1 GUARDIAN ANGEL
POWER OUTLETS THAT SENSE TOUCH AND TURN OFF

A division of EMD, Guardian Angel Enterprises is a company that is easy to support: its products are designed for child safety and tend to go well beyond protective caps. The Guardian Angel Outlet, for example, has an electrode behind the outer casing that can tell the difference between the hand of a child, a knife, and the prongs of your laptop cable. The outlet powers off until the item is removed from within range.

Daniel Masterson, Guardian CEO, invented the outlet in 2005 when his two-year-old son decided to remove the plastic inserts of a home outlet – one by one. The same technology is also used on a Fellowes paper shredder that senses human energy.

“It’s one of those technologies every parent of a small child should have but probably doesn’t know about,” says Rob Enderle, consumer analyst with Enderle Group. “But changing power outlets can be expensive and few homeowners are willing to do it themselves for fear of being electrocuted. Great idea, but the need isn’t broad enough to drive this into new homes without regulation. I think this should be a requirement for new homes, but until it is, it likely won’t get the volume to make it successful.”

2 ANYCLIP
SEARCH THROUGH A COMPLETE FILM LIBRARY

Google and Microsoft might be nipping at their heels, but AnyClip, which launched in mid March, has a surprisingly innovative idea. The site lets you search for movie clips using metadata (the keywords associated with content on the web) or even vague recollections. For example, you can search for the mattress scene in the movie The Hangover or that one with the Italian actress from The Pink Panther. In the early stages, the site just has a few hundred movies, and sadly you can’t actually watch the clips (for licensing reasons), but the service taps into the ripe social networking need to share content, as well as offering an easy-to-access resource for the answers to those tricky pub quiz questions on film quotes – not that we advocate cheating, of course.

3 BODYSOUND
3D AUDIO FURNITURE TO WRAP YOU IN SOUND

Home entertainment furniture is not exactly new – and, it’s often the purview of the McMansion set. Yet, by adding some “personal technology” – where individual users can dictate exactly how they wish the audio to sound – to the living room, Minnesota-based BodySound may just attract a following.

Dr. Dan Cohen, a former neurologist, invented the chairs to wrap home movie enthusiasts in seven-channel audio. Interestingly, during the course of his research, Cohen discovered that movie watchers were actually transported to a kind of alternative reality, cocooned as they were in sound.

Consumer analyst Rob Enderle, says BodySound could ride the coming wave of 3D technology in the home, mostly thanks to Avatar and the fact that many high-definition televisions are now 3D ready. Yet, BodySound has one, pretty major, challenge, he says: it’s a sub-section of a sub-market and may have an uphill climb.

4 SYMCARE INTOUCH
MONITOR DIABETES FROM A WEBSITE

Real-time web monitoring of diabetes is a brand-new concept, and one that is sorely needed. SymCare inTouch is one such system, where patients (and loved ones) can see sugar levels and monitor health.

“We have seen increasing interest from established players and start-ups to introduce web-connected devices using various wireless protocols to bring real-time, continuous tracking capability to patients with chronic conditions,” says Harry Wang, director of health and mobile research at consultancy Parks Associates. “Technologies like inTouch give consumers motivation for real behavioural changes and help care givers better manage a patient’s condition.”

5 JOHNSON CONTROL METASYS
CONTROL AN OFFICE WITH AN iPHONE

What if you could customise your credit card so it only works with specific retailers, or draws funds from a certain debit account for particular purchases? That’s the idea with inControl, a service developed for MasterCard by its subsidiary, Ireland-based Orbiscom. You can also set alerts on spending limits and configure options, such as a specific budget for a clothing retailer. Enderle says the technology is viable, especially for young adults who may have someone else controlling their money. It could also be useful for banks, which could offer it to customers who have had difficulties managing money.

6 MASTERCARD INCONTROL
TWEAK YOUR CREDIT CARD SO IT WORKS ONLY WITH SPECIFIC RETAILERS

The Apple iPhone can be used to turn your car on remotely, translate spoken languages, and store your entire Pink Floyd collection, yet the device has failed to make a major impact in big business. But that may be about to change as the device connects become viable for business enterprise management.

One example to watch is Johnson Control’s Metasys 5.0 system, which helps building facility managers monitor and adjust temperatures and humidity levels in real-time. Not only could the system help cut running costs, it is also designed to aid in greentech management, helping conserve energy use.

According to Michael Gartnerberg, an analyst at Altimeter Group, smartphones will continue to be used as “command and control” devices in 2010 and beyond, calling the Metasys 5 system a potentially valuable addition to the smartphone.

7 INTEL WI-DI
SEND A LAPTOP SCREEN TO A TV

Intel toots its own horn of innovation, but a new technology called Wi-Di (Wireless Display) is like a side dish to its processor and graphics main courses. With Wi-Di, you can click a button on your laptop and send the video and audio signal to a television. The streaming technology is actually a software addition that works with the Intel Core chips (such as i3 and i5), but requires a Netgear set-top box connected to the television using an HDMI cable. Only a few models support Wi-Di so far, but expect it to be a hit at your next business presentation, while consumers will be able to enjoy online media on a bigger screen.

“Intel Wi-Di meets the needs of consumers who want to connect a laptop to a flat-panel display to project internet-based content onto the big screen,” says Kurt Scherf, an analyst with Parks Associates. “This is important as we have seen a huge jump in the percentage of consumers who are active in watching online TV shows and movies. We’re already seeing a rise in the number of households that have implemented a PC-to-TV connection. Our estimate is that nearly 11 million homes have [these connections], up from eight million in 2008. So, there’s definitely a driving force behind this.”

8 TICKIT.COM
CREATE CUSTOM STOCK TRADING ALGORITHMS

TickIt Trading Systems (TickIt.com) helps futures traders create algorithms for such things as when to buy, low price increments, and quantity forecasts. Michael Unetich and Rick Lane created the site after realising that most of the work involved withelectronic trading is in developing algorithms. Yet, most traders are not computer programmers, so TickIt's software, developed by Lane, utilises an easy-to-use flow-chart system where you just move “what/if” statements around.

“When we started out on the road to programming and automation as a trading firm, our core idea was that anything a trader does is just determined by multi-step if-then analysis,” says Unetich. “Since it was obvious that electronic trading was here to stay, we decided that we should try to automate all the variables a trader uses in that type of analysis.”

Enderle says TickIt, which started in 2009, could be a hit: “If widely deployed, it could actually change trading as we know it. It has a great deal of potential.”