Each quarter Friess Associates, managers of the Brandywine Funds, share samples of innovative ideas that cross their research team’s radar screen even though opportunities to invest in them may lie in the future or never surface. Some of these innovations might be showing up near you already while others fail to evolve into practical applications. Here are some recent ideas:
• New Production Method Could Unlock Potential. For several years, researchers have told us that manmade “metamaterials,” which interact with light like no natural material can, will lead to optical devices more advanced than previously imagined outside of science fiction. But existing processes used to make these nano-scale materials have been too arduous and time consuming to facilitate real-world demonstrations. A professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign might have developed a solution. His stamp-based printing method makes relatively large sheets of an especially promising metamaterial that engineers envision being used in such advanced applications as super-lenses and invisibility cloaks.
• Focus Photos After Taking Them. Armed with $50 million in fresh venture capital, a Mountainview, California-based startup named Lytro promises the introduction of its new camera later this year will spark a “picture revolution.” Regular digital cameras combine all light rays that are captured and represent them as one amount of light. Lytro’s “light field” camera captures all of the light rays separately. The camera relies more heavily on software than mechanics, resulting in no shutter lag. Thanks to the light field technology, images can be focused after being taken, subjects can be focused selectively and photos can be switched from two to three dimensions, among other capabilities outlined by Lytro. The company plans to begin selling the camera before the end of 2011.
• Novel Neural Implant. Engineers from the University of Michigan are taking a promising new approach to linking brains and computers with technology they hope will one day restore self-directed movement among victims of paralysis. The team overcame numerous challenges in existing neural implant design with what it calls BioBolt, a dime-sized implant that makes contact with the brain through a hole in the skull. Microcircuits at the point of contact decipher patterns from firing neurons and, based on those patterns, send digital commands to an external computer. One of the most unique aspects of BioBolt’s design is that it taps into the conductive properties of human skin to transmit the signal. The implant’s developers aim to replace the computer with wearable electronics, like a watch, that could directly stimulate muscles being called into action.
• Technology of Touch. A collection of technology companies is jockeying for position in the ongoing evolution of smartphones, tablets and other devices by adding to their “feel” in inventive ways. From virtual guitar strings that fingers deem authentic to flat-surface keyboards that deliver the sensation to a user’s interaction with a device. An early example of haptics is a cell phone’s vibrate mode. Now, a company called Tactus Technology has applied for patents related to technology behind a touchscreen from which the company claims a keyboard or game’s controls can rise. Bloomberg Businessweek recently highlighted Tactus, Pacinian, Senseg and the small-cap public company Immersion in an article on the topic.
Editor’s Note: Founded in 1974, Friess Associates, P.O. Box 576, Jackson, WY 83001 manage more than $6 billion in the Brandywine mutual funds, www.brandywinefunds.com, as well as separately managed portfolios.
