December 10, 2002

CONTACT: Colleen Robar
Ardesta LLC
734.528.6113
crobar@ardesta.com

Ardesta Launches New Wireless Sensor Network Solutions Company

Sensicast Systems, Inc. Receives $3M Series A Financing; Names Management Team

ANN ARBOR, MI. and NEEDHAM, MA., December 10, 2002-Ardesta LLC (www.ardesta.com) has started a new Small Tech company, Sensicast Systems, Inc. Sensicast will use three million dollars in initial funding from Ardesta to develop and market low power, battery-operable, wireless sensor network solutions for the commercial, industrial, agricultural and security industries.

"Sensicast Systems will build end-to-end, one-stop solutions for specific vertical markets that can benefit from wireless sensor network technology. By aggregating the best products from several suppliers, Sensicast will be able to provide solutions for applications as diverse as high-value asset monitoring and outdoor environmental sensing," said Rick Snyder, Ardesta's CEO.

Headquartered in Needham, Mass., the new company will be led by Paul Sereiko as president, Peter Stein as vice president of business development and Jay Werb as vice president of technology and engineering. The trio were formerly members of the management team at PinPoint Corporation, an early supplier of wireless real-time location systems (RTLS) that were used to locate and manage assets in hospitals, factories, and offices.

"Wireless sensor networks will drive the next phase of explosive growth in the wireless industry. Technological improvements and cost reduction of low-data rate transceivers, low power microprocessors, MEMS (microelectromechanical system) sensors, and embedded programming languages will unleash the development of a new class of fully autonomous computing and communications devices in form factors smaller than a box of matches," stated Paul Sereiko, president of Sensicast.

"Initial marketing efforts from device manufacturers will be focused around well known wire replacement applications in building and industrial control markets. But new applications, where a wired data acquisition infrastructure is simply too expensive or inflexible will be the focus of Sensicast's market-driven solutions," added Sereiko.

About Ardesta LLC

Founded in 2000, Ardesta is the leader in bringing Small Tech products to the global marketplace. The company develops and acquires world-class intellectual property; creates and invests in young product companies; provides business and technical resources to support these companies; and develops industry-building resources. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ardesta.com.

Other Ardesta companies include Small Times Media, Discera, Sensicore, Translume and HandyLab of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Ion Optics of Waltham, Mass.; Konarka Technologies of Lowell, Mass.; Micronics of Redmond, Wash.; Sarcon Microsystems of Knoxville, Tenn.; Phoenix Bioscience of San Ramon, Calif; NeoPhotonics of Fremont, Calif.; TheraFuse of Vista, Calif.; and MesoSystems and MesoFuel of Albuquerque, N.M.