Detroit
economy: UM says it's still dismal, but the worst is behind us
As bad as it's been for the Detroit
area economy the past several years, 2009 will end up as the worst year
ever for job losses, say University of Michigan economists. But the
tide will begin to turn a year from now -- albeit slowly. In their Economic
Outlook for the Wayne-Oakland-Macomb Region, George Fulton and Donald
Grimes of the UM Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the
Economy say the Detroit metro area will lose nearly 132,000 jobs this
year -- more than twice as many as last year. Next year will be better,
although the region will still lose another 43,000 jobs. By fall 2010,
the area will show signs of moderate job growth and will add a little
more than 600 jobs for 2011. More.
Detroit-area
teams win Kettering Kickoff FIRST event A three-team alliance of
Detroit area teams won the 10th annual Kettering Kickoff FIRST Robotics
competition Saturday at Kettering University in Flint. Teams from Clarkston
(Team Rush, Team 27), Ortonville (Truck Town Thunder, Team 68) and Romulus
(Extreme Eagles, Team 326) won the popular high school robotics contest
that is affiliated with FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of
Science and Technology. Taking second place honors were the new team
from Pontiac, Wings of Fire (Team 51), who were joined in that three-team
alliance by Lightning Robotics (Team 862) of Canton and the Martians
(Team 494) of Goodrich. More.
Aurora
Engineering completes work on flying hospital Clarkston-based Aurora Engineering
said last week that it had just completed the first phase of the Global
Flying Hospital in collaboration with Siemens Medical and Steris Medical.
AE has taken a 747-200 and transformed it into a high tech flying hospital.
The project’s goal is to validate the floor plan before building
the flying hospital. This initial design is to provide missions to third
world countries where access to medical care is physically challenging.
The end result will be a delivery of planes to world organizations for
emergency medical care and for missions in remote and third world countries.
More.
Lansing's
Liquid Web boosts network capacity Lansing-based Liquid Web
said Thursday it had completed a "significant upgrade to its network
capacity and infrastructure which had "greatly enhanced its ability
to efficiently serve high volumes of bandwidth." The company said
that the project included a number of 10 gigabit transit circuit activations
along with expansions into Chicago with a new network point of presence.
The company wouldn't disclose the exact number of circuit activations
for what it said were competitive reasons. More.
MSU's
College of Osteopathic Medicine opens in Detroit
Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine celebrated
its new campus site in Detroit with a grand opening last week. The
new campus will both address the state’s physician shortage and
improve medical education in the state. The event, held at the college’s
new space at the Detroit Medical Center, marked the culmination of several
years of planning for the college’s expansion into the city’s
downtown, where students began classes for the first time earlier this
summer. More.
The Week Ahead: Tons of events, and several of 'em GLITR
Are
you kidding me? Nineteen events this week on the GLITR IT Calendar,
Michigan's most comprehensive IT calendar, available
exclusively at this link?
Yep, that's right,
19. And to be just a touch immodest, part of it is our fault here at
Your Great Lakes IT Report.
Y'see, Tuesday,
we're kicking off our Laptop Luncheon series for the program year with
our friends at the law firm Clark Hill. Once again we'll be meeting
to give you the skills you need to make social networking work for you
and your business. Here's
the link.
As if that weren't
enough, we're turning right around Thursday morning and kicking off
the Great Lakes IT Report Fall Tech Tour 2009 at Lawrence Technological
University in Southfield. We'll be taking a look at university research
at Lawrence Tech labs that is leading to the new, entrepreneurial companies
and the new jobs of tomorrow. Here's
that link to sign up.
And I'll be driving
across Michigan from Friday through Oct. 2 on the Tech Tour. Watch for
our bonus coverage on air and in GLITR, thanks to the sponsorship of
Kettering University and CIBER Inc., with a super cool Tech Tour vehicle
again from the La Fontaine Automotive Group.
OK, enough self-reference.
What else is going on? Plenty. Try a government IT managers event in
Frankenmuth through midweek, the excellent PLM Road Map event on manufacturing
technology Tuesday and Wednesday, the kickoff of the 50th birthday year
for the University of Michigan-Dearborn, a University of Michigan-Ann
Arbor private equity event, a TiE Detroit look at entrepreneurial filmmaking,
and Automation Alley's annual black tie awards gala Friday night. Whew!
This week literally:
See you out there!
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.
Leading
optical receiver manufacturers in agreement Ann Arbor-based Picometrix
LLC and Berlin, Germany-based U2t Photonicx AG have agreed to establish
a multisource agreement to define an industry standard, cost-effective
form factor for coherent fiber optic receivers for use in both 100-gigabit
and 40-gigabit QPSK telecommunication systems. (QPSK refers to a form
of digital modulation that uses phase shift to convey data.) The multisource
agreement, named CCRx (Compact Coherent Receiver), provides the receiver
form factor, pin function definitions, pin locations, and functionality
in a compact optical receiver package designed to enable rapid product
development and ease of component procurement for optical transponder
and line card manufacturers. More.
Life sciences
incubator to open in Plymouth
The Michigan Life Science
Innovation Center will celebrate its grand opening Thursday in Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor Spark, in collaboration with the Michigan Economic Development
Corp., The Esperance Family Foundation, New Economy Initiative for Southeast
Michigan and Wayne County collaborated on MLSIC, the business and wet
lab incubator in Spark's Regional Incubator Network. MLSIC offers affordable
wet lab facilities, business space, and critical start-up services to
new businesses. More.
My
Insurance Expert launches online health insurance video library Troy-based My Insurance
Expert, one of the nation’s leading online services to compare
and secure affordable health insurance, has launched a video library
“Q&A” of unbiased perspectives on various health care
insurance topics including how health care reform may affect individual
and group coverage, determining the correct amount of co-pay and deductible,
how to compare policies correctly, health savings account and much more.
More.
THE WORLD
IN TECH
Official:
FCC to propose 'Net neutrality' rules The head of the FCC plans
to propose new rules that would prohibit Internet service providers
from interfering with the free flow of information and certain applications
over their networks, an official at the agency said Saturday. The Federal
Communications Commission chairman, Julius Genachowski, will announce
the proposed rules in a speech Monday at the Brookings Institution,
a Washington think tank, the official said on condition of anonymity
because news of the announcement had not been formally released. The
proposals would uphold a pledge Barack Obama made during the presidential
campaign to support Internet neutrality - the equal treatment of Internet
traffic. Without strict rules ensuring Net neutrality, consumer watchdogs
fear the communications companies could interfere with the transmission
of content, such as TV shows delivered over the Internet, that compete
with services the ISPs offer, like cable television. More.
Want
to read all about it online? It may cost you With
their advertising revenue drying up, newspaper publishers spent much
of the spring and summer debating whether to cut off free online access
to some of the material they run in their shrinking print editions.
It looks like the talk will turn to action this fall, when some large
newspapers are expected to put up Internet toll booths. They'll be testing
readers' willingness to pay for information and entertainment that mostly
has been given away online for the past 15 years. That happened largely
because most publishers could afford to subsidize their Web sites with
profits from their print franchises. But now those profits have crumbled,
just as the prices for online ads are tumbling, too. A recent study
by the American Press Institute found 58 percent of the responding newspapers
are considering online fees. Of that group, 22 percent expect to introduce
the fee before the end of the year. The findings drew upon 118 interviews
of newspaper executives in the U.S. and Canada. More.
Photos
of mullets, leotards return to haunt online Matching
mullets, regrettable tattoos, metal mouths and goofy grins.Such long-lost
looks were never meant to be seen by anyone except those flipping through
the pages of an old family album or studying the photo frames on the
fireplace mantel. But now, Americans who grew up long before the Internet
opened private lives to the world are digging up dusty boxes for photos
to share on Facebook and other sites -- sometimes to the chagrin of
family members and schoolmates appearing in group shots. Read
here about the glorious site awkwardfamilyphotos.com.
Feds
balk at Google book deal, hope for changes The
U.S. Justice Department advised a federal judge Friday that a proposed
legal settlement giving Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of
out-of-print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices
unless it's revised. The brief filed in New York federal court marks
the first time that the Justice Department has publicly shared its thoughts
about Google's agreement with a large class of U.S. authors and publishers.
The nation's top law enforcement agency began looking at the Google
book settlement earlier this summer amid a loudening outcry against
an agreement affecting a reservoir of human knowledge. More.
Stocks:
Markets resume rally after one-day break The stock market shifted
back into rally mode Friday after analyst upgrades boosted investor
optimism about the economy. A 36-point advance in the Dow Jones industrial
average left the index at a new high for the year and with a gain of
215 points for the week, its best weekly performance since July. Stock
indexes have risen in nine of the past 11 days. The market got a boost
from a new economic forecast at Barclay's Capital, which raised its
projection for growth in the nation's gross domestic product for first
three months of next year to 5 percent from 3 percent. GDP has been
shrinking, although many economists think it will return to growth for
the July-September quarter. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble Co. pulled
the Dow higher after an analyst raised her rating on the consumer products
company in part because of its price-cutting strategy. More.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
rose 6.11 points or 0.3 percent to 2,132.86. The Dow Jones Industrial
Average ($INDU)
rose 36.28 points or 0.4 percent to 9,820.2. The Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index ($SOX)
rose 5.15 points or 1.6 percent to 326.48. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
rose 0.79 points or 0.2 percent to 539.36. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 1.15 points or 0.4 percent to 285.29. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index
(BTK)
rose 2.74 points or 0.3 percent to 957.05. Finally, the Standard & Poor's
500 (SPX)
rose 2.81 points or 0.3 percent to 1,068.3.
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
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