ocal awards competition proves San Diego is still a world-class skunk works for high-tech ingenuity I've just returned from the front lines of the high-tech wars, and I'm delighted to report that innovation thrives in San Diego. As a judge for UCSD Connect's 11th annual Most Innovative Products awards in the technology categories, it warmed my heart to witness the local tech brain trust at work. These guys must never sleep! The following "finalists" were chosen in each category. A penultimate jury of San Diego's leading lights will make the final choices, to be announced Dec. 16 at an awards ceremony at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla. High-Tech Electronics 1. Would you buy a $599 printer-fax-copier-scanner that can replicate and transmit virtually anything to anywhere, including color to e-mail addresses? You bet you would. A most elegant integration of all that's good at Hewlett-Packard, this baby should take best of show. Ironically, although this OfficeJet is perhaps the only entry that will make it to the big time to generate hundreds of millions in revenue, it barely made finalist. 2. Checked under the hood lately? Much has changed in the last decade save that toxic black box in the corner -- the old battery. It's resisted hundreds of millions in R&D efforts at smaller/lighter, which makes Maxwell Technologies' PowerCache Ultra-capacitor all the more impressive. It stores up and discharges for peak power needs, so the actual battery need serve only routine power drain. This is good for turbo-charged cars and mass transit buses and great for the coming generation of electric cars. 3. Pentech Energy Solutions' "PERC" control systems improve operating efficiency of heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC). Most HVAC systems are pre-configured to handle peak needs -- the coldest and hottest days. This over-capacity means the systems are working harder than necessary at all other times. PERC's microprocessor-controlled devices dynamically match the output to the actual demand, or "load," to achieve optimum operation. 4. Remember scuzzy ports on your PC -- the hook-ups that llowed connection to one or two peripherals? Thanks to a new standard called Universal Serial Bus -- a truly "Magic Bus" that enables hookup to dozens of peripheral devices -- you can add mice, cameras, printers, CD-ROM drives, modems, scanners and more. USB, however, has a language all its own, so each device needs a little brain to talk to the PC's big brain. Anchor Chips' EZ-USB Integrated Circuit is a "soft-programmable" brain that manufacturers can place in their high-speed add-ons to do just that. Internet 1. Atcom/Info's "IPORT" provides high-speed connection via a T-1 line to the Internet for laptop users in public places. Most recently, the company has begun partnering with hotels to offer this l.5-megabyte bandwidth to "power user" execs in their hotel rooms. Not especially innovative, but credit them for recognizing an idea whose time has come. 2. Want to dazzle at your next dinner party? Then drop a couple of new Net terms: "Quality of Service (QoS)," which recognizes that, in the new e-commerce era, different online customers should get different levels of service; and "load balancers," which ensure (according to pre-defined policy) who gets how much "throughput." For example, when Fidelity Investment's network is strained, it might want to prioritize that customers buying or selling stock get priority over someone requesting info. Ipivot's "QoS Broker," a server management "appliance" that ensures ultra-reliability, scalability, and quality of service, does just that. 3. Imagine plunking down on your couch and watching your new 27-inch, high-def TV/computer show you big game replays from any angle -- even virtual angles that don't really exist. It's called ActionSnaps!, an "immersive multimedia," Internet-delivered technique from Praja that integrates audio, video and computer animation to reveal ultra-dynamic game action. Must have caught somebody's attention; colleges are signing on and the NFL is taking a closer look. Software 1. Long gone are the days when $100 worth of static template software was all you needed to build a Website. Websurfers now are demanding full-fledged dynamic, interactive functionality. And if you plan to do any serious work (i.e., selling) on your Website, it will doubtless need to be data-driven, i.e., access a database. With Elemental Software's "Drumbeat" development platform, a nonprogrammer can construct a powerful, robust site without writing a line of code. The $599 price could save $10,000 in time. This may possibly be the best software in its class in the world. 2. Along with its many other virtues, the Net has enabled far-flung individuals to collaborate as "virtual teams." E-mail chat-back has given way to "teamware" software that allows workers to build consensus using critical path charts, jot their thoughts on "notepads" that organizes input and use templates to filter data into formatted reports. Inovie Soft-ware's "TeamCenter" goes one step further by allowing members to work concurrently, so that everybody can watch new input from all parties take shape in "real time" on their screens. 3. If you're a frequent flyer and recall that horrific on-tarmac "incursion" involving a 747 that killed hundreds in the Canary Islands (or even if you don't remember), you'll appreciate Orincon's new "Aircraft Classification & Tracking on Surfaces" system. This "loop" of sensors underlying airfields links to a computer in traffic control to monitor planes as to type, speed, direction and proximity to other planes. Especially for night and bad-weather conditions, this system could be a life-saver many times over. Orincon, long a think tank for Department of Defense and other federal agencies, is trying to go commercial. We're glad. Telecommunications 1. Commquest's WorldPhone Tri-Band Total System Solution is a set of building blocks for developing chipsets for wireless phones that work in three frequency bands, so a cosmopolitan exec can make calls in Munich, London and Bangkok. Unfortunately, the WorldPhone is a big name masking a small market. Because most overseas travelers prefer to rent a phone and insert an ID card that uses their home number, the WorldPhone will probably garner less than one-third of 1 percent of total handset sales. More exciting is the elegant building-block approach to developing it. 2. USA Talks.com's "Internet Telephony Long Distance Service" is an IP-based phone-to-phone service whose claim to fame is that it charges a flat monthly rate. Much as I love to save money, and much as I admire little companies with chutzpah, this offering is not really unique. I would buy this service, but not vote for it as innovative. 3. You've probably heard of fiber-optic cable blasting on-demand movies into your home, or streaming complex graphics through the ether via wireless receivers. But what about the $300-billion mountain of copper wire still out there -- the telco's installed base? It may not be glamorous, but it's still huge. Shouldn't we try to leverage that investment into new applications? Copper Mountain Networks' "Digital Subscriber Line" solutions do that by greatly boosting throughput, through your boring phone wire, of Internet and LAN-based data coming into your home office computer. Not alluring, but eminently sensible. That, of course, should be the hidden message and moral behind the entire competition. Remember the Gold Rush? Remember who, ultimately, achieved wealth and fame? Not the miners, but the self-effacing and sensible guy who sewed jeans for them...a guy named Levi. Gregory McQuerter, CEO of the McQUERTER Group, has been providing marketing support to San Diego's top high-techs for more than a decade.