GLITR Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Your report for Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Rochester Hills man building company to buy what you see on TV
A Rochester Hills man is working on a new company called Clik Clac that would allow TV viewers to do something that's been talked about for a long time, but has never yet quite been worked out -- point and click to buy items viewers see on the screen during shows. Noel Thompson's Clik Clac combines TV and Web, with the ability to take screen shots of TV shows and movies, and shop from the couch, all without interrupting programming. For consumer products, anything from pants, glasses, makeup and even hair color can be tagged, allowing viewers to shop from home with their remotes, or simply research a product they found interesting. With more than two years of product development now behind him and a provisional patent in hand, Thompson moves next to discussions with investors and physical design and development. More.

Behr America forms new battery cooling group
Troy-based Behr America Monday announced the formation of a Battery Cooling Group at its headquarters to meet the increasing demand for thermal-management technology for transportation applications. The new group, managed by Fred Pumper, manager, Thermal Solutions and Validation Test, Behr America, will focus on growing the company’s battery cooling activities as well as support Behr’s Group in Stuttgart, Germany. More.

Game uses human intuition to solve complex problems
A new computer game prototype combines work and play to help solve a fundamental problem underlying many computer hardware design tasks. The online logic puzzle developed at the University of Michigan is called FunSAT, and it could help integrated circuit designers select and arrange transistors and their connections on silicon microchips, among other applications. More.

Viastore offers week-long peek at pallet handling system
Grand Rapids-based Viastore Systems Inc. said it would hold plant tours and allow close inspection of one of its custom pallet handling systems Aug. 31 to Sept. 7. This system was built for a customer to interface with a Viastore AS/RS and Load Handling System, which will also be on site. More.

Consumers Energy launches savings program
Jackson-based Consumers Energy Monday launched an energy efficiency program designed to help residential customers save energy and save money. Consumers Energy Saving Solutions offers a wide range of incentives to help customers reduce their utility bills by using energy more efficiently. Those incentives include discounts on compact fluorescent light bulbs at participating retailers and rebates for buying high-efficiency appliances, such as air conditioners, furnaces, and water heaters. There are also appliance recycling bounties. More.

Comcast taking three more Michigan cities to digital basic cable
Comcast Corp. is reminding cable customers in the communities of Canton, Northville and Plymouth to take steps to receive digital equipment for up to three TVs for no additional cost before the company starts digitizing the majority of its analog cable channels on Tuesday, July 28. Limited Basic Cable customers are not affected by Comcast’s digital network enhancement, which is clearing the way for even more On Demand, High Definition and digital programming for local customers. The network enhancement is already underway in these three communities and a handful of other Michigan cities and towns, and is slated to launch across the state over the course of the next year. More.

Carbon offset firm gets deal with Masco business unit
Detroit-based Carbon Credit Environmental Services said Monday it will provide a life cycle analysis for the Delta Faucet Co. division of Taylor-based Masco Corp. In the partnership, effective July 27, CCES will compare the carbon footprints of two kitchen faucets made by Jackson, Tenn.-based Delta, focusing on the emission levels, energy efficiency and environmental friendliness of the products' composition, manufacture and use. More.

New Horizons donates $10,000 in services to Michigan Works
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers of Michigan, Chicago and Cleveland Monday announced an in-kind contribution of $10,000 in Microsoft training to Capital Area Michigan Works in support of their Strengthening Communities Fund. The Strengthening Communities Fund, a grant program funded in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will help non-profit organizations in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties. These non-profit organizations assist or have the potential to assist low-income populations in securing employment, increased wages, and related work force development services. As part of this initiative, New Horizons will deliver free training on Microsoft Office System products to staff members at the non-profit organizations. More.

Dewpoint working on secure, simplified single sign-on

Dewpoint Inc. is helping its customers retain security while simplifying sign-on to the applications users need to do their jobs.

And the results are big increases in productivity – up to hundreds of dollars per hour.

Brian Trimble, identity management delivery team lead at Dewpoint, outlined four kinds of single sign-on that Dewpoint works on for customers:

• Simplified sign-on, synchronizing credentials across managed applications providing one login and one password for employees that also offers one-button onboarding of new employees, granting them access to buildings and networks at the same time.
• Enterprise single sign-on, for enterprises with a collection of disparate systems that do not share a common authentication repository. Trimble said some Dewpoint customers have as many as 300 applications, all requiring a separately managed login. The solution is a product called the v-GO Suite that runs on users’ computers, recognizes login dialogs, prompting the user if they’d like to log in automatically in the future. If they do, they go through a short dialog to accomplish that, and the passwords are stored for instant future login.
• Web single sign-on, an enterprise infrastructure configuration through a Sun product called OpenSSO, that provides a link between the workstation operating system and the enterprise’s Web infrastructure, automatically logging a user into any Web application controlled by the enterprise IT architecture.
• Federated single sign-on. Dewpoint provides two components – a credentials component, focused on allowing trusted business partners to log in to another enterprise’s network services, and a data component, used heavily in the travel industry, where airlines, vehicle rental and lodging companies can dip into each other’s data to provide a comprehensive travel package.

Trimble said the overall objective is to reduce the amount of time it takes to get people to work enabling providers to service consumers faster.

That’s particularly true in the health care industry, where Dewpoint produced a solution for a client that allowed doctors to see one-to-two more patients per hour – boosting revenue $700 to $800 per doctor per hour. The solution combined virtual desktop infrastructure with hybrid java cards using, radio frequency identification technology to automatically log in doctors as they approached an examination room. Trimble said biometric authentication such as a fingerprint reader can be added to an RFID card system if card swapping is a concern.

Trimble said the multilayer secure single sign-on systems have also been used to meet compliance regulation in the education, insurance and financial services industries, because they allow precise role-based access depending on an individual user’s job role.

Risk overall can be minimized with close attention to what individual workers are automatically logged into, and what time-out parameters are set. And, he said, complete focus on a single sign-on project with tight deadlines is also essential.

For more information on how single sign-on can make your organization more efficient, contact Dewpoint at 888-DEWPOINT or visit www.dewpoint.com.

Note: Today's Blue Box was sponsored by Dewpoint Inc. For information on how you can sponsor content in the Blue Box, contact Jeff Lasser at (248) 455-7319 or jeff.lasser@cbsradio.com.

THE WORLD IN TECH

Apple, labels work on album 'Cocktail'
Apple Inc. and the four major recording labels are working on launching in the fall a music offering code-named "Cocktail" that aims to add value to digital albums sold on the online iTunes Store, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The new package will include liner notes, artwork and potentially cell phone ringtones and music videos in a unified software package that the labels hope will boost sales of albums, instead of just single tracks. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the offering had not been finalized, and they were not authorized to speak publicly. Talk of the enhanced digital album offering was first reported by the Financial Times. More.

Trial set to begin in Massachusetts music downloading case
A jury is to begin hearing arguments in a music downloading lawsuit filed by the recording industry against a Boston University graduate student. The industry accuses Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., of downloading songs and making music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network. Lawyers finished picking a jury Monday afternoon in federal court in Boston. Opening statements are expected Tuesday. Tenenbaum's case is the second such case to go to trial. More.

AT&T says Web site block was not censorship
AT&T Inc. blocked freewheeling Web site 4chan.org last weekend, leading to accusations of censorship, but the reason for the action turned out to be a routine security measure. The Web forums at 4chan are full of explicit images, and the site has been cited as the source of several Internet pranks. Internet users speculated on Twitter and in other forums that AT&T, the country's largest Internet service provider, was overstepping its rights by blocking the site. The phone company blocked access to 4chan on Friday to protect broadband customers from a "denial of service" attack, which floods targets with meaningless traffic, AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said Monday. On Sunday, AT&T concluded that the attack was over and restored access. More.

Verizon 2Q profit falls, though above forecast, as more job cuts coming
Cost-cutting at Verizon Communications Inc.'s wireline business failed to keep pace with falling revenues as the nation's largest wireless carrier reported a 21 percent drop in second-quarter profit and announced further job cuts. The company said Monday it will cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the wireline business, speeding up its efforts to keep costs in line, according to chief financial officer John Killian. In recent years, Verizon has balanced layoffs in wireline with hiring in wireless, but COO Denny Strigl said that would not be the case this time. More.

Stocks: Stocks edge higher amidst mixed economics and earning reports
Stocks edged higher Monday after zigzagging in subdued trading on mixed economic and corporate earnings reports. The Dow Jones industrial average rose only 15 points. But modest moves in the market's indicators belie larger forces at work: Investors aren't dumping stocks, even in the face of downbeat news. Disappointing earnings from Verizon Communications Inc., Aetna Inc. and Corning Inc. kept the market's gains in check, adding another pause to a powerful rally that has sent major indexes rocketing 11 percent in just two weeks. RadioShack Corp. reported higher second-quarter earnings that beat forecasts, but mainly from cost-cutting -- a theme that has become familiar this earnings season and has left many investors disappointed. More. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) rose 1.93 points or 0.1 percent to 1,967.89. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) rose 15.27 points or 0.2 percent to 9,108.51. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) rose 1.76 points or 0.6 percent to 302.64. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 1.15 points or 0.2 percent to 493.07. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index (DRG) fell 0.01 point or less than 0.1 percent to 280.9. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (BTK) rose 3.48 points or 0.4 percent to 868.01. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) rose 2.92 points or 0.3 percent to 982.18.

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