Prescription help Web site gets financing Rochester-based OptimizeRx Corp. (Pink Sheets: OPRX) this week announced it had completed a $3.5 million financing transaction to support its growth plans for www.optimizerx.com and to accelerate the rollout of its marketing platforms. The $3.5 million was structured as preferred shares that are convertible into common shares. The unnamed investor also received warrants in the deal. The financing was placed by Midtown Partners & Co. LLC, a Tampa, Fla.-based securities broker-dealer. OptimizeRx.com provides patients a central means to access and enroll in more than 150 savings and support programs from leading prescription brands. More.
Fifth DuraHeart U.S. implant marks important milestone Ann Arbor-based Terumo Heart Inc. announced Tuesday that five patients have received the DuraHeart Left Ventricular Assist System, marking an important early milestone in the U.S. Pivotal Trial. A team led by Dr. Francis Pagani performed the five implants at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor with three of the surgeries performed off-pump. More.
Midwest health care startups attract record level of venture dollars
Midwest health care startups reported a record-breaking $455 million in new investments in the third quarter of 2008, according to the BioEnterprise Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report. The previous quarterly record was $418 million in the second quarter of 2007. Year-to-date, 113 Midwest health care start-ups have attracted nearly $900 million in venture investments. Minnesota and Ohio led all Midwestern states in health care investment, followed by Western Pennsylvania and Michigan. In the third quarter, Michigan attracted $90 million to 10 companies, compared to $64.9 million to five companies in the third quarter of 2007 and $38.9 million to five companies in the third quarter of 2006. More.
EcoV develops new marketing video, still seeking funds
Grosse Pointe Woods-based Environmental Transportation Solutions LLC, better known as EcoV, announced this week that it had created a new marketing video of all EcoV Electric models with computer generated animation. The video is accessible on the www.EcoVElectric.com Web site. The company is still seeking $3 million to begin production. More.
A spin around the Convergence show floor I had a lot of fun Tuesday afternoon, spending a couple of hours on the show floor of Convergence 2008, where the car meets the computer. This automotive technology show took up somewhere around 200,000 square feet, the better part of the Wayne and Oakland halls, of Cobo Center, as nearly 150 exhibitors showed off their wares. Previous Convergence shows seemed focused on in-vehicle entertainment, with display after display of seven-inch LCD screens embedded in the back of front headrests. You can see just how much the in-vehicle electronics business has matured. Get ready for insanely cool electronic instrument panels based on flat-panel TV technology, with more diagnostics, entertainment and navigation options and lane departure warning systems as common as backup cameras are today. (Oh, and if you go, an amazing pool shark display, pictured above.) More.
Create the right skill sets through professional co-op
Is the United States producing the right skills sets in preparing innovators and engineers?
“It’s been a topic of interest for some time,” says Kettering University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Harris.
The results of a national survey of employers’ ratings of the abilities of recent grads in 12 specific skill areas indicated that employers are not giving high marks to the skills of graduates either. The survey, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the American Association of College and Universities, asked employers to rate new hires in the skills that represent a growing consensus regarding the abilities necessary to succeed in the 21st Century workforce.
Harris said of the employers surveyed in the AACU survey, 83 percent said that they would like to see evidence of graduates’ ability to apply college to a “real-world setting” through faculty assessments of internship projects and community-based work. The Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology has recognized this challenge and has begun to take steps in addressing this need for change. The new ABET standards, known as EC2000, ask programs to set clear educational objectives, to collaborate with industry, to conduct outcomes assessment and feed data from these assessments back into the program for continuous improvement.
“The challenge we face is further increased as a result of the downsizing of manufacturing operations in some of our largest corporations, coupled with the offshore movement of low-skilled jobs,” Harris said. “This has created a public misconception that technical fields like engineering, and even the sciences, are no longer good areas for intellectual and career pursuit thus contributing to the very real decline in students seeking engineering degrees. Ironically, the same corporations that are downsizing are also experiencing unprecedented shortages of the workforce skills necessary to carry out their product strategies globally.”
Harris said the challenge requires a different educational paradigm and close collaboration between higher education and business and industry.
“Kettering University offers a learning model that combines two distinct learning environments -- an on-campus academic experience and a cooperative education work experience -- where students gain knowledge and skills relevant to working and living in a complex world," Harris said. "A Kettering education combines cutting-edge theory and practical application. The co-op experience is a transformative process through which students become increasingly acclimated and socialized to the corporate environment as they increase their knowledge-base and theoretical understanding of their discipline.”
Co-op education at Kettering, with more than 600 co-op sponsors, provides the opportunity for employers to take part in that transformative process and create the new hires they seek. “We can do so by increasing the cooperation and coalition building between higher education and industry, working together toward a common goal,” Harris added.
To read more about Kettering’s co-op program, visit www.kettering.edu.
Note: Today's Blue Box was sponsored by Kettering University. For information on how you can sponsor content in the Blue Box, contact Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7200 or jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com.
NanoBio to present new clinical advances Ann Arbor-based NanoBio Corp. said Tuesday that it will present new data on its clinical and preclinical trials of new treatments for toenail fungus, cold sores and cystic fibrosis, as well as a new nasal-spray influenza vaccine, at a medical conference next week. NanoBio will make a total of nine presentations at the joint meeting of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Washington, D.C., Oct. 25-28. More.
UM to help develop prostate cancer aggressiveness diagnostics
The University of Michigan Tuesday announced an agreement on the commercial development of prostate cancer diagnostics with Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Metabolon Inc. The agreement puts in place a number of activities to help move forward Metabolon’s Prostarix line of prostate cancer diagnostics, including an exclusive license for Metabolon to use prostate cancer aggressiveness markers that were discovered in a collaborative research project between the University of Michigan and Metabolon. More.
Ford offers Flex photo software for iPhone, iTouch Ford Motor Co. announced Tuesday it would offer iPhone and iPod Touch users a free software application from the Apple App Store that enables them to enhance existing or new photographs, courtesy of the all-new 2009 Ford Flex. Ford partnered with software developer, the Tao Agency, to develop the Flex Photo Lab application, which allows iPhone users to take new or archived photos and apply filters to improve image quality or add dynamic effects with the touch of a finger, or a tilt and a twist. More.
THE WORLD IN TECH
SC prisons take on feds over jamming phone signals South Carolina wants to jam cell phone signals in prisons to prevent convicts from committing further crimes. There's one significant problem with the plan: It's against the law. The struggle to stop cell phone use in prisons - where some experts say the devices have become a new form of cash - has states trying old-fashioned cell searches, sophisticated body scanners, even dogs trained to sniff out batteries and memory chips. South Carolina's state prison chief, Jon Ozmint, wants to add to those tactics with existing technology that blocks cell signals. Standing in his way is the federal Communications Act, which prevents states from using jammers or otherwise interfering with federal airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission can give federal agencies the authority to use such jammers. But there's no such provision for state and local law enforcement. More.
Penny pinching shoppers may get PC deals soon
Sales of personal computers didn't live up to expectations over the summer, and now analysts predict shoppers will cut spending even more drastically in the all-important holiday quarter. So far, PC prices appear to be holding steady. But buyers may get better deals soon as computer companies try to avoid getting stuck with a pile of unsold inventory on Dec. 31. Analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies said the unofficial start date for holiday PC promotions has crept earlier in recent years. This year, Kay said, computer makers are feeling panicky and wondering if they'll even make it through October without slashing prices. More.
Yahoo firing 1,500 workers as third quarter profits fall 64 percent
Yahoo Inc. will fire at least 1,500 workers to cope with a crumbling economy that dented its third-quarter profit and turned up the heat on the Internet company's management as investors stew over a missed opportunity to sell to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion. The purge outlined Tuesday represents a 10 percent reduction in Yahoo's payroll of about 15,000 employees. It's the second time in nine months that Yahoo has resorted to mass layoffs in what so far has been an ineffectual effort to rebound from a financial funk that has left its stock price near a 5 1/2-year low. Things got worse in the third quarter as Yahoo earned $54.3 million, or 4 cents per share. That was a plunge of 64 percent from $151.3 million, or 11 cents per share, at the same time last year. More.
Justice expected to weigh in on Yahoo, Google deal Executives from Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue are keeping a wary eye on the Justice Department this week as it nears a decision on whether to try to block an Internet advertising partnership between Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. After months of studying the arrangement, government antitrust attorneys could move any day now to sue to stop it from taking effect -- or they could abandon a potential court challenge and allow the partnership to proceed. Under the terms of the deal, Google will sell some of the online advertisements displayed alongside search results on Yahoo's site. Yahoo entered the partnership in June after rebuffing a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. -- sparking a shareholder backlash. With the Justice Department investigation shrouded in secrecy, it is unclear when a decision could come. But after Google and Yahoo agreed this month to a "brief delay" in launching their deal to allow the government to complete its probe -- and perhaps to try to reach a settlement -- many observers expect an announcement by midweek. More.
Stocks: Broad losses hit sector following weak earnings reports
Technology stocks slumped early and never recovered Tuesday as most shares closed with losses following disappointing earnings reports from Texas Instruments Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Lexmark International Inc. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) closed down 72.35 points or 4.1 percent to 1,696.68. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) fell 76.62 points or 0.8 percent to 9,310.99. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) fell 9.83 points or 4 percent to 234.09 and the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 23.29 points or 6 percent to 362.59. The Amex Pharmaceutical Index ($DRG) fell 6.36 points or 2.3 percent to 264.46, while the Amex Biotech Index (BTK) fell 13.84 points or 2 percent to 665.79. The S&P 500 (SPX) fell 30.35 points or 3.1 percent to 955.05. Ford Motor Co. declined 6.9 percent after the holding company for billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian said it might sell its entire 6 percent stake in the auto maker as it switches its focus to the gaming and energy sectors. Any turnaround for Ford could be "five years down the road," according to Marty Padgett, editor of The Car Connection.
Tons of local extras today, right up to the usual 15-story limit: In the Economics Dept., Michigan CFOs are more optimistic about the economic future than the nation as a whole; meanwhile, in the now, Troy-based Entertainment.com sees a big spike in Web visits in a down economy; Altair adds solidThinking software to its community; AT&T adds Flint for its advanced DVR service; Comcast adds Monster jobs 'On Demand;' nominations are open for the Michigan Celebrates Small Business Awards (shameless self promotion dept.: anyone wanna nominate a certain tech writer?); and the boss of Sirius-XM says in Detroit that it could take up to 15 years for the two satellite radio formats to be completely integrated. Elsewhere in Techland: Apple's quarterly profit jumps 27 percent as the iPhone booms; following its rivals, Sprint Nextel Corp. will soon begin trimming the fees customers face for canceling their cell phone service early American Airlines sues Yahoo over search term copyright infringement; two Dutch youths are convicted of stealing assets in a virtual environment; eBay will ban the sale of ivory products in January; Lala.com gives digital music another try; safety is also a problem for the latest high-tech biotechnology-based drugs; a study says malware risks are growing exponentially; the Apple- and Linux-centric video app Boxee adds support for Hulu and CBS video; VMware's profits rise 28 percent; Webroot launches a consumer security suite; Microsoft is delaying Xbox Live Primetime; CNET News' Daily Podcast talks over the Android phone; Blip.tv raises money from Bain Capital; read this damning report on electronic voting security, and you'll wonder whether your vote will count at all; a new device lets surgeons operate on a beating heart; a review of the world's first 1.5-terabyte hard drive; inventor Kamen pitches tech for the world's poor; and a new office suite for Netbooks.
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I had a lot of fun Tuesday afternoon, spending a couple of hours on the show floor of Convergence 2008, where the car meets the computer. This automotive technology show took up somewhere around 200,000 square feet, the better part of the Wayne and Oakland halls, of Cobo Center, as nearly 150 exhibitors showed off their wares. Previous Convergence shows seemed focused on in-vehicle entertainment, with display after display of seven-inch LCD screens embedded in the back of front headrests. You can see just how much the in-vehicle electronics business has matured. Get ready for insanely cool electronic instrument panels based on flat-panel TV technology, with more diagnostics, entertainment and navigation options and lane departure warning systems as common as backup cameras are today. (Oh, and if you go, an amazing pool shark display, pictured above.) 
Create the right skill sets through professional co-op
Is the United States producing the right skills sets in preparing innovators and engineers? 
Harris said the challenge requires a different educational paradigm and close collaboration between higher education and business and industry. 
