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Technology Stocks : ATCO -- Breakthrough in Sound Reproduction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Savant who wrote (1618)	4/19/2005 9:35:25 PM
From: Savant	Respond to of 2062

Boston Business Journal - 2:38 PM EDT Monday Inventor Elwood Norris wins $500K Lemelson-MIT Prize Boston Business Journal A day after he was featured on 60 Minutes, Elwood Norris was named the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, recognized for numerous inventions including a system that beams a cone of sound to individuals so that only they can hear it. In 1994, Jerome Lemelson and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reward inventors. Norris plans to use the Lemelson-MIT Prize money to establish a foundation to help struggling independent inventors. According to a press release, Norris is the son of a coal miner who had only a third-grade education, and grew up in a household where the only luxury was a radio. At the age of eight, Norris took it apart to learn how it made sound, his first step in a career in acoustic science. Norris founded San Diego-based American Technology Corp. (Nasdaq: ATCO) in 1980. ATC's system converts an audio signal into an ultrasonic signal that forms a virtual column of sound directly in front of the emitter. Rather than spreading in all directions like the sound from a conventional loudspeaker, the signal stays locked tightly inside the column of ultrasonic energy. In order to hear the sound, one must be in line with the column of ultrasound, which also can be heard as it bounces off a wall. ATC envisions several applications of the system -- at museums to produce narration at individual displays; in homes to produce surround-sound-style effects; or as a bullhorn-style device for use by officials to address individuals at crowded events. Most recently, ATC has been working with the U.S. military on a project that uses focused sound to pinpoint verbal commands from more than 500 yards away, and to create a sound at 120 decibels, potentially disabling enemy combatants. Since 2000, Norris has been working on a miniature helicopter called the AirScooter. Norris told CBS' 60 Minutes that because the device weighs less than 300 pounds, it does not require an operating license if one does not fly it more than 400 feet above the ground. He says it takes less than an hour to learn to fly it, and plans to sell it for the price of a new car. Some of his Norris's other inventions include: Flashback, the first digital recording technology; an ear-mounted speaker/microphone that evolved into the Jabra headset product line; a through-the-skin Doppler system which was a precursor of sonogram devices; a wireless monitor to track children; and microwave radar technology capable of seeing plastic mines and other objects. The Lemelson-MIT Program will award the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award later this week. The good word keeps spreading. Mr. Norris is entering the exclusive world of legendary people. It is quite likely ATCO will be swept along in the exhuberance, for a ride into glory....and become one of those stocks that people "wish they'd have bought, back when". Best, Savant