GLITR Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Your report for Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Azure Dynamics gets order for five more hybrid buses
Oak Park-based Azure Dynamics Corp. Tuesday said it sold five Balance Hybrid Electric buses to Votran, the transit entity for Volusia County, Fla. Votran is managed by the national firm McDonald Transit Associates Inc. Votran specified vehicles used a 22 foot Turtle Top Odyssey body and are flexible enough to accommodate 14 passengers or for wheelchairs or various combinations of the two. Votran expects delivery in the fourth quarter 2009 and will integrate the buses into its county-wide paratransit service. More.

TechSmith releases Camtasia for Mac
Okemos-based TechSmith Corp., the provider of screen capture and screen recording technology, Tuesday announced that Camtasia for Mac is available immediately for download and purchase. With Camtasia for Mac, customers can create professional and engaging presentations, demonstrations, screencasts, training and marketing videos in HD-quality video to reach audiences online, on Apple portable media devices, and on popular video sharing sites like YouTube. To celebrate the release of Camtasia for Mac, TechSmith is offering a special introductory price of $99 through the end of the year for a single user license, including a full-featured 30-day free trial. More.

TC RFID equipment maker cuts loss despite lower revenue
Traverse City-based Versus Technology Inc. announced revenue of $1.155 million for its third fiscal quarter ended July 31, a 1.8 percent decrease compared to revenues of $1.176 million for the same quarter of the prior year. Revenues for the nine months ended July 31 were $3.905 million, down 3 percent from $4.026 million a year earlier. Versus reported a net loss of $360,000 for the current year's third quarter compared to a net loss of $448,000 for the same quarter of the prior year. The company reported a net loss of $731,000 for the nine months ended July 31 compared to a net loss of $825,000 for the nine months ended July 31, 2008. More.

Telegration adds AT&T netbooks to mobile broadband offerings
Clawson-based Telegration Inc., a provider and reseller of business telecommunications services, announced today that it has added AT&T Netbooks to its mobile broadband product offering. Telegration Inc., an AT&T Authorized Solution Provider, added three new mobile broadband netbooks to its lineup. More.

Merit uses cheap computers for network monitoring
Ann Arbor-based Merit network Inc. has long used measurement devices to detect stability and packet loss on its backbone network. For many years, the cost of computers and equipment needed to effectively measure network data was very expensive, usually several thousands of dollars per device. Recently, Merit Network engineers have begun using a more economical device, the Asus EEE mini-desktop computer, which costs approximately $300 per machine. More.

Michigan moves down one spot in broadband rankings

Speed Matters, an effort of the Communications Workers of America, Tuesday released its third annual report on Internet speeds across the United States.

The full report is at www.speedmatters.org/content/2009report.

Based on more than 413,000 speed tests taken at speedmatters.org, the report shows the U.S. still has a long way to go to catch up to the rest of the world's Internet speeds.

The data shows the average download speed in the U.S. is 5.1 mbps. While this is a slight increase from previous years, we're still nowhere near world leaders like South Korea, which is tops with an average download speed of 20.1 mbps.

The report also lists the average Internet speeds in all 50 states, showing wide variation across the country.

Michigan ranked No. 24 among the states in the report, with an average download speed of 5.343 mbps. That's down from No. 23 last year, when the state's download speed was 4.042 mbps.

More from the Great Lakes IT Report Web site.

Note: 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: Algae extract shows promise as cholesterol-fighter
A filtered extract from algae shows encouraging results in managing cholesterol without interfering with liver function or causing inflammation, a preliminary study from Wayne State University finds. Health Enhancement Products Inc. and Wayne State announced the results Tuesday. The WSU research team, led by Smiti Gupta, assistant professor of nutrition and food sciences, noted the absence of any detectable inflammation in liver samples taken from the test subjects in its preliminary study findings. This is encouraging, given that other means of controlling cholesterol may have a negative effect on liver function. More.

Two Ann Arbor tech companies in new partnership
Two Ann Arbor companies, Your Search Advisor and 3.7 Designs, Tuesday announced a strategic partnership. 3.7 Designs is a Web design and strategy company that builds conversion focused Web sites that achieve specific objectives. Your Search Advisor is a holistic and integrated search engine optimization consulting firm that provides unique and effective opportunities to generate quality traffic to Web sites. The firms have already partnered on some projects. More.

Michigan Security Network to boost state's homeland security biz
Sixteen Michigan companies, universities and other groups have joined forces to create the Michigan Security Network as a platform to accelerate technology development, investment and jobs for the state in the fast growing homeland security sector. The Michigan Security Network has identified three key areas offering the greatest potential within homeland security: cyber security, border security and biodefense. The organization will focus on helping Michigan businesses identify critical technology needs within those sectors and coordinate a virtual business accelerator with existing university R&D centers. More.

THE WORLD IN TECH

YouTube's new sales pitch: Join our ad program
YouTube hopes to convert more amateur videographers into capitalists as it strives to show more advertising on its Web site and reverse years of uninterrupted losses. The Internet's top video channel will try to widen participation in a 20-month-old advertising program by actively recruiting the makers of widely watched clips. The more aggressive approach announced Tuesday is a switch from YouTube's previous practice of waiting for video makers to apply to the ad program. The strategy hasn't been profitable for YouTube so far -- something that the site's owner, Internet search leader Google Inc., wants to change. More. (And here's the CNET News.com version of the story.)

Sony plans a Kindle rival with wireless downloads
Sony Corp. plans to offer an e-book reader with the ability to wirelessly download books, injecting more competition in a small but fast-growing market by adopting a key feature of the rival Kindle from Amazon.com. Sony's $399 Reader Daily Edition will go on sale by December, Sony executives said Tuesday at an event at the New York Public Library. The device has a 7-inch touch screen and will be able to get books, daily newspapers and other reading material over AT&T Inc.'s cellular network. Sony has sold e-book reading devices with "electronic ink" displays in the United States since 2006, but has seen most of the attention stolen by Amazon.com Inc., which launched the Kindle with similar e-ink technology a year later. More.

Wikipedia testing new method to curb false info
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that has increasingly drawn some decidedly juvenile pranks, is looking to impose more discipline with new restrictions on the editing of articles. The latest changes come as Wikipedia continues trying to balance a need for credibility and a desire for openness. While anyone can still edit entries, the site is testing pages that require changes to be approved by an experienced Wikipedia editor before they show up. If the site's users respond well to the test run, the new restrictions will apply to all entries for living people in the next few weeks. More.

Swedish court temporarily shuts down Pirate Bay
Swedish file-sharing Web site The Pirate Bay has been temporarily shut down after a Stockholm court ordered one of its Internet providers to stop serving the site. The Stockholm District Court threatened to fine Internet provider Black Internet 500,000 Swedish kronor (about $70,000) Monday unless it stopped serving Pirate Bay. Court documents show the company has to comply with the order until the ongoing case between Pirate Bay and the entertainment industry is over. Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde wrote on Twitter Tuesday that the site would soon function normally again. More.

Stocks: Gain in consumer confidence sends shares higher
A rebound in consumer confidence and more healing in the housing industry have put stocks back on an upward path. Banks, retailers and homebuilders were Tuesday's biggest winners, helping to lift the major indexes about 0.3 percent. Energy and utility stocks fell sharply, and limited the overall market's advance, as oil prices cooled following a recent surge. Though investors were pleased by better-than-expected readings on consumers and housing, trading was choppy, as it has been over the past week, a reflection of the market's lingering caution. Investors are questioning how much further Wall Street's five-month rally can go without evidence of actual economic growth. More. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) rose 6.25 points or 0.3 percent to 2,024.23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) rose 30.01 points or 0.3 percent, to 9,539.29. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) rose 1.53 points or 0.5 percent to 300.53. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 0.28 points or 0.1 percent to 501.94. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index (DRG) rose 0.34 points or 0.1 percent to 285.71. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (BTK) rose 25.04 points or 2.8 percent to 908.88. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) rose 2.43 points or 0.2 percent to 1,028 even.

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