GLITR Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Your report for Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Accuri raises $4 million in venture capital
Ann Arbor-based Accuri Cytometers Inc. Monday reported that it raised a $4 million Series D financing round. The financing included current investors Fidelity Biosciences and Flagship Ventures, both of Cambridge, Mass., Baird Venture Partners of Milwaukee, Wis. and Ann Arbor-based Arboretum Ventures, as well as the InvestMichigan Program co-managed by Credit Suisse. Accuri will use the proceeds from the Series D financing to provide additional working and growth capital to support the rapid market acceptance of the Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer System, its product designed to bring the power of flow cytometry analysis to the laboratory of every life science researcher, and the recently introduced Accuri CSampler, an optional accessory that adds user-friendly automation to the C6 system. More.

Quicken finally announces Detroit move -- but as a tenant for now
Quicken Loans is finally moving to downtown Detroit -- but it's not going to construct a new headquarters building. The Livonia-based lender, its employment slashed by the mortgage meltdown, said it would move its headquarters and about 1,700 employees to leased space in downtown Detroit's Compuware building by mid-2010. Quicken blamed tight credit markets for the decision, saying "the nationwide economic downturn has made it virtually impossible to obtain financing for construction of new office buildings." Quicken said it still eventually plans a headquarters building of its own. More.

Energy Conversion Devices selling battery maker Cobasys
Rochester Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices Inc. Monday announced that its subsidiary, Ovonic Battery Co. and its partner, Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, have sold their respective membership interests in Cobasys LLC to SB LiMotive Co. Ltd. Cobasys designs, develops and manufactures integrated energy storage systems, principally for hybrid electric vehicles. Certain elements of Cobasys' nickel metal hydride technology rely on patents originated by Ovonic Battery and ECD. SBL is a joint venture between Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. and Robert Bosch GmbH formed to develop, manufacture, and sell batteries for automotive applications. More.

ProQuest adds new research tool for pro-con issues
Ann Arbor-based ProQuest has introduced SIRS Issues Researcher, an editorially structured resource designed to explore the context, perspectives, and essential questions under debate on hundreds of pro-con issues. SIRS Issues Researcher draws together illuminating content selected from more than 1,700 global full text and multimedia sources. This provides users with the tools to establish fundamental understanding and frame informed viewpoints. High quality graphics and Web sites, and videos also promote visual and media literacy. More.

Michigan Sea Grant supports three new university research efforts
Michigan Sea Grant today awarded a total of $409,417 to researchers from three Michigan universities. The research will focus on Michigan's coastal and Great Lakes issues involving wind power and restoring natural river flow in the Clinton River watershed. The funding will sustain three-year research projects and is contingent upon annual appropriations from Congress. The grant funds are leveraged by an additional $254,457 from non-federal sources, including state and university partners. More.

Oneupweb study shows ads on social networking sites work
Social media is all the rage. But can marketers take advantage of this growing online trend, and garner actual business for the company? According to a new eye tracking study conducted by Traverse City-based Oneupweb, the answer is yes. “We wanted to know if people actually look at ads when they are on social sites like Facebook or YouTube, or in the case of Twitter, where will they likely look for those ads when they do begin to appear,” explains Oneupweb CEO and founder Lisa Wehr. “We found that not only do users spend time viewing paid ads on social networking sites, they often look at these ads before actual search results.” More.

So-called 'dying cities' fighting back with conference
Forbes magazine's alleged "10 Fastest Dying Cities" In America are fighting back with a symposium and arts festival. The event will be hosted by the city of Dayton, Ohio Aug 7-9. Dayton -- along with Detroit and Flint in Michigan; Canton, Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; Buffalo, N.Y., Charleston, W. Va. Scranton, Pa. and Springfield, Mass. were dubbed America's fastest dying by Forbes in August 2008. Organizers say the cities want to "demonstrate that our people and our citizens are very much alive, by presenting the most innovative efforts underway to return our communities to vibrancy. By sharing ideas and inspiration, we can learn from each other, form new relationships and create a host of possibilities for civic enhancement." More.

CareTech to supply Web services to 10 hospitals, 1,100 docs
CareTech Solutions Inc., a Troy IT and Web products and services provider for hospitals and health systems nationwide, said Monday it has signed an agreement to provide Web services to Novant Health based in North Carolina. CareTech Solutions will be implementing its content management system and providing secure hosting for Novant Health's ten hospital Web sites as well as redeveloping the corporate Web site, physician portals and physician practice Web sites. More.

Greenhouse power system feeds its CO2 emissions back to plants

Canadian government and business leaders last week gathered near Lake Erie in southern Ontario for the grand opening of North America’s first GE-designed greenhouse cogeneration plant.

The plant is intended to generate more reliable onsite power and heat for commercial greenhouses and help the country reduce its emissions from energy production.

Great Northern Hydroponics, a division of Detroit-based Soave Enterprises, installed the 12-megawatt commercial greenhouse power plant at Soave’s sprawling, 55-acre tomato greenhouse complex in Kingsville, Ontario.

The complex is located near Lake Erie’s north shore in the Leamington area, about 30 miles southeast of Detroit.

The high-efficiency onsite power plant, powered by four of GE Energy’s Jenbacher gas engine cogeneration modules, was among seven natural gas-fueled combined heat and power projects approved by the Ontario Power Authority in 2006 to showcase how advanced cogeneration technologies could help make industrial plants more energy independent, improve local grid reliability and support Canada’s clean and renewable energy goals.

Surplus power from the greenhouse power plant is being sold to the local grid under a 20-year contract with the Ontario Power Authority. The plant supplies enough electricity to Ontario’s transmission grid to power 12,000 to 15,000 Canadian homes annually.

In addition to generating power and heat to support greenhouse operations, the power plant also treats the gas engines’ exhaust, enabling CO2 from the exhaust to be recycled and applied as a special fertilizer to enhance greenhouse crop production.

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THE WORLD IN TECH

Forecaster says worst is over for U.S. advertising
An advertising forecaster said Monday that the worst is over for the U.S. ad slump but that across-the-board revenue growth won't resume until well into 2011. Magna, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Cos., estimated second-quarter ad revenue fell by 18 percent and said revenue will fall 14.5 percent for the year -- the worst showing since the Great Depression. "The economy accounts for the bulk of that decline," said Brian Wieser, Magna's global director of forecasting. "Every sector is being pulled down by this decline, every media that takes ad support." The slump in ad revenue should moderate to a decline of 2 percent next year, with some media outlets showing growth such as local broadcast, national cable TV ads, online and outdoor, Magna said. Overall growth is not expected until the second half of 2011, and the average annual growth from 2009 to 2014 is expected to be an anemic 1 percent. More.

Office 2010 test opens; free Web versions later
Microsoft Corp. is giving a select group of technology-savvy testers an early peek at its Office 2010 software, but it's keeping a key development - free Web-based versions of programs such as Word and Excel - under wraps a little while longer. Monday's launch of this "technical preview" indicates Office 2010 is still on track for release in the early part of next year. Microsoft is updating the highly profitable desktop software package to add more ways for people to work simultaneously on documents, organize their e-mail and edit videos and photos, among other changes. And for the first time, Microsoft is adding free companion versions that run in a Web browser. Microsoft Office is by far the most popular software package worldwide for making presentations, spreadsheets and other documents, and its dominance is in no immediate danger. But the company is trying to defend against a long-developing trend in which software is moving from the desktop to the Web. Google Inc. has been pushing its own free, Web-based programs for more than two years, though it has yet to gain much traction with corporations. More.

Web site to recreate Apollo 11 mission in real time, 40 years later
Families crowded around black-and-white television sets in 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong take man's first steps on the moon. Now, they'll be able to watch the Apollo 11 mission recreated in real time on the Web, follow Twitter feeds of transmissions between Mission Control and the spacecraft, and even get an e-mail alert when the lunar module touches down. Those features are part of a new Web site from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum commemorating the moon mission and Kennedy's push to land Americans there first. The Web site -- WeChooseTheMoon.org -- goes live at 8:02 a.m. Thursday, 90 minutes before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It will track the capsule's route from the Earth to the Moon, ending with the moon landing and Armstrong's walk - in real time, but 40 years later. Internet visitors can see animated recreations of key events from the four-day mission, including when Apollo 11 first orbits the moon and when the lunar module separates from the command module, as well as browse video clips and photos and hear the radio transmission between the astronauts and NASA flight controllers. More.

Comcast to stream HBO, Cinemax online in trial
And you thought the HBO hit TV series "Entourage" would never be streamed over the Internet -- at least legally. Comcast Corp. said Monday it will be streaming HBO and Cinemax shows, movies and other content online to 5,000 subscriber households in a national trial set to start in coming weeks. It is the first time the two premium movie channels will be offering their programs over the Internet to computers. Downloads to mobile devices may come in the future. HBO and Cinemax will join TNT, TBS and Starz in Comcast's online video trial. If the technical test is successful, Comcast will roll out access coast-to-coast to its subscribers at no additional cost. More.

Stocks: Techs stumble as overall market frets about recovery
A turn of heart by a usually downbeat analyst yanked the stock market from its slumber. Soaring financial shares propelled indexes to their biggest one-day gain in six weeks Monday after influential banking analyst Meredith Whitney raised her rating on Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which reports earnings on Tuesday. Whitney said also on CNBC that hard-hit Bank of America Corp. looks inexpensive given the assets on its books. Her more upbeat tone helped lift the Dow Jones industrial average 185 points in relatively thin trading volume. Traders saw the hopeful outlook on banks as a sign other industries could be in better shape than analysts had estimated. Hundreds of earnings reports from the April-June quarter are due this week. More. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) rose 37.18 points or 2.1 percent to 1,793.21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) rose 185.16 points or 2.3 percent to 8,331.68. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) rose 6.25 points or 2.4 percent to 265.29. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) rose 8.47 points or 2 percent to 443,86. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index (DRG) rose 4.19 points or 4.2 percent to 261.73. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (BTK) rose 7.18 points or 1.1 percent to 653.86. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) rose 21.92 points or 2.5 percent to 901.05.

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