GLITR Friday, September 18, 2009

Your report for Friday, September 18, 2009

ESD Future City competition seeks funding
It has inspired countless middle school students in Michigan to pursue careers in math, science and engineering. Now, The Michigan Regional Future City Competition, organized by the Engineering Society of Detroit since 1995 and previously funded by major donors, is looking for financial support in order to meet its annual budget. According to Ron Smith, Director of Education for ESD, it costs $150,000 to run Future City. So far, the Society has been able to raise $50,000. The money is used to pay for the SimCity Software that all the teams use to design their cities, computer hardware, travel and transportation for students to and from the competition, teacher orientation and training, supplies, and more. More.

Somanetics profit dips on small increase in revenue
The Troy medical device maker Somanetics Corp. Thursday reported net income of $2.2 million or 17 cents a share in its third fiscal quarter, ended Aug. 31, down from $3 million or 23 cents a share in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter was $12.5 million, up 1 percent from $12.4 million a year earlier. For the nine months ended Aug. 31,9, net revenues increased 5 percent to $35.5 million from $33.8 million. Net income was $5.3 million or 41 cents a share, down from $7.1 million or 51 cents a share a year earlier. More.

Wayne State breaks ground on chemistry building addition
A. Paul Schaap was once a professor of chemistry at Wayne State University. His landmark research led to the discovery of a life-saving medical diagnostic technology and the breakthrough start-up company Lumigen Inc. On Sept. 18 at 2 p.m., the life cycle of Wayne State’s translational research enterprise will ceremonially and symbolically complete itself, as Schaap and university leaders break ground on the $30 million A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building and Lecture Hall, signaling this scientist’s commitment to the institution that gave rise to his success. More.

Nextep menu boards hit Detroit Metro Airport
Troy-based Nextep Systems, a developer of touch-screen ordering, digital menu boards and online ordering systems for the food service industry, and Delaware North Cos. Travel Hospitality Services Thursday announced the launch of new Digital Menu Boards at two Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf locations inside Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County International Airport. More.

MSU researchers lead the way in green energy
Michigan State University’s College of Engineering is working to improve the world’s alternative energy future thanks to three grants totaling $141.5 million. More.

Supply chain integration-- a key to corporate survival

Making supply chain integration happen

In a recent survey of over 400 senior supply chain executives, supply chain visibility and globalization were listed as two of the top challenges faced by their companies. Since supply chain spending represents such a large portion of any company’s cost structure, effectively integrating processes, technology, and organization is critical for any company’s survival in this increasingly complex, global environment.

For companies that are struggling with integrating the various elements of their supply chain or don’t know where to begin, there are four foundational steps that need to be addressed:

1. Establish a coordinated planning process across all key stakeholders in the organization
2. Create an organizational alignment that supports collaboration and seamless communication
3. Implement the necessary enabling technology that is needed to manage a complex, global supply chain enterprise
4. Instill a culture that focuses on disciplined execution of supply chain processes

The team at CIBER’s Supply Chain Consulting Practice can support your company’s migration toward a fully integrated supply chain by providing S&OP design and implementation, network optimization, global sourcing validation, identification and implementation of technology enablers and demand planning/inventory optimization solutions.

To find out more about CIBER’s Supply Chain Consulting services, please go to http://www.cibermichigan.com or call (800) 324-6001 and ask for Dan Hoover.

Note: Today's Blue Box was sponsored by CIBER 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.

Michigan-designed video camera gaining with hunters
The greatest prize from most hunting and wildlife-watching trips is the story of the adventure often told around a campfire. An innovative video camera from Ann Arbor-based RiserCam LLC takes those stories to a new level. Two long-time friends, looking for a light yet sturdy and practical recorder that would see exactly what they saw, decided to invent their own camera and share the technology with their fellow sportsmen. More.

US Signal announces major expansion in Ohio
US Signal, a Grand Rapids based provider of data bandwidth capacity in the Midwest, today announced that it is significantly expanding its long-haul fiber network throughout Ohio. This expansion will add 1,000 miles of long-haul fiber to the US Signal network, the largest in the Midwest. The announcement marks the company’s second expansion in Ohio in six months, following network growth in Toledo in March 2009. More.

University of Michigan federal stimulus awards top $100 million
University of Michigan scientists and engineers have been awarded more than 260 federal stimulus-package research grants to date, totaling $103.2 million. The funding includes 188 National Institutes of Health stimulus awards and 70 from the National Science Foundation. In addition, stimulus-package funding from the Energy Department will pay for a $19.5 million UM research center to explore new materials for solar cells. More.

THE WORLD IN TECH

Variety trade newspaper to charge for some online content
Ending a three-year flirtation with free online content, Variety newspaper plans to put some of its Web site content behind a "pay wall" that will require a paid annual subscription, its publisher said Thursday. The changes at the Hollywood trade publication will take place early next year and come with new online features such as a better archive, publisher Brian Gott said. While there might be some reduction in the number of Web site visitors, currently about 2.5 million per month, the switch will help preserve paying subscribers even if readers eventually switch to reading online only, he said. More.

Ticketmaster finds another way to cut out scalpers
Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. has developed a new way to resell tickets that shuts out the brokers and scalpers it has long scorned, and instead keeps the profits for itself, musicians and venue owners. The system relies on Ticketmaster's "paperless" ticketing platform, which makes customers prove their purchase by showing a credit card and ID when they arrive at an event. Without paper tickets, there's nothing for scalpers to resell. Now with its new exchange system, Ticketmaster has come up with a way to let buyers resell a paperless ticket, while still cutting out ticket-resale leader StubHub and other brokers. That gives Ticketmaster a chance to capture more of the so-called secondary market, which generates greater fees and profits per ticket, although fans sometimes feel ripped off. More.

Google to reincarnate digital books as paperbacks
Google Inc. is giving 2 million books in its digital library a chance to be reincarnated as paperbacks. As part of a deal announced Thursday, Google is opening up part of its index to the maker of a high-speed publishing machine that can manufacture a paperback-bound book of about 300 pages in under five minutes. The new service is an acknowledgment by the Internet search leader that not everyone wants their books served up on a computer or an electronic reader like those made by Amazon.com Inc. and Sony Inc. The "Espresso Book Machine" has been around for several years already, but it figures to become a hotter commodity now that it has access to so many books scanned from some of the world's largest libraries. More.

Australian prison guards demand right to complain online
A group of prison guards dubbed the Facebook Five has gone to an Australian court to fight for the right to complain about their boss on the Internet. The case has stirred debate in Australia about whether writing on social networking sites amounts to a chat between friends or a form of publishing. New South Wales state prison authorities accused the five guards of misconduct and threatened to fire them last month over their disgruntled cyber exchanges about their superiors, including the man who runs the state's prisons, Corrective Services Commissioner Ron Woodham, according to court documents. Their union, the Public Service Association, has gone to the state Industrial Relations Commission to save their jobs. More.

Stocks: Shares slip as investors take break from rally
A surprise drop in unemployment claims couldn't fuel another day of gains for the stock market. Stocks posted modest losses in quiet trading Thursday after a three-day advance. Traders found little in the weekly employment data, or in reports on housing and manufacturing, to provide new encouragement about an economic recovery. Stocks surrendered early gains around midday and the Dow Jones industrial average ended with a loss of 8 points. Lackluster earnings reports from FedEx Corp. and Oracle Corp. added to investors' caution. The Labor Department said workers filing for jobless claims for the first time dipped to 545,000 last week from an upwardly revised 557,000 the previous week. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting claims to rise. The Commerce Department said housing starts rose in August to their highest level in nine months amid a jump in apartment building. The increase was just below the pace economists had forecast. Similarly, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's index of regional manufacturing conditions rose for a second straight month to its highest level since June 2007. More. The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) fell 6.4 points or 0.3 percent to 2,126.75. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) fell 7.79 points or 0.1 percent to 9,783.92. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) fell 5.51 points or 1.7 percent to 321.33. The Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) fell 3.92 points or 0.7 percent to 538.57. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index (DRG) rose 0.09 points or less than 0.1 percent to 284.14. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index (BTK) rose 1.75 points or 0.2 percent to 954.31. Finally, the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) fell 3.27 points or 0.3 percent to 1,065.49.

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 by Matt Roush, Technology Editor, WWJ Newsradio 950, Detroit. GLITR may contain material from the Associated Press, CNET, News.com, MarketWatch.com or Reuters, used by permission. For coverage comments or news tips, e-mail Matt Roush at mnroush@cbs.com or call (248) 455-7380. For marketing and advertising queries, or with general questions or concerns, contact Pete Kowalski, WWJ's station manager, at prkowalski@cbs.com. To subscribe, e-mail Matt Roush or Georgeann Herbert at gherbert@cbs.com.

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