Kalamazoo
firm's diabetes drug studied to treat Alzheimer's Kalamazoo-based Metabolic
Solutions Development Co. said Monday it had received a $100,000 grant
from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation to support the evaluation
of PPAR-sparing insulin sensitizers as a potential treatment for Alzheimer's
disease. ADDF funding will support a collaboration between Dr. Douglas
Feinstein of the University of Illinois - Chicago and the Jesse Brown
VA Medical Center and MSDC. Feinstein's research focuses on neurodegenerative
diseases while MSDC is developing novel treatments for type 2 diabetes
and related metabolic diseases. More.
New
study shows Michigan's tech firms down on state Although most technology
executives do not feel Michigan is an ideal place to start or grow a
business, their opinions are not simply a reaction to the economic conditions
in the state, according to a survey conducted by the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s
iLabs, Automation Alley and the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The second annual Michigan Technology Climate Survey assessed opinions
of technology executives in southeast Michigan regarding the current
business climate facing Michigan’s technology firms. This past
spring, the survey queried 96 executives from Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw
and Wayne counties. “The results indicate that executives believe
there are structural issues -- at the state level -- that hinder technology
growth,” according to Timothy Davis, director of iLabs, also known
as the Center of Innovative Research at UM-Dearborn’s College
of Business. More.
Membership
in NCMS robotics group doubles in first year
The second annual members meeting of the
Robotics Technology Consortium was held Monday in Sterling Heights,
in coordination with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research and Development
Engineering Center. The meeting featured notable speakers such as Grace
Bochenek, Director of TARDEC and Jim Overholt, Director of the Joint
Center for Robotics at TARDEC as well as a tour of their impressive
facility in Warren. Formed in 2008 to speed the creation and deployment
of ground robotics technology, the RTC has doubled its membership from
88 to 178 members in the first year. Working closely with the Department
of Defense, the RTC helps to match technology concepts with military
priorities and then informs and engages industry to develop those technologies,
all in record time from RPP to award. Using this successful formula,
the RTC has funded 17 technology proposals since 2008. More.
Domino's
Pizza partners with GamesThatGive online game charity Ann Arbor-based Domino's
Pizza Monday announced a partnership with GamesThatGive, a new Web site
that allows consumers to help raise money for their favorite charity
simply by playing free online games. With several games to choose from,
including Solitaire, Gems and Bubble Burst, consumers will generate
donations because GamesThatGive donates 70 percent of its advertising
revenue from companies like Domino's to their participating charities.
The longer the consumer plays, the more funds are generated for the
selected charity. More.
Level
3, Internet2 deliver link to Large Hadron Collider in Europe Broomfield, Colo.-based
Level 3 Communications Inc. and Ann Arbor-based Internet2 Monday announced
an expanded relationship to provide trans-Atlantic and United States
network connectivity for U.S. LHCNet. The network will transport data
from the Large Hadron Collider -- a massive particle accelerator spanning
the French-Swiss border -- to more than 1,700 scientists at 94 institutions
across the United States. U.S. LHCNet provides dedicated, high-bandwidth
connectivity between CERN (the French acronym for what translates in
English as the European Organization for Nuclear Research) and the two
“Tier 1” U.S. sites, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
and Brookhaven National Laboratory, in cooperation with the U.S. Department
of Energy Energy Science Network. The network also shares support in
connecting the U.S. and Europe to many universities and laboratories
-- called Tier 2 and Tier 3 sites -- where researchers will analyze
LHC data. More.
Food Safety
Training Institute to receive federal funding
The Battle Creek-based International
Food Protection Training Institute announced that the U.S. Senate and
House of Representatives have passed legislation which includes $1 million
for the institute to train state and local food safety inspectors. The
Fiscal Year 2010 Appropriations bill provides funding for the Department
of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, rural development programs,
and related agencies. The bill will now be sent to President Obama for
his signature. Speaking Monday at a press conference held by U.S. Rep.
Mark Schauer (D-Battle Creek), Stephen Benoit, president and COO of
the National Center for Food Protection and founding member of the board
of directors of the IFPTI said, "The global interdependence of
the food supply gives rise to unprecedented challenges for food protection
professionals. One has to look no further than recent outbreaks involving
Salmonella, E. coli, and melamine to grasp the significant health and
economic impacts of a contaminated food supply." More.
TelNet Worldwide
gets new president, products Troy-based TelNet Worldwide
Inc. Monday announced a series of milestones, including the appointment
of a new CEO, an expansion of products and services for the small- and
mid-sized business market, and growth in revenue and profitability.
The announcement was made by TelNet founder and president, Mark Iannuzzi.
Patrick O’Leary, former chief executive officer of LDMI Telecommunications
with 20 years of telecommunications sector experience, is now serving
as chief executive officer and board member at TelNet. O’Leary
had been serving as board member and interim CEO. More.
BASF,
Dow share top spots in global patent rankings Ludwignhaven, Germany-based
BASF SE and Midland's Dow Chemical Co., the world's two largest chemical
companies, Monday jointly announced their support for the Patent Asset
Index, a new methodology that measures research and development effectiveness,
innovation strength and how these factors lead to sustained competitive
advantage. Findings based on 2008 results rank BASF first in the overall
Patent Asset Index. Dow ranks first in a critical measurement of the
Patent Asset Index -- Competitive Impact. These results show that BASF
and Dow are among the most innovative companies in the global chemical
industry. More.
Gregory
W. Fisher is founder
and CEO of Fisher Coachworks, LLC in Oak Park. The firm was
founded to commercialize new hybrid technology and establish
the foundation for a family of vehicles to address growing needs
for energy efficiency and oil independence. Fisher met with
Rochester Hills-based Autokinetics and researched the company’s
plug-in hybrid electric transit bus funded by the U.S. Department
of Energy. He felt the technology was key to launching a new
venture focused on commercial hybrid vehicle manufacturing.
After several years of discussions and negotiation, Fisher licensed
the technology and partnered with Autokinetics and its president,
Bruce Emmons, to bring the technology to market. The Fisher
Hybrid Bus provides advanced chassis design coupled with an
efficient serial drive power train utilizing a high-capacity
electrical energy storage system. Prior to Fisher Coachworks,
Fisher was founder and president of Fisher/Unitech and grew
the CAD reseller business to 11 locations in five Midwestern
states. Before that, a five-year tenure with Electronic Data
Systems included international management experience at the
Nissan Technical Center in Japan, where he learned the benefits
of applying computer-aided design technologies to all phases
of engineering development. He began his career as an application
engineer with Applicon. His grandfather was one of the brothers
who formed the Fisher Body Co. in 1908. Read
more.
Do you know
a business, professional or community leader whom you think
deserves being honored as a Leader and Innovator?
Click here to nominate them.
Jackson-based Anesthesia Business Consultants, LLC
Monday announced the general availability of F1RSTAnesthesiaRecord,
a medical records product powered by Newton, Mass.-based Shareable Ink.
The product, known by the acronym FAR, allows anesthesiologists,
nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists' assistants to create an electronic
patient record by completing familiar forms using “digital”
pens.
FAR delivers the benefits of electronic medical
records to anesthesiologists and CRNAs without changing their workflows.
Anesthesia providers handwrite on paper forms that are nearly identical
to their current anesthesia records, using a digital ballpoint pen that
records their pen strokes. In short, providers chart everything pertaining
to the anesthesia care provided to a patient on a paper anesthesia record,
just as they have always done.
But now, when they bring the patient to the recovery
unit, anesthesia providers can wirelessly synchronize their pens by
docking their pens into cradles, and all the information is immediately
and securely transmitted to remote servers hosted by Shareable Ink.
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.
THE WORLD IN TECH
Apple
director Levinson leaves Apple's board Google
Inc. said Monday that Arthur Levinson has resigned from the Internet
search leader's board, averting a potential showdown with government
regulators over his overlapping job as a director for computer and gadget
maker Apple Inc. The Federal Trade Commission had been investigating
whether Levinson's double duty on the boards of both Google and Apple
would lessen competition between the companies as they increasingly
collide in the same markets. The same issue had dogged Google Chairman
Eric Schmidt until he stepped down from Apple's board two months ago.
Levinson's resignation from Google's board takes effect immediately,
ending his 5 1/2-year stint as a director. He will remain on Apple's
board, where he has been a director for nine years. More.
Data
and contacts vanish from Sidekick phones
Owners of Sidekick phones may have
lost all the personal information they put on the device, including
contact numbers, because of a failure of servers that remotely stored
the data. The incident is a huge blow to the reputation of the Sidekick
and is a reminder of the dangers of trusting a single provider to safeguard
information. The phones are made by a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary and
sold by T-Mobile USA, which say many Sidekick owners' information is
"almost certainly" gone. T-Mobile is offering customers $20
to refund the cost of one month of data usage on the phone. Microsoft
spokeswoman Debbie Anderson said Monday that there was a still a chance
some of the lost user data could be restored from a backup system. Engineers
were working at it in the Microsoft data center where the failure occurred,
she said. More.
Speaking
of data loss, a problem with Apple's Snow Leopard For the past month, some
Mac OS X users have been reporting their personal data missing after
logging into their guest accounts, and Apple now says it's working on
finding a fix. "We are aware of the issue, which occurs only in
extremely rare cases, and we are working on a fix," an Apple representative
said in a prepared statement Monday. It's the first time Apple has said
it is looking into the issue. In early September, a handful of Mac users
reported the issue on Apple's discussion boards. The problem, when it
occurs, goes like this, according to CNET's MacFixit: when logging into
the guest account on their Mac first and then logging into their regular
account, some users are finding all their data to be missing and their
accounts completely reset. It doesn't appear to be a widespread problem
-- there are less than 100 posts on several current discussion threads
on the issue -- but it's certainly topical. More.
Facebook
database outage cut off 150,000
Thousands of Facebook users who have
been unable to access their accounts for nearly a week and a half now
are now seeing their profiles restored -- but some data related to recent
profile updates may have been lost. What happened? According to Facebook,
the replacement of profiles and login screens with a "down for
maintenance" notice -- which appears to have started on Oct. 3
-- stemmed from "a technical issue with a single database."
The company has stressed that there is no chance that it was due to
hackers or other malicious activity. Profiles should be restored over
the course of the next day, the company estimates. "Our engineering
team has worked around the clock, and as of today, all of these users
should begin to regain access to their Facebook accounts," Facebook
spokeswoman Brandee Barker said reading from a statement. "We apologize
for the inconvenience this may have caused and we are taking additional
measures to uphold the reliability users come to expect from Facebook."
More.
Stocks:
Shares pare gains; higher oil prices help energy stocks
Investors waiting for earnings reports
to flow in traded cautiously Monday, giving up early gains and leaving
the market narrowly mixed. The Dow Jones industrials reached a new 2009
trading high, edging closer to 10,000. Volume was light because of the
Columbus Day holiday. Bond markets were closed and there were no economic
reports. A weaker dollar and a spike in oil prices above $73 drove energy
and materials prices higher, but weakness in technology and industrial
shares held the market back. Stocks got an early boost from a better-than-expected
profit report from Dutch company Royal Philips Electronics. That sent
Britain's leading stock indicator to its highest level in a year. Investors
looked ahead to the flurry of earnings due this week from key companies
including Intel Corp., Johnson & Johnson, IBM Corp. and General
Electric Co. Top U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman
Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. will issue
reports as well. More.
The Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP)
fell 0.14 points or less than 0.1 percent to 2,139.14. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average ($INDU)
rose 20.86 points or 0.2 percent to 9,885.8. The Philadelphia Semiconductor
Index ($SOX)
rose 4.57 points or 1.4 percent to 331.01. The Morgan Stanley High Tech
35 Index (MSH)
rose 0.66 points or 0.1 percent to 542.49. The NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical
Index (DRG)
rose 2.24 points or 0.8 percent to 292.72. The NYSE Arca Biotech Index
(BTK)
rose 1.48 points or 0.2 percent to 915.54. Finally, the Standard & Poor's
500 (SPX)
rose 4.7 points or 0.4 percent to 1,076.19.
All contents copyright 2009
CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS Radio & Eye logo
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All Rights Reserved. Written and edited by Matt Roush, Technology Editor,
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Google
Inc. said Monday that Arthur Levinson has resigned from the Internet
search leader's board, averting a potential showdown with government
regulators over his overlapping job as a director for computer and gadget
maker Apple Inc. The Federal Trade Commission had been investigating
whether Levinson's double duty on the boards of both Google and Apple
would lessen competition between the companies as they increasingly
collide in the same markets. The same issue had dogged Google Chairman
Eric Schmidt until he stepped down from Apple's board two months ago.
Levinson's resignation from Google's board takes effect immediately,
ending his 5 1/2-year stint as a director. He will remain on Apple's
board, where he has been a director for nine years. 
