Striped Sail Ltd. has developed a product called the miFrame™ which acts as a stylish stand for the iPad and simultaneously charges it. The miFrame will be offered to consumers through Apple’s official “Made for iPad®” program. The Company has plans to introduce multiple accessory products in 2011 and 2012, leveraging the expected success of the miFrame. Future products may include variations on the hardware/color/basic functionality scheme of the miFrame, as well as entirely different iPad-compatible products.
Caterva was created to develop a real-time social marketing platform. The web-based software will enable marketers to identify potential new customers and message to them over social network services like Twitter. Caterva’s software technology is based on natural language processing of social media information. Caterva has developed a scalable platform for automatically crawling, classifying, and querying the entire Twitter user base. Additionally this platform has been designed to be extensible to integrate data from Facebook, MySpace, and/or any other social media data source. This allows Caterva to provide instant and targeted customer analysis to brand managers.
Nuvixa, Inc. is creating a next generation video conferencing solution that enables a high-end virtual presence experience on a laptop or PC. High-end virtual presence solutions are currently available for large corporations through Cisco, Hewlett Packard and other high-end providers. These solutions require significant amounts of equipment and expertise to operate and a dedicated room. Using these systems, remote teams can conduct video conferencing meetings with the perception that all of the participants are in the same location, thus simulating the human dynamics that exist in a meeting when all are physically present. Nuvixa’s goal is to bring this same type of functionality to individuals and smaller businesses in an easier to use format, at a fraction of the cost, and without location constraints.
Snapshot Energy’s patent-pending technology produces a biocrude oil product from enhanced hydro-thermal conversion of organic waste feedstock. Using this proprietary process, Snapshot Energy will develop local energy centers that do not require the traditional costs and environmental impact of exploration, recovery, transportation, refinement, and eventual distribution of hydrocarbon-based liquid fuels. Instead of playing the entire movie of hydrocarbon energy creation, recovery, and refinement, Snapshot Energy will focus on a snapshot in time of an existing waste stream that is continuously created, readily available, and renewable.
Diagnostic Photonics, Inc. is developing an intraoperative device that can be used for surgical guidance and the real-time assessment of breast cancer tumor margins based on the work of Dr. Stephen Boppart and Dr. Paul Scott Carney from College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Diagnostic Photonics’ device is rooted in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), a unique imaging modality that allows for non-invasive, cross sectional optical imaging in biological media with high resolution. Working in concert with Dr. Carney, Dr. Boppart developed Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy (ISAM), a sophisticated and highly mathematical means of creating OCT images with unprecedented focus, resolution, and speed using existing OCT imaging hardware. Utilizing ISAM, the company is working to commercialize the next generation of OCT with algorithms for creating sharper images and faster acquisition for use in intraoperative imaging.
mpressInteractive’s concept is for customers to experience the art and craft of letterpress printing straight from their iPad. mpressInteractive has developed the software application, Letter M Press, a creative environment that lets the user create typographic compositions with authentic-looking wood type, ornaments, and boarders on a virtual hand-driven printing press. Users create their designs just as they would on a letterpress, by placing and arranging type on a press bed, locking the type, inking the type and making an impression of the type. Users can create unlimited designs and multiple color impressions. The end result is a custom design that can be saved as a jpeg or high-res PDF.
ImmuVen, Inc. features a powerful, emerging life science technology — high-affinity T cell receptors, a novel class of immune-targeting drugs and diagnostic agents. Founded by two of the world’s leading experts in the field, ImmuVen, Inc. represents a unique opportunity to capture and exploit the significant value in a life science arena that has blockbuster potential. ImmuVen plans to engineer and develop T cell receptor proteins through contract research and strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The company has exclusively licensed intellectual property that covers broad use of T cell receptors in disease.
ANDalyze, Inc.was founded in 2005 to focus on catalytic DNA biosensor technology for detecting heavy metals, diverse analytes, and biological molecules. The technology was developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Prof. Yi Lu. Professor Lu has developed a superior methodology for detecting and quantifying analyte levels based on the discovery of the catalytic property of DNA (DNAzymes). This technology is a universal platform that offers a simple, fast, inexpensive, and reliable detection of trace metals and other analytes and is far superior to current real-time chemical testing technologies. The ANDalyze product was selected as the top technology at the EPA Defense, Security and Sensing conference in May 2008 over more than 100 presenters and recently received the Editors Choice Award from Pollution Engineering Magazine in July 2010.
PrintEco’s mission is to help companies cut printing costs 17 to 40% and reduce their carbon footprint. Common examples of printing waste include pages from the Internet that are cluttered with images, poorly formatted spreadsheets, and unnecessary e-mail threads. PrintEco is solving this problem by creating plug-ins for Microsoft Office and Web browsers, the largest generators of waste in the corporate environment. Instead of going to File>Print, users go to File>PrintEco, where in a few seconds they are presented with an optimized version of their print job. PrintEco’s proprietary algorithms target wasteful content and inefficient formatting. Additionally, they offer a product called PrintEco Analytics that allows management to track and quantify the financial and environmental impact that PrintEco software is making.
KC BioMedix, (“KCB”) is a commercial stage venture backed medical device company developing and selling pulsatile neurostimulation products that address the overwhelming problem of incompetent feeding in premature infants. There are over 500,000 infants born prematurely in the U.S. each year, and as many as 50% are suffering from the inability to breast or bottle feed. Because these patients are not discharged from the neonatal ICU until they achieve 100% oral feeding competency, they create a substantial medical, economic and emotional burden for hospitals, neonatologists, patients and their families. KCB’s first product, the NTrainer System, solves this problem by assessing and treating their dysfunctional oral feeding, accelerating healthy development and enabling them to leave the hospital sooner.
Clearstream is cleaning up the online video advertising industry by providing advertisers with evaluation, auditing and developing a quality control for online video. The company aims to take the risk out of spending on online video ads for its clients through advertising by providing standardization with evaluation, auditing and reporting of video environments, and including premium in-stream, in-banner, in-game, auto-play and below-fold placements. The company also evaluates and scores the in-stream content for quality and contextual mapping, factoring in over 150 active data points into their platform. Their technology platform also provides advertisers with true video view completion authentication. ClearStream offers a number of products, including comprehensive video safety reporting that allows users to improve the performance of their current campaigns.
Ridge Diagnostics is a neurodiagnostic company offering its proprietary first-in-class blood test for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) through it’s CLIA certified laboratory in North Carolina. Based upon it’s proprietary Human Biomarker Library and it’s Biomarker Hyper-Map™ technology platform, Ridge Diagnostics researches, develops, and commercializes multi-variant biological maker assays and diagnostic algorithms to diagnose, select and monitor treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other neuropsychiatric disorders.
Oso Simple Technologies is developing a wireless, internet connected soil moisture monitoring system that helps gardeners save water and keep their plants healthy. By waiting to water plants until they really need it, gardeners can cut back on their water use and help their plants live longer, healthier lives. OsoSimple’s built in optional Facebook and Twitter connectivity gives gardeners the tools they need to easily share their gardening habits with friends and family. In addition to sharing information about their gardening activities, OsoSimple connects gardeners to issues of global water scarcity by donating a percentage of profits to developing water resources around the world.