A new course to teach the upcoming generation of engineers the basic concepts and technical details of digital manufacturing, including computer-aided design, shape digitization, and digital fabrication. Taught in two version, for undergraduate and graduate students. [Visit the course Web site.]

     After the $10 million Ansari X Prize was awarded for the first private spacecraft in 2004, the X Prize Foundation is expanding its charter to launch prizes in other breakthrough fields of technology. Ennex is helping X Prize look at opportunities for stimulating development of groundbreaking progress in nanotechnology with a major new prize.

     A study of nanotechnology business opportunities and their potential economic impact on the California Central Coast, from Thousand Oaks to San Luis Obispo, in both the short and longer terms. Conducted for UCSB’s College of Engineering and Center for Entrepreneurship & Engineering Management. [Download the NanoCoast report.]

     When Hollywood icon Technicolor needed to revamp its customer service process, we created the Web-based software that improves its representatives’ productivity and accuracy. [See the Web site developed for Technicolor.]

     Viral marketing campaign for CallWave, Inc., an Internet telephony venture. Viral marketing uses technology to encourage today’s customers to bring in tomorrow’s. It’s the modern incarnation of “word-of-mouth” advertising, the best promotion there is. [See the nonproprietary portion of CallWave’s report.]

     A dialect of JavaScript for easy use and development of interactively configurable Web pages.

     The objective was to build a digital fabber that was simple, easy to manufacture, and easy to use. We built a working prototype, and then the first patent issued in 1996. In 1998 a team of five engineers was assembled to work on a production design and prototype. Excellent progress was made, but funding shortfalls left a number of technical issues unresolved. We now have three patents and are interested in discussing licensing with qualified parties. [Read the story.]

     Ken Hayworth and Marshall Burns of Ennex and Tom McCarthy of USC started the LA NSG, modeled on a similar group in the Bay Area. The original program was to get together once a month to discuss successive chapters of Drexler’s NanoSystems. When we got to the end of the book, we decided to keep going with journal papers suggested by members for each meeting. The meetings started at Caltech in Pasadena and later moved to the Ennex offices in Westwood. Attendance was mainly graduate students and engineers. (The dates listed above are approximate.)

     When we first got involved in the field in 1991, there was no unified picture of its development status, machines available, the uses people put them to, and the technology’s prospects for the future. We conducted a thorough search of the landscape and produced the first major book on the subject, which was published by Prentice Hall in 1993.

     Using computer graphics to discover “quantum resonances” in highly excited hydrogen atoms

     A dialect of the C computing language for easy use and debugging in scientific research

     When Everex came out with the first “notebook” computer while Marshall Burns was still working on his dissertation in graduate school, he couldn’t resist the temptation to pick it up and sell a few.

     The open architecture of IBM’s famous PC created an enormous opportunity for entrepreneurs. We were the first to market with a generic brand computer built on this platform. [Read the story.]

     Inspired by Polaroid’s launch of the SX-70, the first camera with film that developed itself without timing or peeling, this venture operated amusement park concessions using a video feedback system to allow customers to compose their pictures before they were snapped.