Lemnos Labs, high-tech hardware maker To make that magic possible, Zelman's hardware incubator, Lemnos Labs, is funding Momentum Machines, which is developing a burger-making robot named Patty that can assemble a cooked burger and bag it in less than 30 seconds. Lemnos is backing about 10 hardware startups, including a maker of autopilot systems for unmanned drones and a company that built a device that attaches to corporate campus vehicles and connects with a smartphone to coordinate employee pickups. Internet's effectThe price for sophisticated electronics has dropped dramatically in recent years, as has the price for design software and machines that allow entrepreneurs to create quick prototypes. "All of these forces are allowing amazing innovation to occur in the hardware area," says Eric Klein, a vice president of advanced engineering at Nokia who is assisting with projects at Lemnos. The hardware companies bring their prototypes to life in Lemnos' warehouse, a grungy facility near the San Francisco Caltrain station with tattered couches, workbenches and a kitchen stocked with giant jars of pickles. When the bar code on a bag of beans is scanned, the machine activates precise brewing temperature and duration settings to make the perfect cup. The device, which looks like a high-end French press with a luxurious wood finish, will be aimed at people in charge of testing beans for coffee chains. Reviving the spiritIn the 1920s, Philo Farnsworth developed the television in a lab just a couple of miles from the Lemnos warehouse, and decades ago electronics workshops across the valley did pioneering work in radio, radar and vacuum tube technology.