| 
UM-Dearborn
'Innovation Index' shows slowdown
In a reflection of the
dramatic effects of the global credit crunch, innovative economic activity
in Michigan declined by 13.5 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008,
according to the “innovation index” compiled by scholars
at the University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Management. The index
fell to 80.7 in the fourth quarter, down from 93.3 in the third quarter
of the year. The quarterly index, a project of UM-Dearborn’s Center
for Innovation Research, provides a summary measure of economic innovation
activity in the state. The index tracks economic innovation in Michigan
based on calculations of employment of “innovation workers,”
trends in venture capital, trademark applications, incorporation activity,
small business loans and job creation. All six indicators fell in the
fourth quarter of 2008. More.
Winners
of Kettering Innovation Challenge want better batteries
Want a battery that delivers
24 hours of laptop computer usage? That’s what Tyler Farrar and
Mike Elenbaas, students at Kettering University and founders of PC Power,
pitched to win Phase 1 of the Kettering Innovation Challenge. Kettering
Provost Michael Harris awarded the three top student pitches with cash
awards Tuesday, June 16, in the Great Court of the University’s
Campus Center. “These students exemplify what Kettering students
are all about: innovation, initiative and performance,” said Harris.
PC Power won the top prize of $1,000 for its concept for a rechargeable
battery attachment that will supply up to 24 hours of power to a standard
laptop computer. More.
MEDC
lands 15 projects, 11,000 planned jobs
State officials Tuesday
announced 15 job-creating projects that plan to generate more than 11,125
new jobs, retain another 846 and bring more than $247 million in new
investment to communities across the state. The projects span the upper
and lower peninsulas and include aerospace, automotive and wind-turbine
manufacturers; one of the nation’s largest insurance management
service companies; and brownfield redevelopments that will transform
abandoned and contaminated sites into new centers of economic growth
and activity. More.
THE WORLD
IN TECH
Fisker CEO:
Leave Detroit to me
Elon Musk has tackled electric cars,
space ships and modular renewable energy stations. Now he wants a real
challenge: running Detroit. “When the mess gets sorted out, I’d
like to have a conversation with whoever’s in charge at the time
-- the car czar or whoever -- and say ‘I’d like to run your
plants, if you don’t mind,’” Musk said, starting that
conversation Monday at Wired’s first-ever business conference,
Disruptive by Design in Manhattan. Gosh, egomania much? On the other
hand, it might be fun watching him get ripped to shreds by automaker
realities. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd succeed. More.
Judge
tosses long-running lawsuit against Oracle
A federal
judge has thrown out a long-running lawsuit accusing Oracle Corp. of
misleading investors about the company's health before the tech meltdown
of 2001 whacked its sales and stock price. The lawsuit, filed eight
years ago, alleges the business software company wasn't straight with
investors about how badly the dot-com bust was hurting business, and
that insiders knew deals were collapsing but stood behind a rosy outlook.
Judge Susan Illston in U.S. District Court for the Northern District
of California tossed the lawsuit Tuesday. More.
On
Bloomsday, 'Ulysses' meets Twitter
Forget about Ashton Kutcher. James Joyce's
"Ulysses," one of the most difficult novels in English, is
on Twitter. Two devotees of "Ulysses" have adapted its 10th
chapter to Twitter, which limits users to 140 characters per post. Called
"Wandering Rocks," the chapter is especially well-suited to
Twitter because it follows 19 Dubliners going about their daily business.
For three years now, Ian Bogost, a Georgia Tech professor, and friend
Ian McCarthy, a product manager at LinkedIn, have commemorated "Bloomsday"
on Twitter on June 16. That date in 1904 is when the entirety of "Ulysses"
takes place, chronicling the experiences of a man named Leopold Bloom.
More.
MySpace to
cut 30 percent of jobs
MySpace
said Tuesday it is cutting nearly 30 percent of its work force in a
bid to become more efficient, bringing its staffing level more in line
with its more popular rival, Facebook. The move, the latest cost-cutting
effort at the site, comes less than two months after the unit of Rupert
Murdoch's News Corp. hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta,
39, as its new chief executive. It also comes a day after data from
tracking firm comScore show Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly
U.S. visitors for the first time. More.
Stocks:
Tech stock sell-off pushes Nasdaq back below 1,800
Technology stocks closed lower for a second day Tuesday in a sell-off
that pushed the Nasdaq Composite Index to its lowest level so far this
month. The Nasdaq Composite Index
(COMP)
closed down 20.2 points or 1.1 percent to 1,796.18. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average ($INDU)
fell 107.46 points, or 1.2 percent, to 8,504.67. Chips had a nasty day,
with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX)
falling 6.79 points or 2.5 percent to 263.71. The Morgan Stanley High
Tech 35 Index (MSH)
fell 5.93 points or 1.3 percent to 455.84. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 0.7 points or 0.3 percent to 253.76. The Amex Biotech Index (BTK)
fell 5.94 points or 0.9 percent to 652.79. Finally, the Standard & Poor's
500 (SPX)
fell 11.75 points or 1.3 percent to 911.97. The U.S. housing sector
may have finally found its footing while inflationary pressures remain
muted, government reports released Tuesday showed. But industrial production
fell in May, contrary to hopes that the depletion of inventories would
lead to an uptick in factory activity. Traders
said the relatively light-volume selloffs of the last couple of days
reflect a sense of fading optimism in an economic rebound. Most participants
still believe that an economic recovery is in the works, but most anticipate
that it will turn out to be a long slog. Even as economists at the American
Bankers Association predicted the U.S. recession would end this quarter,
they warned that growth would remain subdued.
|
|
E-Mail Story
Print Story
Gov.
Jennifer Granholm took to the stage of the National Summit in Detroit
late Tuesday afternoon and predicted a green future for her state as
a way to "replace a good chunk of those lost auto jobs." In
a general session, Granholm spent a good deal of time predicting to
the students in the audience what their lives would be like in Michigan
in 2030. Think green and high-tech. 
Troy's iDashboards: examples of how its technology works
