Sarnoff and Viocare® to Develop Mobile Phone-Based Food Tracking System

Business Wire, May 13, 2008

Next-Generation Technology Provides NIH Study Groups with Advanced Dieting and Nutrition Support on the Go

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Sarnoff Corporation and Viocare Technologies today announced a partnership to develop a new mobile phone-based dietary assessment tool for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Genes, Environment and Health Initiative (GEI).

The tool, called the Mobile Food Intake Visualization and Voice Recognizer (FIVR), uses a mobile phone to help measure a meal's nutritional content. The innovative system uses a combination of photographs and speech recognition to identify the food and produce an estimate of the calories an individual will be consuming. The development of this technology is one of the first projects that will be funded as part of GEI.

"This exciting technology combines Sarnoff's industry-leading vision processing expertise with Viocare's pioneering mobile food tracking capabilities," said Rick Weiss, president of Viocare Technologies. "Together, Sarnoff and Viocare are able to deliver a system that vastly improves the administration of nutritional studies while offering dieters a simple yet revolutionary way to track the content of the food they eat."

Over time, the FIVR system will be able to categorize a user's eating habits. Using a series of questions, FIVR will both recognize foods a user commonly eats, such as popcorn, and will also identify habits specific to that food, such as adding butter.

"In the past nutritional studies have relied on onerous questionnaires, food diaries, or a large staff of dedicated surveyors," said Dr. Don Newsome, Sarnoff's President and Chief Executive Officer. "By leveraging Sarnoff and Viocare's extensive experience developing advanced medical technologies, FIVR eases that burden, allowing studies to receive more accurate, timely, and cost effective data."

The NIH's Genes, Environment and Health Initiative helps determine environmental components and genetic roots of common diseases. As part of that mission, GEI invests in innovative new technologies to measure environmental factors such as dietary intake to determine individuals' biological response.

About Sarnoff Corporation

Sarnoff Corporation (www.sarnoff.com) delivers vision, video and semiconductor technology innovations that empower government and commercial clients to see/sense, understand and control complex environments. Founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories, Sarnoff makes continuous breakthroughs in real-time video processing for defense, security and surveillance; ICs, lasers, imaging and sensing devices; high-performance networking and wireless communications. Sarnoff is a subsidiary of SRI International.

About Viocare Technologies

Since 1993, Viocare Technologies (www.viocare.com) has been the "gold" standard in metabolic research systems and remains the technology behind the science of nutritional research. Viocare's tools and services have been developed in conjunction with leading scientists through grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Viocare products are used in research initiatives of preeminent institutions including the NIH, the US Department of Agriculture, and numerous research Universities and by world-renowned clinical institutions to guide patients through wellness lifestyle changes. Corporate wellness clients realize the benefits of this work through Viocare's VioWell[TM] program.