Your report for Friday, November 21, 2008

Wind turbine to rise at Kalamazoo Valley CC campus
Known once as “The Windmill City,” Kalamazoo will be going back to the future when work begins Monday on bringing a 150-foot wind turbine to KVCC’s Texas Township Campus. With the college receiving a special-use permit and an approval of a site plan this week from the Texas Township Planning Commission, the 50-kilowatt unit with its 125-foot tower and trio of 25-foot blades should be installed between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and be ready to generate 15 percent of the energy needed to power the technical wing at KVCC by the first of 2009. KVCC’s wind turbine, which could be the first of four, will overlook the soccer and ball fields on the west end of the campus. The $250,000 project is viewed as an investment in energy conservation and in technical education. More.

UM-Dearborn launching first doctoral programs, in engineering
The College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn will launch Ph.D. programs in information systems engineering and automotive systems engineering beginning in fall 2009, following the approval of the proposals by the UM Regents at their meeting in Ann Arbor Nov. 20. More.

'Fish technology' draws clean power from slow ocean, river currents
A University of Michigan professor has published an academic paper on a novel technology to turn slow-moving ocean and river currents into energy. The technology, called VIVACE, was covered by the Great Lakes IT Report's Fall 2008 Tech Tour in October. The paper, published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, described the first known device that could harness energy from most of the water currents around the globe because it works in flows moving slower than 2 knots (a little over 2 miles per hour). Most of the Earth's currents are slower than 3 knots. Turbines and water mills need an average of 5 or 6 knots to operate efficiently. More.

UM economists: national recession to get worse before it gets better
Economists at the University of Michigan confirmed today what many Americans already believe -- that the nation is in the throes of recession. And it's a recession that will bottom out in mid-2009 with only modest economic growth expected in 2010 and unemployment hovering above 8 percent throughout that year. More.

MSU study: '09 grads to face fierce competition for jobs
Small, quickly growing companies will provide the best employment opportunities for college graduates, but graduates must be focused and well-connected to be competitive, according to Michigan State University’s 2008-2009 Recruiting Trends study. “The hiring forecast is not good, so students better be ready now,” said Phil Gardner, author of the recruiting trends study and director of MSU’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute. “Folks who have a real focus on what they want to do, who got to work early on their job search and stacked up as many internships as they could will get in line first.” More.

'Experiential marketing' goes high-tech at EEI Global

The so-called "experiential marketing" industry, covering everything from trade shows to product visits at stores and other venues, is increasingly dependent on technology.

Nobody's more aware of that than the people at EEI Global, who moved from Dearborn to Rochester Hills after getting a great deal on a 230,000-square-foot former Eaton Corp. factory.

The company had its start in 1981 as Exhibit Productions, doing auto show exhibits for Chrysler.

Today, the company designs and builds displays for national and global trade shows, private exhibitions, and permanent installations like those at the Delphi Corp. Customer Center, Alcoa Corp's headquarters in Pennsylvania and a petrochemical plant in Singapore, a project that included an auditorium presentation on how petroleum processing works.

Other examples include making a real-life Coors Light beer train out of a semi, and taking a production Dodge Charger and cutting it apart so it can be snapped together like a model. Other clients include General Motors Corp., ABB Robotics, Visteon Corp. and Gore-Tex.

According to CTO Jim Suchara and vice president of design Greg Urbansky, the company uses high-tech in a variety of ways, from collaboration software that lets clients get online and participate in the design process from beginning to end, to making displays more interactive, computer driven and audio-visual driven, to collecting more information from people viewing the exhibit.

The company's work force includes design, graphics, engineering and IT staffs, plus carpenters, metalworkers, signmakers, painters, event services staff, driver-tour managers, and support and administrative staff. The company also has a 15,000-square-foot operations center for mobile operations in Sterling Heights. Its work force in the offices is 100; in the shop, employment varies with the trade show seasons.

"Technology is everywhere, in our approach to design, in how we relate to clients, which are increasingly tech drive, and in the execution of the company's IT in displays," Urbansky said.

The Coors Light train, for example, has beer plumbing, an ice bar, a train whistle with cryogenic gas to cool the area around the train when the whistle blows, along with video gaming stations, demonstrations and displays. The company's other displays use high-tech video, sound, smell and touch -- including technology that can make a sound feel like it's coming from a viewer's own head.

The company's also into Web development, most recently creating an interactive event site for Chrysler, www.cjdevents.com, with both public and dealer interfaces.

More at www.eeiglobal.com.

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

GLITR Adopt-a-Family update
I'm getting more response to the Great Lakes IT Report effort to be a major source of new donations for the Adopt-A-Family program of Volunteers of America. It takes just $150 to adopt a family of four for the holidays, providing a nice Christmas dinner, toys and warm clothes to two adults and two children who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford a good holiday. And you can personally adopt the family, play Santa and deliver the goodies -- or be completely anonymous. It's all up to you. Let's see some more help! E-mail me at mnroush@cbs.com.

BBB offers tips for safe online holiday shopping
Bargain hunters will undoubtedly be flocking to the Internet for holiday sales this year, and overall, online sales are again expected to increase this season as more shoppers forego the trip to the store and tick off the names on their “nice” list from the comfort of their homes. Unfortunately, the Southfield-based Better Business Bureau is warning that scammers will again be setting up shop online this year, using low prices to entice shoppers, but ultimately not delivering the goods. More.

Ford touts fuel economy of new sedans, hybrids at LA auto show
Ford Motor Co. took the wraps off its updated Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ midsize sedans -- including hybrid-electric variants of the Fusion and Milan -- at the Los Angeles auto show this week. The vehicles will hit the streets next spring. AutoTech Daily reports that the base gasoline-only models and the hybrids offer best-in-class fuel economy, according to Ford. The hybrids are expected to have an EPA rating of at least 38 mpg for both city and highway driving, which would make them 5 mpg more efficient than the Toyota Camry Hybrid in the city and 4 mpg on the highway. Ford says it has about 200 pending patents on the new hybrid architecture. More.

THE WORLD IN TECH

AP review: New BlackBerrys cool but can't beat iPhone
With the recent releases of three new BlackBerrys across three different wireless providers, Research In Motion Ltd. has fired back at Apple Inc. in the Great Smart Phone Skirmish of 2008. But while RIM's latest offerings are packed with features like stereo Bluetooth, standard headphone jacks, video recording, multiple e-mail options and, in the case of the Storm, a unique touch screen, the multifront attack may not be enough to unseat the mighty iPhone. More.

Google's virtual world Lively to die next month
Lively, a virtual reality service from Google Inc., is dying. The company plans to shut down the service at the end of the year, reflecting Lively's inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd. The pack of faux worlds is led by Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to pursue digital fantasies. Google introduced Lively to much fanfare in July, but management concluded it needed to sharpen its focus on its primary business of Internet search and advertising as the company's revenue growth decelerates in the deteriorating economy. More.

Web ad sales rise slightly from prior quarter
Despite the bad economy, U.S. Internet advertising revenue rose in the third quarter, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said that online advertising revenue totaled almost $5.9 billion in the third quarter, up 11 percent from the same period last year. It marked a 2 percent rise from the second quarter. More.

Dell profit falls as PC spending slows
PC maker Dell Inc. said Thursday its third-quarter profit fell 5 percent as businesses around the world bought fewer computers and other technology products. Dell's earnings dipped to $727 million in the quarter that ended Oct. 31, down from $766 million a year ago. But Dell bought back a significant number of shares over the last year, pushing earnings per share up 9 percent, to 37 cents per share. That was 6 cents better than analysts were expecting, according to a Thomson Reuters poll. Sales slipped 3 percent to about $15 billion, shy of analyst expectations for $16.2 billion, dragged down by slower spending by corporations. In the Americas, Dell's largest region for sales to businesses, revenue dropped 8 percent. More.

Stocks: Markets in tatters; S&P 500 at an 11-year low
Another bruising market sell-off pushed technology stocks deep into the red Thursday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index down more than 11 percent over the past two trading sessions. The broader market turned sharply lower after lawmakers reported that they have not yet agreed to a deal to help the struggling U.S. auto industry. See full story. By the closing bell the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) had fallen 70.3 points, or 5.1 percent, to 1,316.12. The Dow industrials ($INDU) plunged 444.99 points or 5.6 percent to 7,552.29. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) fell 5.78 points or 3.3 percent to 171.32 and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 12.19 points or 4.1 percent to 287.21. The Amex Pharmaceutical Index ($DRG) fell 14.79 points or 5.9 percent to 234.01, while the Amex Biotech Index (BTK) fell 33.48 points, or 5.8 percent, to 541.81. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) fell 54.14 points or 6.7 percent to 852.44. Senate leaders said Congress would convene again the week of Dec. 8 if the automakers could come up with a new plan. "The market was looking to see this thing resolved by tomorrow," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services. "The fact that it won't be addressed until Dec. 8 isn't helping given the fact that economic conditions are so poor here." The broad S&P 500 index, the market benchmark most followed by professional investors, has now lost nearly 52 percent since its record high close of Oct. 9, 2007. About the only bright spot: oil fell to less than $50 a barrel.

All contents copyright 2008 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio & Eye logo trademarked and copyright 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. Written and edited by Matt Roush, Technology Editor, WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroit. GLITR contains material from the Associated Press, Reuters and MarketWatch.com, used by permission. For coverage comments or news tips, e-mail Matt Roush at mnroush@cbs.com or call (248) 455-7380. For marketing and advertising queries, contact Georgeann Herbert at gherbert@cbs.com or (248) 455-7299. To subscribe, e-mail Nancy Ho at nancy.ho@cbsradio.com. For questions or concerns, please email Pete Kowalski, WWJ's Station Manager.

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