Each quarter, the research team of Friess Associates, present innovative and interesting ideas in Looking Forward, a newsletter published for Brandywine Funds shareholders, that cross their radar screen. Opportunities to capitalize on investment opportunities related to them may lie in the future or never surface.
       Next best thing to being there: If you can’t make an on-site presentation, perhaps your digital double can man the podium. Dallas-based Teleportec takes videoconferencing to a new level with its “teleportation” technology that allows people in separate locations to interact as though they occupy the same room. Digital teleportation projects a life-size, three-dimensional image that enables real-time, face-to-face interaction. In addition to making off-site speakers able to engage any audience member verbally and visually, the technology is a promising distance education tool for its ability to beam live 3-D images from a big city operating room, for example, to a rural hospital.
       Extremely remote backup: La Jolla, California-based TransOrbital, the first private company authorized by the U.S. government for commercial flights to the moon, plans to pack its lunar orbiter with servers, data, commuters and digital cameras with the hope of establishing a new frontier in the world of remote backup. The company says moon storage promises to protect critical data from earthly disasters, though “delays are implied” when it comes to accessing the data from earth. TransOrbital’s lunar orbiter, Trailblazer, which will also deliver business cards, cremated remains and other items on behalf of paying customers, is scheduled for an early-2004 launch.
       No special glasses required: Japanese electronics maker Sharp will be introducing the world’s first 3-D laptop, the Mebius PC-RD3D, this fall. It is targeted for people who design three-dimensional software, but there will be a version for average consumers. Sharp is looking to build on the positive momentum created by the 3-D capable cell phones that it has been making for customers of Japanese wireless company NTT DoCoMo since November 2002. The computer display produces 3-D images by sending a slightly different image to the right and left eyes at once by bending the images in different angles. The $3,000 laptop switches between its 3-D feature and a regular display at the push of a button.
       A link to lost luggage: Last one standing at an empty baggage carousel? About 250,000 passengers a month in the U.S. alone experience the classic air traveler’s nightmare. Globalbagtag presents a cheap and simple baggage-tracking solution. Travelers buy a Globalbagtag, which bears a unique seven-digit ID number and the words, “If found, log on to www.globalbagtag.com.” Globalbagtag stores customer information on its database, enabling it to reunite customers and their stray belongings after someone enters a lost bag’s serial number on its website. Finders receive a free set of Globalbagtags for their honesty. Two tags and a two-year database membership cost about $16.
       From lab to ring finger…to PC?: Engineers have produced diamond crystals for industrial purposes for decades. Now companies with names such as Gemesis and Apollo Diamond are capitalizing on advances in diamond-making techniques to create gem-quality stones for jewelry. If consumers embrace them, mass-produced diamonds could introduce pricing pressure to the $7 billion, cartel-controlled diamond industry and, perhaps, eventually reshape the market for semiconductors. With the highest thermal conductivity of any known substance, diamonds could allow microprocessors to run at speeds that would produce enough heat to liquefy silicon.
       Editor’s Note: Founded in 1974, Friess Associates manage more than $6 billion in the Brandywine mutual funds, www.brandywinefunds.com, as well as separately managed portfolios.