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Kalamazoo wraps up TechTour 2005 with tons of cool stuff: My ancestral homeland (well, close enough) of Kalamazoo was the fifth and final stop on the TechTour 2005 of Michigan technology, sponsored by Walt Michal RV Center and Wireless Oakland. And what fun it was. The day began with a visit with M. Kathleen Johnson, director of the RFID Technology Center, housed at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. The center's mission is to promote West Michigan as a research and development center in RFID, which essentially is the use of tiny radios printed on tags to send, receive and store a variety of data on a variety of objects for a wide variety of purposes, many having to do with inventory control -- they're eyed a next-generation for the bar code. The RFID Technology Center in Kalamazoo was established about a year ago mostly under the urging of Blue Granite Inc., a veteran Kalamazoo tech firm that's working with the region's blueberry farmers and bedding plant growers to use RFID to keep track of inventory and prevent food and flowers from spoiling in transport and storage. Blue Granite hosted an early RFID user group, but decided to move it to KVCC and make it a nonprofit in order to obtain more funding for research, and to provide a structure that would allow multiple companies to participate. Right now, the center has three pilot research projects under way, including a study on how RFID tags that transmit temperature and humidity information can be used to prevent spoiling of fresh fruit. Western Michigan University also has a terrific RFID lab, which we'll get to in a minute. The RFID Technology Center is also planning an RFID summit with Automation Alley in October. More at a nifty Web site, www.rfidtechnologycenter.com. | |||||||||||
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| Tech companies
dominate '50 to watch': If you're watching the
new business honor list, "50 Companies to Watch in Michigan,"
you're watching a lot of tech companies. The new awards, sponsored by the
Edward Lowe Foundation, debuted last week with the Michigan Celebrates
Small Business event in Lansing, keynoted by Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Nominees for the awards must be second-stage companies, defined as
employing seven to 99 full-time-equivalent workers and generating $750,000
to $50 million in revenue. The companies must also be privately held and
based in Michigan. Winners were
selected by the Michigan Celebrates Small Business event partners: the
Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center, the Small Business
Association of Michigan, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the
U.S. Small Business Administration-Michigan and the Edward Lowe Foundation,
based in part on the winners demonstrated intent and capacity to grow based
employee or sales growth, exceptional entrepreneurial leadership,
sustainable competitive advantage or other notable factors. The awards are
sponsored by the Edward Lowe Foundation, the entrepreneur-support
foundation established by the Cassopolis-based inventor of kitty litter.
More at http://edwardlowe.org/Michigan50,
or www.michigancelebrates.biz,
where you'll see that about 35 of the 50 companies are companies you've
read about in this newsletter! | |||||||||||
| Microsoft
seeks more auto biz, donates $1 million to Henry Ford: Well, well.
While I was out of town last week, it appears a fella named Bill Gates
came to metro Detroit and introduced a new, simpler automotive telematics
operating system, which a bevy of auto tech suppliers lined up to support.
The Microsoft Peak Performance Automotive Summit event showed off
Microsoft Corp.'s vision for the automotive industry. Microsoft's
automotive business unit announced the official name of its telematics
software platform to Windows Mobile for Automotive, which is to be
available next year. Microsoft said the software will give the auto
industry a standardized design to reduce cost, complexity and time to
development for basic telematics systems. Windows Automotive, an operating
system that offers building blocks for more complex in-car systems, will
continue to be available. Both technologies are based in Microsoft Windows
CE. Gates also announced a donation of $1 million from Microsoft Corp. to
The Henry Ford. The Henry Ford is in the midst of a $155 million campaign
to fund new exhibitions and programs at Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield
Village, including those focusing on technological advancements. Gates
announced the donation at The Henry Ford's Lovett Hall before the senior
class of a charter school there, Henry Ford Academy. More at www.thehenryford.org.
And if you'd like our ol' pal Mike Wendland's account of Gates' visit from
the Detroit Free Press, click
here. And here's
an Associated Press take on the visit. | |||||||||||
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| Concordia,
Kettering sign partnership for engineering co-op programs: Flint-based
Kettering University and Concordia University of Ann Arbor last week
signed a strategic partnership to introduce a collaborative co-op job
programs that will make earning a bachelor's degree in engineering at
Kettering easier for students who wish to begin their university education
at Concordia, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Lutheran Church.
Under the agreement, students will complete their first two years of
study at Concordia University with extra counseling and support services, then
transfer to Kettering's Flint campus to finish their bachelor's degree
through Kettering's combination of classes and paid,
professional work experiences at companies throughout the world. The agreement
calls for joint academic advising to maximize student success and the smooth
transition of students from one institution to the other. This will be
accomplished through the early identification and referral of interested
students. Program components include career awareness forums, coordination and
enhancement of transfer advising, mentoring, and job opportunities through
co-op experiences at more than 600 companies around the world. More at www.cuaa.edu
or www.kettering.edu. | |||||||||||
| Michigan
layoffs possible for Pfizer: The Ann Arbor News
reported Sunday that local layoffs may be one side effect as Pfizer Inc.
swallows a bitter pill to restructure its worldwide operations - an
initiative that seeks to purge $4 billion in company costs in three years.
David Canter, senior vice president and manager of Pfizer's Ann Arbor
Laboratories, acknowledged local layoffs are possible as the world's
largest drugmaker moves through an extensive reorganization. More. | |||||||||||
| Client win for Synergy Computer:
Southfield-based Synergy Computer Solutions
Inc. announced Friday that it had been awarded a contract to assist CareSource
with an implementation of Facets health care administration system. CareSource
is a nonprofit Medicaid managed health care plan serving northeast, southwest
and central Ohio. It is the largest Medicaid HMO in Ohio and the third fastest
growing Medicaid HMO in the nation. More at www.synergycom.com. | |||||||||||
| New software
from Absoft: Rochester Hills-based software
developers Absoft Corp. said Friday that it had introduced its ProFortran
v9.2 Compiler Suite for Apple Computer's new Mac OS C version 10.4
"Tiger" operating system. Pro Fortran v9.2 provides full support for Apple's 64-bit operating
system, and Absoft says that allows Fortran developers to fully exploit the entire addressable
memory space of the G5 processor for the first time. The software also still
supports Mac OS X v.10.3 "Panther." The software is available in
single user and floating license configurations for multi-user shared
resource environments. The software will begin shipping May 15. More at www.absoft.com. | |||||||||||
| Madison Heights
company to resell Avaya: Madison
Heights-based Intelesys Inc. said last week it had reached an agreement
with Avaya Inc. (Nasdaq: AV) to begin selling Avaya's Internet Protocol
voice products, which includes IP Office, the phone system designed to run
over a private data network or through the Internet. Intelesys designs and
implements phone systems, data networks, wireless networks and integrated
systems. More at www.ivdsystems.com. | |||||||||||
| Toy challenge team
about halfway there: The Sally
Ride Toy Challenge team at West Bloomfield's Abbott Middle School has raised
about half of its $3,000 cost toward attending the East Coast Regionals of
the competition in North Carolina. The Abbott Middle School group has
designed a multi-level video game that teaches the pitfalls of making poor
life choices. A preliminary concept for the
game, complete with storyboards, was submitted in January -- and
placed in the top 10 percent of 350 nationwide entries. That earned the team
an invitation to the regionals. For more information, or to help with the effort, you can
e-mail teacher Mary Timmons at mtimmons@comcast.net. More about the competition overall at
www.toychallenge.com. | |||||||||||
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AG moves against Vonage over 911
warning: Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox
announced Friday that he had filed a "notice of intended action"
against New Jersey-based Vonage Holdings Corp over its Internet-based
phone service. Cox alleges Vonage has misled customers about its emergency
911 service, saying Vonage has failed to make clear that its customers do
not have access to traditional 911 emergency service. "Emergency calls made
through Vonage's service are often routed through call centers that may not be
answered outside of regular business hours," Cox said. Cox said customers who use Vonage's service are not directed to operators who dispatch
emergency vehicles. If emergency personnel do get the call, they may not be able
to identify the caller's phone number or have information displaying the
caller's address. Vonage has 10 days to respond to the notice, after which the
attorney general's office may file a civil suit. More at www.michigan.gov/ag. |
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Mt. Pleasant online training company wins
award: Mt. Pleasant-based DCM Associates L.L.C. said it had received
one of the 2004 Best Small Business Awards from the Michigan Small
Business and Technology Development Center. The companies honored were selected from among 10,000 companies the
MI-SBTDC
provided with confidential counseling and training last year. The businesses
were chosen based on success in sales, employment and business strategy.
DCM is housed within the Center for Applied Research and Technology at
Central Michigan University, where it designs, develops and distributes
interactive work force skills training for regulated areas such as
hazardous materials handling. Owner Debby Marmarelli first sought
assistance from the MI-SBTDC at Mid Michigan Community College in Harrison
for help in writing her business plan. DCMA has grown from one to seven
part-time employees, with projections to grow to 21 full-time employees by
2007. The company has also won $200,000 in federal grants. For more
information on the Mid-Michigan Community College center, call Marie
Elliott at (989) 386-6630. |
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Several errors in ProQuest earnings report: I can only blame Tech Tour fatigue, but there were several boo-boos in last week's report on the earnings of Ann Arbor-based database marketers ProQuest Co. So, to wit: the earnings guidance I cited, 35 to 45 cents on revenue growth of 20 to 25 percent, is for the second quarter of this year, not the full year, and it was given for the first time on last week's call. ProQuest also reiterated its full-year guidance of $2.20 to $2.40 per share on revenue of $590 million to $610 million. Also, the company's first quarter ended April 2, not March 31. More at www.proquestcompany.com. | |||||||||||
| Aastrom CEO to
present at Techvest healthcare: Ann Arbor-based
Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:
ASTM) said Friday that its CEO, R. Douglas Armstrong, will present at
the Rodman & Renshaw Techvest Second Annual Global Healthcare
Conference Wednesday and Thursday at the InterContinental Hotel in Paris.
Armstrong will present at 7 a.m. Eastern time (that's 1 p.m. Paris time)
on Wednesday. Rodman & Renshaw is a privately held investment bank. A
live Webcast of the presentation can be viewed at www.wsw.com/webcast/rrshq5/astm/.
Aastrom (NASDAQ:
ASTM) is developing a variety of products and technologies for the
repair and regeneration of human tissues. More at www.aastrom.com. | |||||||||||
| Eco-Shred
co-founder named to industry board: Farmington-based
Secure Eco-Shred said last week that Kevin Smith, its co-founder and vice
president, had been named to the board of directors of the National
Association for Information Destruction, the document and information
destruction industry's non-profit trade organization. NAID has worked with
the Federal Trade Commission in developing the Fair and Accurate Credit
Transition Act, the federal law designed to reduce the risk of consumer
fraud and identity theft created by the improper disposal of consumer
information. More about five-year-old Secure Eco Shred at www.secureecoshred.com.
More about the trade group at www.naidonline.org. | |||||||||||
| GlimaWest sets
election meet: GlimaWest, Automation Alley's
membership organization for technology professionals in the Grand Rapids
area, will hold an election for openings in its board, as well as for
president and vice president, in a meeting Thursday. Those interested in
serving should contact president@glimawest.org.
The May 12 meeting will also feature two special presentations -- first,
to hand out scholarships to area students who are pursuing degrees in
technology fields, and second, a talk from Birgit Klohs of the Grand
Rapids-area economic development agency The Right Place Inc. The event
will be held at Tre Cugini, 120 Monroe Center in Grand Rapids.
Registration and networking starts at 5:45 p.m., with the scholarship
awards at 6:30 and Klohs' talk at 6:40. The event is free to GlimaWest
members and $10 for others. To sign up, e-mail meetings@glimawest.org. | |||||||||||
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GL-SPIN sets May 12 meet: The
Great Lakes Software Process Improvement Network will meet May 12 on
"Interoperability: The Modern Approach to Software Intensive Systems."
The presenter is Patricia Oberndorf, director of the dynamic systems program at
the Software Engineering Institute. The event begins with networking and
refreshments at 6:30 p.m. It'll be held in Room 201 of the Dodge Hall of
Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester. More at www.gl-spin.org. |
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Verizon lets MCI
deadline pass quietly: Verizon
Communications (VZ)
let the Friday deadline to counter Qwest's (Q)
nearly $10 billion offer for MCI (MCIP)
pass without floating another bid or requesting the $250 million breakup
fee outlined in its merger agreement with MCI, according to a published
report Sunday. MCI declared Verizon's $7.5 billion takeover offer inferior
to Qwest's last week, the Associated Press reported. Qwest has given MCI
until midnight Monday to switch its support away from Verizon. |
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University of Maryland boosts 'citizen media' projects:
Proposals to create a "virtual home" for hip-hop culture in
Philadelphia and to train 32 young New Yorkers to produce weekly news audio
programs are among the projects chosen by "New Voices," funded by the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Awards to 10 "citizen media experiments" were announced by Jan
Schaffer, director of J-Lab at the University of Maryland. Grants of $12,000 were made to community groups, radio stations and local
newspapers that "demonstrated both the goal of applying the values of
fact-based journalism in pursuit of news, and a realistic plan to find a way to
keep the operation going after its launch," Schaffer said in a statement. See
the award winners. |
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TheStreet.com to add free content: TheStreet.com (TSCM)
is preparing to move some content from its paid subscription area to its free
Web site. Thomas J. Clarke Jr., chairman and chief executive, announced the
strategy Thursday evening during the company's quarterly financial report. Highlighting stronger Web advertising revenues, as well as a positive outlook
for online ad spending this year, Clarke said "subscription revenue (for
paid newsletters and RealMoney.com) probably goes down, as we move quality
content over to the free site where it can be monetized through
advertising." Subscription revenues, he added, have declined. |
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Napster for news? The Associated Press has it all wrong, according to an executive with E.W. Scripps (SSP), operator of the Food Network and 21 daily newspapers. Charging members for content, as the AP announced it plans to begin doing, is an act of self-destruction , wrote Bob Benz, general manager of print Web operations for Scripps, and Mike Phillips who is the company's newspaper division editorial director, in an article for the Online Journalism Review. They counter a better idea would be a true cooperative, much like Napster was for music, with publishers making available all their digital content to let "local operations drive cost out of their nonlocal news packages, divert resources to local Web content creation and operate on a level playing field with bloggers, citizen journalists and Internet pure plays." Sharing of content would be monitored and a balance would be necessary. "The more you make available to the network, the more you can take out," the two wrote. Phillips and Benz credit the Associated Press for recognizing the importance of the Web, but faults it because "the AP is like any business confronted with a disruptive technology. Its first inclination is self-preservation, not cannibalization." They said Scripps is ready to host an organizational meeting for such a consortium of news providers. | |||||||||||
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Bloggers search for a business model: So how do you make money with Web logs? MarketWatch says the question is being asked more frequently as bloggers-turned-entrepreneurs search for a financial reason to keep posting. Two of the latest efforts are from Roger L. Simon, the mystery author, and John Battelle, the former chief executive of Standard Media International (which published the Industry Standard magazine), who is finishing a book about Internet search. Simon hopes to launch the Blog News Service, aggregating content and selling advertising across the network of publishers. An editorial board including Web loggers Glenn Reynolds and Lawrence Kudlow is already in place. "We invite you all to join us," Simon wrote on his blog. "We would be delighted to place ads on your blog and pay you for them." Read the open letter from Simon. Battelle's venture, FMPublishing, is also in startup phase, revealing little about its business model as he searches for financing. He intends to partner only with blogs that already have their own business models, according to a report in Business 2.0. Battelle plans to offer "back-room" tech services to online publishers, as well as sell category-specific advertising on the sites. He's been providing some of this for BoingBoing.net for the past six months, and is said to be generating $40,000 a month in ad revenue. See Battelle's blog about FMPub. | |||||||||||
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Inmates use intermediaries to go online: Keith Maydak's jail cells are roomier than most. Must be all that cyberspace. State and federal prisons don't let inmates use Internet computers behind bars - and the Allegheny County Jail doesn't either. Yet Maydak has answered a reporter's e-mails from the Pittsburgh jail, and later an Ohio lockup, while he awaits sentencing for violating probation on a 900-number phone scam that cost AT&T $550,000. Thousands of other inmates access the Internet indirectly using inmate telephone and mail privileges and a network of family, friends or activists. Maydak, 34, told The Associated Press he uses a network of toll-free phone numbers and friends to access the Internet for him. He was inspired as a teen by the 1983 movie "War Games" in which nuclear war almost results when a teenager hacks into a military computer. And that's precisely why state and federal prisons keep inmates away from the Internet, said Joe Weedon, a spokesman for the American Correctional Association in Lanham, Md. "There were a few jurisdictions that allowed it on a limited basis, but they ran into problems with offenders contacting their victims or inmates running scams of some sort." More. |
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Apple unleashes Tiger: Apple Computer has unleashed the Tiger. The latest major update of Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Mac OS X operating system, code-named Tiger, went on sale around the globe on Friday. At a cost of $129 and available at Apple's own retail stores, authorized Apple resellers and on Apple's online store, the upgrade is the fifth major refresh of Mac OS X and includes more than 200 new features. Toward the top of the feature list is Apple's Spotlight search technology, which scours the Mac computer's hard disk drive to find documents, e-mails, pictures, music and other files, similar to the way Google searches the Internet. More. |
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| Feds find tech
help in hunting financial crooks: Governments
around the world have found a high-tech ally in their fight against tax
cheats, money launderers, corporate crooks, and perhaps the most
pernicious of all bureaucratic enemies, paperwork. The technology, a
computer language developed by accountants, turns financial information
into the equivalent of a bar code, allowing software to scan and
comprehend information that would otherwise be left for armies of analysts
to re-type and sort out. Extensible business reporting language, as it is
called, is gaining a critical following inside the halls of government.
Officials from Brussels to Washington have begun encouraging and requiring
financial statements to be prepared in XBRL, to counter the cool reception
so far in the business community. "It's the killer technology,"
said Michael Bartell, the chief information officer of the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp., the U.S. banking regulator, speaking at a conference on
the technology held last week. "We are drowning in data. We're buying
storage faster than we can cut the purchase orders." The technology
affixes digital "tags" to virtually every kind of financial
information, making it possible for software to spot suspicious or
erroneous information and flag reports for more thorough review. While all
data can be stored electronically, XBRL provides a standard structure that
can be run through many types of analytical software. More. | |||||||||||
| Business
inaction could lead to cybersecurity law: U.S. businesses for years have urged the
government to let them set computer-security standards of their
own, but their inability to do so could now prompt Congress to
step in, experts say. Those who worry that regulation may stifle
innovation say the business community may have already missed an
opportunity to prove the government's help is not needed. More. | |||||||||||
| UM
April sentiment revised down: Consumer sentiment weakened slightly in late April,
according to media reports Friday of proprietary research from the University of
Michigan. The UM consumer sentiment index inched lower to 87.7 in late April
from 88.7 earlier in the month. Economists were expecting the index to remain
flat at 88.7. The index is below the 92.6 level of March. The index has fallen
four months in a row. The current conditions index rose to 104.4 from 103.9 in
early April. The index was 108 in March. The expectations index fell to 77.0
from 79 earlier in the month. The expectations index was 82.8 in March | |||||||||||
| Stocks: Technology
stocks rose Friday after zigzagging most of the session as investors
digested mixed economic data and merger speculation. But the
tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index ended lower for a fourth straight month
in the wake of the latest round of earnings that proved to be a mixed bag.
The index ($COMPQ:
news,
chart,
profile)
rose 17.47 points to 1,921.65 after falling to a six-month low in the
previous session. The Amex Computer Technology Index ($XCI:
news,
chart,
profile)
added 8.64 points. The Nasdaq Telecommunications Index ($IXTC:
news,
chart,
profile)
rose 0.6%, as 16 of the 20 largest index components advanced. The Amex
Biotechnology Index edged up 0.58 percent to 509.07 and the Amex
Pharmaceutical Index gained 1.34 percent to 331.42, following the broader
market northward. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU:
news,
chart,
profile)
rose 122.14 points, or 1.2 percent to 10,192.51. The benchmark index rose
0.3 percent on the week, but fell 3 percent in the month of April. The
S&P 500 Index ($SPX:
news,
chart,
profile)
rose 11 points to 1,154.
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