Quality of Life Technology Companies Provide Sneak Peek at Future Innovations

PITTSBURGH-Five startup companies from Carnegie Mellon University's Quality of Life Technology Foundry (QoLT) will be exhibiting their products at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the world's largest and best-known technology trade show, from Jan. 10-13.

QoLT companies, along with several other CMU innovators, will be exhibiting their technologies at booth #3011. In addition, Modular Robotics, a Carnegie Mellon startup that makes robot construction kits for children, will be demonstrating its products at booth #73007.

The CMU booth provides visitors with a sneak peek of future technologies that one day they may find on store shelves. Keepon, a small yellow interactive robot that is now available commercially, was featured at past CES shows.

QoLT is one of the incubators of CMU's Greenlighting Startups initiative, which is designed to further speed innovations from the research lab to the marketplace. In the past 15 years, CMU faculty and students have helped to create more than 300 companies and 9,000 jobs.

The startup companies from QoLT attending CES include:

• First Person Vision: created a wearable device developed under the guidance of Takeo Kanade and Martial Hebert to share seeing of who, what and where a person is looking;
• VibeAttire: developed technology embedding sensors into everyday clothing to transduce music and other sounds into synchronized vibrations a user can feel;
• Fitwits: created a hands-on learning and interactive gaming system to inspire healthy eating and lifestyle changes;
• Tiramisu Transit: developed the real-time, crowd-powered bus-tracker app for iPhone or Android, developed in conjunction with CMU's Traffic21 Initiative; and
• Origami Robotics: the company will debut Romibo, a build-it-yourself robot for therapy, education and fun.

"Through their QoLT Foundry, the Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center (ERC) has developed an exemplary review and vetting process to move university-based research to commercialization," said Barbara Kenny, the National Science Foundation program director overseeing the center's grants. "We're pleased to see the QoLT ERC bring these engineering innovations, spin-off companies, and translational research projects more directly into the public eye."