelista

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

LAS VEGAS— Eureka Park at the International Consumer Electronics Show is a tech zone with cutting edge technologies — some almost ready for public consumption, and some that may never be.

The area features products such as contact lenses that theoretically display Facebook posts, wearable, bendable plastic solar panels and a laser system that can turn a car windshield into a see-through digital map.

The zone, a first for CES, is designed to give early stage companies and entrepreneurs exposure to potential investors and others. About 100 companies are participating in Eureka Park, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the nonprofit StartupAmerica Partnership, which includesMicrosoft, Intuit, Dell and American Express.

Many, like Innovega, have already receivedNSF grants. The Seattle-area company is developing contact lenses that display images, text or other augmented reality information to the wearer. Chief technology officer Randall Sprague said the company has a real-life version of what movies have presented as science fiction.

“Mobile phones took us out of the office, and nowwe always have Internet connectivity wherever we go,” he said. With the lenses, he said, “You’re now wearing your mobile phone, and you can see it all the time.”

The lenses could makewatching 3-Dmovies or playing video gamesamore immersive experience or give auto mechanics information about engine parts they are replacing.

Sprague conceded issues still have to be addressed, such as what to do if driving while wearing the lenses.

At another booth, HealthMicro of Los Altos, Calif., presented its disposable wireless sensors, designed to replace wired sensors that health care workers now stick on patients for tests such electrocardiograms.

It makes sense that inaworld rapidly going wireless, patient monitoring should also cut the cord, HealthMicro President and

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International Consumer Electronics Show

Attendees get hands-on demonstrations at Eureka Park, an area at the International Consumer Electronics Show where retailers, venture capitalists and manufacturers can find entrepreneurs and inventors.


Randall Sprague / Innovega

These two pictures are of the same contact lens. Innovega, a Seattlearea company, is developing contact lenses that display images, text or other information to the wearer.

“You’re now wearing your mobile phone, and you can see it all the time,” a company official said.

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Inventors find a need, try to fill it

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CEO Surendar Magar said.

“You can use it for five to seven days and throw it out, and a disposable batterywould be part of it,” he said.

Rolled like paper

Then there was Solarmer Energy, which is developing solar energy cells made of flexible plastic that can be rolled up like a sheet of paper. The El Monte, Calif., company says the cells can be produced at speeds similar to printing a newspaper and for a fraction of the cost of standard solar panels.

“In five or six years, we want to get at or under a dollarawatt,” said product engineer Casey Irvin, who showed prototypes attached to the back of a cellphone, providing rechargeable power, and embedded in a vest. Perpetua Power Source Technologies is also working on products that generate renewable power, but fromamore personal source: body heat. The Corvallis, Ore., company’s TEGwear technology converts body heat

into energy. The body can’t generate enough power to recharge a cellphone, but it could provide enough for low-power devices like awristwatch or a health monitoring sensor, said JerryWiant, vice president of marketing.

Wireless wristband

The company received an NSF grant to develop awireless wristband to monitor the location of Alzheimer patients.

Emota.net of Mountain View, Calif., used gesture controls embedded in a stuffed penguin to demonstrate how it is trying to make its social networking technologymore emotionally engaging for people, especially for keeping isolated seniors active and healthy.

Emota creates a layer of social networking on top of Facebook that can be limited to family or friends. The groupmembers can share photos or messages in their own private network, using simple interfaces that include Google TV. CEO Paul To co-founded the company in 2009 as a senior health care project but believes the technology “has broad emotional appeal to anyone.”

And Scribble of Redwood City, Calif., showed a program designed to help students, researchers and businesses digitally annotate, save, organize and share information gathered from the Web.

CEO Victor Karkar’s inspiration is the basic credo of many a successful entrepreneur— find a need and fill it.

“I needed it myself,” he said.

bevangelista@sfchronicle.com



Daniel Acker / Bloomberg

About 100 companies are at Eureka Park at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The tech zone is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the nonprofit Startup America Partnership.