Tech incubator
opens in Troy
A new group called the North Woodward
Tech Incubator aims to foster a little piece of Silicon Valley here
in Michigan by offering free office space and services to promising
high tech startups. The group's 2,500-square-foot incubator is in Troy
near Somerset Mall. It plans to complement the area's existing incubators
by targeting very early stage high tech companies that may not yet qualify
for space in larger incubators. More information is available at www.northwoodward.org.
More.
TC's
Appia launches 'Applause,' new affordable video service Traverse
City-based Appia Communications Tuesday launched Applause, an on-demand
service designed to make business-quality voice, video and desktop sharing
and video conferencing accessible to companies and organizations of
all sizes. Applause is a pay-as-you-go service available online at www.applausevideo.com.
Conference hosts purchase minutes of use as needed. More.
Venture
Michigan Fund invests in four VCs, fully committing the fund The Venture Michigan Fund
Tuesday announced final commitment approvals totaling $32.5 million
to fund managers Arsenal Ventures, Early Stage Partners, TGap Ventures
and Triathlon Medical Ventures. The four managers represent diverse
industry expertise and a strong dedication to investing in Michigan.
With this announcement, the VMF is now fully committed with $95 million
in commitments to 11 venture capital funds. More.
GiftZip
rolls out new Web site, HQ GiftZip.com, a virtual kiosk
featuring instant, emailable gift cards founded by Michigan native Sam
Hogg, has released a new version and moved its headquarters into the
East Lansing Technology and Innovation Center. GiftZip.com was recruited
to join the East Lansing center, which is aimed at aiding in the development
of technology-based start-ups. After obtaining an office space, GiftZip.com
hired four new employees in an effort to launch an updated version of
the site, which premiered on June 2. The most recent version of GiftZip.com
sports a fresher look, with user-friendly navigation and helpful categories
to browse the site’s more than 270 retailers. More.
Dow
Corning expands Internet service, Xiameter
The Xiameter Web-enabled marketplace from
Midland-based Dow Corning Corp. this week launched an expanded business
and new Web site to provide more products, better functionality, and
an easier method to order silicone-based products. The new Xiameter
features double the number of standard silicone products than previously
available, a new order entry platform with enhanced self-service functionality,
volume quantity options, and the ability to buy from distributors for
the first time. "We're meeting customer needs by taking a proven
successful business model and making it more powerful," said Xiameter
global executive director Shelley Bausch. "Standard silicones will
be more easily accessible with greater efficiencies and convenience."
More.
iDashboards turns that mountain of data into useful information
Today's
organizations have invested billions in technology that will tell them
what's going on operationally.
Trouble is, they often have to wait weeks
for useful information in the form of reports.
Enter iDashboards, a Troy company with
technology to offer customers a concise visual display of key metrics
and performance indicators.
President and CEO Shadan Malik, who co-founded
the company in 2004, said dashboards have traditionally been used by
bigger companies across all industries, because of the resources they
have and the complexity of the problems they have.
But Malik said that "now, it's coming
downstream to midsize and even smaller organizations."
Malik said health care organizations in
particular are adopting dashboards.
"Hospitals have a lot of pressure
coming from the top to streamline and become efficient while maintaining
quality of care, and they are inundated with data. They are looking
for dashboards to help them get a handle on data and monitor their own
performance.
In fact, one health care customer is using
dashboards to convey patient feedback to doctors and nursing staff,
in a "patient satisfaction scorecard." Another customer, a
marketing agency, uses dashboards to convey to their customers how well
various campaigns are working.
The key advantage of dashboards, Malik
said, "is the timeliness of the insight, not that the information
was not available before. It's more like, if the information wasn't
available until a month after the event, then it's too late, conditions
are much different by then and it's too late to respond effectively."
The other thing dashboards do, Malik said,
is eliminate a lot of duplicate entry of data -- such as typing reports
into spreadsheets and Power Point presentations.
"That just gets eliminated with a
good dashboard system," Malik said. "You just log on and see
what the numbers say."
Companies are also using dashboards to
monitor their performance more closely in tough times -- for instance,
with less cushion of inventory.
The visually engaging nature of dashboards
also helps, Malik said.
"With reports, you think rows and
columns of data," Malik said. "With dashboards, you think
trend lines, pie charts, traffic lights, speedometers."
Malik also said iDashboards is growing
and has a couple of open positions currently for presales consulting.
Note: Today's Blue Box was sponsored
by iDashboards. For information on how you can sponsor content in the
Blue Box, contact Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7319 or jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com.
Wayne State
helps research new material, part glass, part crystal Most solid materials can
be neatly divided into two structure systems -- crystal or glass. Crystal
structures have atoms that fall in to a well-ordered lattice structure,
and glass structures have atoms that fall randomly. Now, though, a team
of researchers including faculty from Wayne State University has discovered
that one particular material, Bi2Ti2O7, exhibits unusual characteristics
of both glass and crystal. More.
X-Rite added
to Russell 2000, 3000 indexes
Kentwood-based X-Rite Inc.
Tuesday announced that it has been added to the Russell 2000 and Russell
3000 stock indexes as of the market close on June 26. Annual reconstitution
of Russell’s U.S. indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks
as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization. Membership
in the Russell 3000, which remains in place for one year, means automatic
inclusion in the large-cap Russell 1000 Index or small-cap Russell 2000
Index as well as the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell
determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective,
market-capitalization rankings and style attributes. More.
Rubicon
Genomics releases new gene amplification kit Ann Arbor-based Rubicon
Genomics Inc., a developer of products that enable optimal performance
of the most advanced genetic analysis tools, announced today the release
of its PicoPlex Single Cell Whole Genome Amplification kit -- a more
rapid, accurate and reproducible method for amplifying single genomes
than current technologies. This product targets the pre-implantation
genetic diagnostics, cancer research and stem cell research markets,
which require rapid, reproducible amplification to profile patient genotypes,
karyotypes and mutations. More.
THE WORLD IN TECH
Yahoo to
build new data center near Buffalo Internet giant Yahoo Inc.
plans to open a data center in western New York. Gov. David Paterson
says that the center in Lockport north of Buffalo is expected to begin
operating in January 2011 and will create about 125 jobs. The governor
says construction of the center, housing computer systems and other
equipment, is expected to begin this fall. More.
China
backs down from requirement for Web filter In a rare
reversal, China's government gave in to domestic and international pressure
and backed down Tuesday from a rule that would have required personal
computers sold in the country to have Internet-filtering software. Just
hours before the rule was to have taken effect, the government said
it would postpone the requirement for the "Green Dam" software.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it made the
decision partly because some PC markets were having difficulty meeting
the deadline. It did not say whether the plan might be revived. The
change of course averted a possible scuffle with Washington. Top U.S.
officials had protested the plan after it was imposed abruptly in May,
calling it a barrier to trade. Angry Web users circulated online petitions
protesting Green Dam, while industry groups warned the software might
create computer security problems. More.
Report:
Worst may be over for U.S. tech market
As bad as the technology market fared in
the first quarter of this year, the worst may be over, at least in the
United States, Forrester Research said in a report Tuesday. The research
firm nonetheless revised its forecast for 2009. It now expects the U.S.
technology market to shrink by 5 percent this year. In March, Forrester
had predicted a smaller 3 percent decline in spending on technology
products and services. The recession and the big drops businesses made
in investments -- and technology investments in particular -- are the
reasons for the decline. Businesses and governments overreacted to the
global recession and credit crisis, Forrester said, by cutting back
too much on spending in the past nine months. As companies realize that
the recession is not as deep, or as long-lasting, as they feared, they
will resume technology spending. More.
NASA
manager pitches a cheaper return to the moon Like
a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer
can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper
ride to the moon. It won't be as powerful, and its design is a little
dated. Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old
plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts
to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating
a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion. The new model
calls for flying lunar vehicles on something very familiar-looking --
the old space shuttle system with its gigantic orange fuel tank and
twin solid-rocket boosters, minus the shuttle itself. There are two
new vehicles this rocket would carry -- one generic cargo container,
the other an Apollo-like capsule for astronaut travel. More.
Stocks:
Rising oil, commodity prices pull shares higher Investors carried Wall
Street to a remarkable second-quarter performance even though stocks'
big spring rally stalled weeks ago. The major indexes all managed to
end the quarter with double-digit percentage gains. Now, whether the
market regains its momentum in the July-September period or hunkers
down again will depend on what companies have to say in the next few
weeks -- not just about their own prospects, but the economy's as well.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 11 percent during the quarter,
while the Standard & Poor's 500 index surged 15.2 percent. Both
indexes logged their first quarterly gains since the third quarter of
2007. The Dow also had its best quarter since 2003 and the S&P 500
its best since 1998. The Nasdaq, heavily populated by tech stocks, rose
20 percent for its first winning quarter in a year and had its best
quarter since 2003. More.
On Tuesday, the last day of the quarter, the Dow ($INDU)
fell 82.38, or 1 percent, to 8,447.00; the S&P 500 (SPX)
fell 7.90, or 0.9 percent, to 919.33, and the Nasdaq (COMP)
slid 9.02, or 0.5 percent, to 1,835.04. The
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX)
rose 0.23 points or 0.1 percent to 263.15. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
fell 2.4 points or 0.5 percent to 451.7. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
fell 1.57 points or 0.6 percent to 262.11. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index
(BTK)
fell 4.43 points or 0.6 percent to 697.17.
All contents copyright 2009 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio & Eye logo trademarked and copyright 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. Written and edited
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iDashboards turns that mountain of data into useful information
Like
a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer
can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper
ride to the moon. It won't be as powerful, and its design is a little
dated. Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old
plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts
to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating
a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion. The new model
calls for flying lunar vehicles on something very familiar-looking --
the old space shuttle system with its gigantic orange fuel tank and
twin solid-rocket boosters, minus the shuttle itself. There are two
new vehicles this rocket would carry -- one generic cargo container,
the other an Apollo-like capsule for astronaut travel. 
