Your report for Monday, November 17, 2008

Amphibious car maker's tech center opens in Auburn Hills
An engineering and research center for a new amphibious vehicle builder formally opened Friday in Auburn Hills. New Zealand multi-millionaire Alan Gibbs said the 37,500-square-foot engineering center for Gibbs Technologies now employs 83 "but will hit 120" soon. Gibbs previewed two of his company's first three vehicles before an audience of press and politicians. The first Gibbs vehicle to hit the market -- sometime next year -- will be the Quadski, a combination four-wheel off-road vehicle and jet ski. It will reach 40 mph on both land and water. Next, in 2010, will come the Aquada (above), a three-seat convertible sports car powered by a 175-hp six-cylinder engine that will do 110 mph on the highway -- but drive it into the water and it transforms into a 40-mph speedboat that can tow a skier. More.

Troy partners propose advanced trash-to-energy system
Every time a ton of trash disappears into a Michigan landfill, Bill Chynoweth and Jim Schuur feel a pang of regret. Because in that ton of trash is the energy equivalent of half a ton or more of coal -- and that trash could be gasified in a virtually pollution-free system to produce energy and steam, and reduce the amount of land devoted to trash burial. Chynoweth's Troy-based Resource Management Partners and Schuur's Troy-based Renovare Energy Inc. and Aarell Co. are working together to convince state environmental officials, local politicians, utilities and trash disposal giants like Waste Management that their concept is sound. More.

Waterford firm offers new hardware for the hard of hearing
Waterford Township-based Silent Call Communications is introducing the Sidekick II Signature Series. The devices monitor doorbells, telephones, smoke detectors and fire alarms within 2,000 feet and alerts people with hearing problems that there is a visitor, phone call, or danger. More.

'Nanobamas' fuse art, science, tech, politics
A University of Michigan professor has created 3-D portraits of President-elect Barack Obama that are smaller than a grain of salt. He calls them "nanobamas." John Hart, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, made the mini-Barack Obama likenesses with his colleagues to raise awareness of nanotechnology and science. Each one contains about 150 million carbon nanotubes stacked vertically like trees in a forest. More.

BBB: Beware online inauguration ticket scams
A record number of Americans want to attend the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama but only 250,000 tickets are up for grabs. While many Web sites are claiming to sell tickets online, the Southfield-based Better Business Bureau is advising the public that purchasing scalped tickets could leave you out in the cold with empty pockets on Inauguration Day. More.

The Week Ahead: It's the event storm before the calm

Look at it this way: as insanely busy as this week is, the five weeks following are practically empty.

You can start your week from the Great Lakes IT Report's Michigan IT Calendar by circling Thursday.

Yep, once again it's our monthly Last Thursdays Unwired at Lawrence Technological University get-together -- moved forward a week for obvious reasons -- and the topic is literally ripped from today's headlines. We're convening a panel of genuine experts -- John Van Fossen from Clark Hill, Tom Anderson from Automation Alley, life sciences CEO Stephen Munk, and experts from Lansing IT consultants Dewpoint. Register here.

I've got another exclusive event Wednesday, a luncheon considering the impact of Michigan's renewable energy law and utility reregulation on large power users. If you're interested in attending, contact William Jayne at (248) 455-7253 by the close of business today. Space is very limited, so please respond at your first opportunity.

Elsewhere the week gets off to a roaring start with a defense industry innovation seminar Monday and Tuesday at the VisTaTech Center in Livonia. Tuesday and Wednesday, holy mackerel, it's the always-fantastic MichBio Expo, which is back in the Detroit area at the Rock Financial Showplace in Novi. The Michigan State University Land Policy Institute talks up creating entrepreneurial communities in Lansing Wednesday. That's also when the West Michigan Life Sciences Initiative in Grand Rapids celebrates its fifth birthday. Thursday, it's a major Oracle users summit at VisTaTech. And Thursday and Friday, it's the University of Michigan's annual economics seminar and forecast. And Friday and Saturday, it's a major regional conference of TiE-Detroit, the group that started out as Asian Indian entrepreneurs, but which has now broadened to include everybody who's interested in reinventing the region's economy.

Wow!

This week? Twenty-nine events on the calendar. Next week? Not a one.

So we'll see you out there, and remember, there's plenty of time to buy that turkey this weekend.

For information on how you can sponsor content in the Blue Box, contact Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7319 or jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com.

Lions, Ford Field, TechTown company partner for green game
The Detroit Lions and Ford Field are going "green" again this Thanksgiving with Detroit-based Carbon Credit Environmental Services to offset the greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions created at the Lions' 69th Thanksgiving Day Game. More.

Media Genesis helps Salvation Army rings the kettle online
Troy-based Media Genesis is helping the Salvation Army ring the kettle online. In order to make the most difference in people's lives, The Salvation Army this year is continuing a program called Online Red Kettle. ORK is an online donation program where users act as both donors and virtual bell ringers to raise funds among friends, co-workers, and family. To promote the program, The Salvation Army approached Media Genesis to create virtual ORK ambassador videos. The video spots feature direct appeals from Salvation Army officers and prominent boosters, including Red Wing Darren McCarty and Coach Mike Babcock. More.

New private flight service coming to Ann Arbor airport
A new private flight service, Flagship Private Air, has been inaugurated and will provide service from Ann Arbor Airport. “We believe this private air service provides business people, coaches, educators, physicians and family travelers the safety, convenience and comfort that they desire,” said Tim Patton of Patton Holdings, a local entrepreneur and businessman who launched the new service. Flagship initially has a fleet of three aircraft, the largest an eight-passenger Piaggio Avanti P-180 and two smaller craft, a Piper Meridian and a King Air C90. Flagship's director of operations is Loren Harmon, a longtime military and commercial pilot. More.

THE WORLD IN TECH

Sun Microsystems slashing jobs in survival fight
The economic downturn might be pushing Sun Microsystems Inc., one of the storied names in computing, to the brink of extinction. The company's servers and software helped stimulate the Internet boom, and its engineering acumen is revered. But Sun never fully recovered from the previous financial crisis -- the dot-com meltdown -- and it has been steamrolled by big shifts in the way businesses buy their back-end computers. Now Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun plans to slash up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as it scrambles to cut costs to offset a devastating slump in sales of its high-end servers. Sales of those machines fell 27 percent in the latest quarter as banks and other big customers went under or couldn't get loans to buy the servers. More.

Pew gadget survey finds many breaks can't be fixed
Gadget makers love to sell us on all the things their devices can do, whether it's letting us chat with distant friends at any time or watch movies on our commute. But can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks? That's a question raised by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which discovered in a survey released Sunday that 15 percent of people who had some piece of technology break down in the previous year were never able to get it repaired. The figure was even higher for certain products. Almost a quarter of cell phone users said they never managed to get their device fixed. And among those who did resolve an issue, a higher percentage either corrected the problem themselves or sought help from friends or relatives rather than call customer service. More.

Law professor fires back at song-swapping lawsuits
The music industry's courtroom campaign against people who share songs online is coming under counterattack. A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003. The professor, Charles Nesson, has come to the defense of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits. By taking on the case, Nesson hopes to challenge the basis for the suit, and all others like it. Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court. More.

Can Blu-ray save Christmas for Hollywood?
Movie studio executives on Friday presented the best-case scenario for a winter holiday surge in the purchase of high-definition Blu-ray players as their best hope to keep the U.S. home video market's decline from accelerating past 3 percent or 4 percent this year. The executives hosted by The Digital Entertainment Group, a consortium of movie studios and electronics manufacturers, forecast that 10.5 million households would be able to play Blu-ray videos by the end of the year -- with about 2.5 million standalone players and 8 million PlayStation 3 game consoles. That estimate is much lower than the 14.4 million households that Adams Media Research said in June would be playing Blu-rays by the end of the year. But if it is to come true, about 1 million more standalone players and 2.3 million more PS3s must be sold through the holidays. More.

Stocks: Sun Micro layoffs lead to broad sector losses
Technology stocks failed to gather any positive momentum Friday after Sun Microsystems Inc. announced plans to lay off as many as 6,000 workers in a cost-cutting move to help deal with the slowing economy. Perversely, shares of Sun itself eked out a 1 percent gain. By the closing bell the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) had shed 79.85 points, or 5 percent, to 1,516.85. The Dow industrials ($INDU) crushed a late-day rally attempt at closed down 345 points or almost 4 percent to 8,493. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) fell 13.75 points or 6.4.percent to 201.39 and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 17.74 points or 5.2 percent to 325.31. The Amex Pharmaceutical Index ($DRG) fell 9.55 points or 3.5 percent to 260.68, while the Amex Biotech Index (BTK) fell 31.45 points, or 4.9 percent, to 614.7. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) fell 38 points even or 4.2 percent to 873.29. The Commerce Department estimated U.S. retail sales fell a record 2.8 percent last month, worse than the 2.3 percent expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. U.S. consumer sentiment edged up in early November, but remained quite low, according to a report on the University of Michigan/Reuters index. Read more.

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