Source: venturebeat.com

Yesterday, amid the iPad madness, the U.S. Department of Energy quietly released a press advisory suggesting that it would have big news for the green car industry today, and indeed it did, announcing a $1.4 billion loan to Nissan North America. The major automaker says it will use the money to set up a Tennessee plant to churn out its fully-electric Leaf model. Read more here. 

Source: University of Florida News

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A tiny new sensor could provide fresh, inexpensive diagnosis and treatment methods for people suffering from a variety of diseases.

University of Florida engineers have designed and tested versions of the sensor for applications ranging from monitoring diabetics’ glucose levels via their breath to detecting possible indicators of breast cancer in saliva. They say early results are promising — particularly considering that the sensor can be mass produced inexpensively with technology already widely used for making chips in cell phones and other devices.

“This uses known manufacturing technology that is already out there,” said Fan Ren, a professor of chemical engineering and one of a team of engineers collaborating on the project.

The team has published 15 peer-reviewed papers on different versions of the sensor, most recently in this month’s edition of IEEE Sensors Journal. In that paper, members report integrating the sensor in a wireless system that can detect glucose in exhaled breath, then relay the findings to health care workers. That makes the sensor one of several non-invasive devices in development to replace the finger prick kits widely used by diabetics.

Tests with the sensor contradict long-held assumptions that glucose levels in the breath are too small for accurate assessment, Ren said. That’s because the sensor uses a semiconductor that amplifies the minute signals to readable levels, he said.

“Instead of poking your finger to get the blood, you can just breathe into it and measure the glucose in the breath condensate,” Ren said. Read more here

Source: Reuters

The California financiers have an impressive track record, having funded small companies that eventually turned into Google, Yahoo and scores of other giants that shaped the internet revolution. After a sharp dropoff in the wake of the financial crisis, VCs expect to be more active this year and anticipate a much stronger flow of clean tech acquisitions or public offerings. Read more here.

Source: SanJose Mercury News

 SAN JOSE, Calif. — Solar and wind power may get the headlines and attention, but green-tech experts say 2010 will be dominated by energy efficiency, the mundane but critical process of cutting the amount of gas and electricity that homes and offices use. Read more here.

Source: Xconomy

The wait is over, but the endless mulling of the details and implications is just beginning. As Apple unveiled its long-rumored tablet device, the iPad, at a press event today in San Francisco, mobile industry insiders in Seattle, Boston, and elsewhere were watching closely. Which is exactly what you would expect, given Apple’s track record of disrupting industry after industry with previous iProducts like the iPod, iTunes, and the iPhone.

After all, long before Steve Jobs lifted the cloak of secrecy, the iPad was both feared and revered—feared because of the possibility that it will once again upend the way people consume digital content such as music, movies, TV shows, games, books, newspapers, and magazines, and revered because it could provide creators and distributors in each of these media with new ways to reach customers.

In case you’ve been offline all day, the iPad is basically a giant iPod Touch. It’s a 1.5-pound media device with a 9.7-inch LCD multitouch-sensitive screen and, according to Apple, up to 10 hours of battery life. It will have Wi-Fi Internet connectivity and will come in no fewer than six versions priced from $499 to $829, depending on whether you want 16 gigabytes, 32 gigabytes, or 64 gigabytes of flash memory, and whether you want 3G connectivity in addition to Wi-Fi. 3G data plans, available on a month-to-month (not contract) basis from AT&T, will cost $14.99 per month for up to 250 megabytes of data, and $29.99 per month for unlimited data. The Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad will be available in late March, and the 3G version will be available in April, according to Apple.

Those are the basics—but what will the device mean for consumers, entrepreneurs, application developers, and Apple’s competitors? To start the search for answers, Wade and I pinged a bunch of our favorite tech experts in Seattle and Boston, and below we’ve summarized their early reviews. So far we’ve gathered comments from Bill Baxter and Robbie Cape from Seattle-based Cozi (which makes family software for the home); Steve Hall, managing director of Seattle’s Vulcan Capital (Paul Allen’s investment firm); Todd Hooper, founder and CEO of Seattle-based Napera Networks; Mark Lowenstein of Brookline, MA-based wireless industry consultancy Mobile Ecosystem; Mike McSherry of Seattle-based Swype; and Greg Raiz, founder and CEO of Raizlabs, a mobile application development firm in Brookline that focuses on iPhone apps.

Our sources expressed a variety of opinions about the iPad, ranging from adulation to surprise to disappointment. One thing is certain: the device is kicking up serious dust in some very diverse consumer markets, including e-books, gaming, music, and video. That means it probably stands to gain much better traction than any tablet computer that has come before (sorry, Microsoft—though we know you have something in the works too). Read more here

Source: FirstWorld

The director of the FDA's division of drug advertising, marketing and communications, Thomas Abrams, said the agency has increased the number of staff monitoring drugmakers' advertising by 50 percent to 60 percent over the last five years, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. "Our standards have not changed, but we are trying to do a better job at reaching the industry," he added.

Last year, the FDA proposed draft guidelines to clarify the appropriate use of sound and images when presenting safety information in drug advertising. US lawmaker Bart Stupak, who has previously raised concerns about whether promotional materials properly presented product benefits and risks, commented that "many drug manufacturers have revised their commercials to more prominently feature the side effects of prescription drugs and disclose key information... This increased diligence by manufacturers is promising, though there is still much room for improvement." Read more here

Source: in-Pharma Technologies

The global market for RFID products and services in the pharma industry will be worth $884m (€631m) in 2015, according to a report, but apprehensions about initial costs and return-on-investment need to be overcome.

Adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) in the pharma industry has been slower than expected, in part because of the California State Board of Pharmacy’s decision to delay the implementation of ePedigree requirements until 2015.

This has affected the growth of the market. A 2007 report from Kalorama Information highlights this. The report, which is by a different company than the recent publication, predicted that the market for RFID solutions in the healthcare industry would be worth $3.1bn in 2012.

Differences in methodology make it difficult to directly contrast this figure with the value in the new report from Companies and Markets .

However, it does highlight that RFID is yet to experience the rapid growth which was expected. Kalorama’s report predicted the market would grow from $297m in 2007 to $3.1bn in 2012.

The Companies and Markets report says the sector “is hampered by low adoption rates” that are a consequence of apprehensions over the high initial investment and the lack of a clear business case.

Furthermore, economic uncertainties and cost-cutting measures have made pharma unwilling to invest. In response RFID vendors are offering pilot kits to allow companies to test and evaluate the costs and benefits of the technology.

However, rapid growth is likely to be driven by RFID requirements with retailers, such as Wal-Mart, and regulatory bodies. In addition to California other states and countries are looking to implement ePedigree systems. Read more here

Source: Mass High Tech

Economic growth hinges on the ability to continually innovate and dexterously adapt to an ever-changing world.

According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Science Foundation, research and development comprised 5 percent of the nation’s real GDP growth from 1959 to 2004 and 7 percent between 1995 and 2004. The current recession has, unfortunately, dried up much of this spending. American R&D has declined by 2.4 percent since December 2007, according to R&D Magazine, threatening long-term economic growth when it is most needed. Data shows increases in R&D are consistently followed by increases in GDP and the loss in investment will only exacerbate the nation’s financial woes.

Research and development’s economic benefits were acknowledged last year when $18.4 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was allocated to R&D spending.

R&D is the catalyst for tomorrow’s new products and necessary for a vibrant economy. Funding R&D leads to investments in capital equipment and has a positive spillover effect into numerous sectors. It contributes to advancements in areas such as medicine and energy that will make the world safer and cleaner in our lifetime and for future generations.

Another type of economic stimulus, the federal R&D tax credit, has promoted innovation since 1981. Recently, the house passed a one-year, $7 billion extension of the credit, which expired on Dec. 31. The New England Council now urges the senate to pass its version of the bill to ensure this valuable incentive remains available for businesses on the cutting edge. Read more here

Source: Yahoo! News

PARIS (AFP) – French researchers said Tuesday they had found a promising new target in the fight against Alzheimer's, the debilitating brain disease that causes irreversible memory loss and dementia.

In laboratory experiments, a team led by Etienne-Emile Beaulieu of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) uncovered what could prove a critically important interaction between two types of proteins.

The telltale symptoms of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases have been linked to an overabundance in the brain of the tau protein.

Beaulieu and colleagues discovered that another protein known as FKBP52, which also helps regulate immune responses, may slow or prevent that damaging accumulation.

"It's an 'anti-tau' weapon located within the cells," Beaulieu said at a press conference in Paris.

"We want to boost the efficiency of this weapon and find pharmaceutical ammunition -- new drugs -- to accelerate its action so that it can destroy unwanted tau," he told journalists.

The study was published this week in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Developing such a drug may take a long time, he said, "but in two or three years we should be able to find a way to at least make an early diagnosis." Read more here

Source: Boston Business Journal

Source: US Air Force

1/15/2010 - LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFNS) -- A joint Air Force and Lockheed Martin team developing the Space-Based Infrared System program, known as SBIRS, has achieved two key milestones: a testing milestone demonstrating the ground system is on track to support launch of the first SBIRS geosynchronous GEO-1 satellite in the constellation; and a maturity milestone moving the ground system into the next level of integration.

The testing milestone, known as the Combined Day-In-The-Life test, or CDITL, validated the functionality, performance and operability of the SBIRS GEO ground system for its planned operational use. The campaign included testing more than 1.5 million source lines of code and 133 ground segment requirements.

The new SBIRS ground system includes software and hardware necessary to perform activation, checkout and initial operations of the GEO-1 satellite after launch. SBIRS uses "Day-in-the-Life" test events to validate the integrated ground system following successful verification at the segment level.

"Our ground system performed very well," said Col.Winthrop Idle, commander of the SBIRS Ground Systems Group. "This test paves the way for the SBIRS program to provide a new, even more impressive level of information to the warfighter with the GEO system. The exceptional performance of the ground system is a true testament to the hard work and dedication put forth by our strong government and industry team." Read more here
 

Source: The New York Times

Venture capitalists, whose money provides fuel to technology start-ups, last year invested the lowest amount in such companies since 1997, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association released on Friday.

Many in the industry say this sharp decline is healthy. Some have even been calling for a return to the investment levels of the early 1990s, before dot-com mania lured new investors and billions of dollars to venture capital and drove down returns.

“There was too much money in the system,” said Jeff Fagnan, a partner at the investment firm Atlas Venture. “It would be healthier if we can return to the pace and kind of deals that were done in the 1990s.”

That includes backing more first-time entrepreneurs and ideas coming out of universities, he said.

In 2009, venture capitalists invested $17.7 billion in 2,795 start-ups — 37 percent less cash and 30 percent fewer deals than in 2008. Internet companies, which have excited investors for more than a decade, took a big hit as investment declined 39 percent. Read more here

Sourece: in-Pharma Technologies

Emergency relief groups in Haiti can expect to receive continued support from the drug industry, according to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (IFPMA).

The group said that member companies have donated more than $17m (€12m) of drugs and medical assistance to organisations working to provide emergency relief in the wake of last Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.

The IFPMA added that: “Total industry assistance can be expected to increase further, as many companies have also committed to match employee contributions which are still being collected.”

Organisation president Haruo Naito, CEO of Japanese drugmaker Eisai, explained that, to ensure the donated drugs reach the people who need the most, IFPMA members are working with the WHO, UNICEF, the PAHO and other expert NGOs.

The organisation did not respond to in-PharmaTechnologist’s questions about any longer term aid provision plans. Read more here

Source: The Burrill Report

Not long ago it seemed healthcare reform legislation was sure to be signed, sealed and delivered in time for President Obama’s State of the Union address. But the dramatic upset in Massachusetts that has resulted in Republican Scott Brown winning the seat held by long-time healthcare reform advocate Ted Kennedy has thrown the Democrats plan on its head as Brown represents the 41st vote for the Republicans, which gives them the ability to shut down the legislation. We spoke to Peter Pitts, president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest about where the Democrats went wrong, what Brown’s election means for healthcare reform and where we go from here. Read more here

Source: Information weekly

While 40% of doctors had electronic medical record systems in their offices in 2008 and 2009, fewer than 7% of systems are fully functional.

While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's $20 billion-plus health IT stimulus programs aims to drive e-health record adoption among healthcare providers, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that about 4 in 10 doctor offices say they're already using these systems either partially or fully.

The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), conducted annually by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), is an annual nationally representative survey of patient visits to office-based physicians that collects information on use of e-medical/e-health record systems. To read more, click here.

Source: OptoIQ

December 15, 2009?The global market for lasers is expected to grow about 11% in 2010 bringing total revenues to $5.91 billion for the year, according to a new industry forecast from Laser Focus World.

For the first time since 2000 worldwide laser sales fell during 2009 because of the worldwide recession. The new forecast anticipates a return to growth in 2010. Aided by a turnaround in the semiconductor and communication equipment business and in the general economic situation, the laser market should pull out of the downturn and return to 2006 levels.

These findings are based on the Laser Focus World annual review and forecast of the laser marketplace, to be presented in detail at the Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar in San Francisco, CA on January 25, 2010. (...) "Semiconductor and display manufacturing tools, biomedical systems, and R&D are already on the rise," notes Hausken, "but slower sectors?such as most of materials processing?will not see growth until late 2010 or even 2011."

Source: MHT

Atlas Venture is consolidating operations around a new Boston-area headquarters, bringing partner Fred Destin home from Europe, the company announced in a press release this morning. 

The firm also announced reductions in its London-based investment team. Partners Graham O'Keeffe and Regina Hodits, both based in London, will both take the title of venture partner. Partner Christopher Spray will continue to manage the firm's European portfolio from London.

A spokesman declined to specify the new office's location, beyond saying it will be in "the Boston area." Atlas currently keeps its headquarters in Waltham.
To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Zygo Corp., a supplier of electro-optical design and manufacturing services, optical metrology instruments and precision optics, has announced a new CEO and its new acquisition of optical metrology systems maker Zemetrics Inc.

The Middlefield, Conn.-based company has named Chris Koliopoulos as president and CEO, taking the helm from J. Bruce Robinson, who announced his retirement in October. Koliopoulos joins the company having previously served as president and CEO of metrology equipment supplier ADE Corp. through its acquisition in 2006 by KLA-Tencor. He also founded and led WYKO Corp. and Phase Shift Technology. Koliopoulos earned his Ph.D. in optics from the University of Arizona.
To read more, click here.

Source: Innovation Economy

Just two weeks after marking its 10th anniversary last month, the Cambridge Innovation Center signed a new 10-year lease with MIT that will see it almost double in size by this summer. Founder and CEO Tim Rowe says he's adding 57,000 square feet of new space, bringing his total footprint in the building at One Broadway in Kendall Square to 122,000 square feet.
Already, CIC is the largest collection of start-up companies under one roof on the East Coast, with 240 tenants. Rowe says nearly 20 companies are on a waiting list for space in the building: "We're bursting at the seams." To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Charles River Laboratories has announced it will close a facility in Shrewsbury and lay off 300 people.

The Wilmington-based provider of research services and products to biotechnology companies plans to retain 30 employees who are responsible for either the ongoing operations of the site or who will be taking on positions at other facilities within the company.
 
"This decision comes after a challenging year in which the consolidation of the biopharmaceutical industry, the slowdown in R&D efforts, and financial constraints for biotechnology companies resulted in softness in market demand for our services.  As a result, we are suspending operations at our Shrewsbury facility," said James C. Foster, chairman, president and CEO, in a statement. "We understand this is a difficult economic environment and plan to support our Shrewsbury employees during this time.  Charles River is proud to call Massachusetts our home and we are committed to resuming operations at the facility when demand for our services strengthens." To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Solar energy systems could grow in a big way this year in Massachusetts - and not just in number.

New state incentives and regulations are making it possible for the construction of large solar "farms" on tracts of land or very large rooftops, a scale familiar to neighboring states but rare in Massachusetts.

Local developers have already proposed construction of at least 10 megawatts of solar - enough to power 10,000 houses - in a handful of projects, and solar installers across the state are talking with commercial building owners about large systems on rooftops that could add several more megawatts.

To read more, click here.

Source: Silicon Valley Insider

Over two hundred mobile companies are headquartered in the Boston area, and more than 10 mobile startups launched here in 2009. Mostly focused on individual mobile applications, none of these new companies at first glance look like the next hundred million dollar exit. But behind these seemingly single-application organizations are businesses developing new strategies and platforms much more sophisticated than what initially meets the eye.

Applications today offer the best opportunities for breaking into the mobile marketplace. Framingham-based IDC predicts that the Apple App Store will offer over 300,000 apps by the end of 2009. The Yankee Group, headquartered in Boston, projects that by 2013 consumers will download seven billion mobile applications in a market worth $4.2 billion. Users have already downloaded over 2 billion iPhone apps. To know more, click here.

Source: Mass High Tech

 Cambridge-based biotech startup Catabasis Pharmaceuticals Inc. has raised about $2 million in an amendment to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company develops drugs to treat inflammatory diseases, according to its website. The developments are aimed at improving the conditions of inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Catabasis claims it has already demonstrated in vitro and in vivo proof of concept for its CAT1000 compounds.

The $2 million funds stem from an intended $3 million debt round.

Christopher Thomajan, chief financial officer of Catabasis, was not immediately available to discuss the filing.
The company previously filed an amendment to an SEC filing in May, noting that it had raised $1.075 million of a $2 million debt round. Read more here

Source: St. Louis Post Dispatch

I’ve written before about how St. Louis needs to boost its level of entrepreneurial activity, but that obviously will be an uphill battle in this economy. Real Time Economics, citing a report by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, says that the number of businesses started in the United States fell 24 percent last year. Read more here

Source:Laser Focus World

Amplitude Systemes and Imagine Optic will be exhibiting at Photonics West, as this 2 page ad from Route des Lasers reminds us. They will be on booth #1607. Too Bad Bordeaux is mispelled in the SPIE Photonics West Guide. Oh well...

Of course, Hubtech21 will be there as well, and other clients of Hubtech21 will be exhibiting, such as Quantel, Amplitude Technologies.

Photonics West will take place in San Francisco this year, in the Moscone Center.

Source: United Press International Inc.

Source: Feedblitz

You've heard of incubators, which provide space for numerous young companies under one roof, with shared copiers and communal coffee. But what about a "syncubator"?
That's the term coined by the founders of the new Clean Energy Fusion Center in Waltham: an incubator where synergies develop, since all the start-ups housed there are pursuing opportunities in related sectors, like wind power, solar panels, or smart grid software. The CEFC is managed by a group of executives who participated in last year's Clean Energy Fellowship Program with the New England Clean Energy Council, including Lorraine Wheeler, Mike O'Neill, and Doug Levin. (The fellowship program aims to give executives from other industries an immersion course in the science and business of energy.) They set up shop last August, and are holding their official opening party later this month. To read more, click here.

Source: Government Technology News

Recently a memorandum of understanding was signed between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which established parameters to design and deliver energy performance labeling for buildings. The Energy Performance Score (EPS) for buildings is comparable to the miles-per-gallon sticker on many cars and can be used to deliver incentives to builders, homeowners or businesses.

(...)The EPS, developed by the Energy Trust of Oregon, is a publically available number that is associated with a new or existing building. This means that property buyers can compare energy performance on similar buildings.

Energy performance labeling is just one of the green building trends for 2010, according to Earth Advantage Institute. Here's what else made it onto the top 10 list for 2010:

• The smart grid and connected home. While utilities will continue to make upgrades to the grid for more effective generation, storage and distribution of power, the big news is in the home. The development of custom and Web-based display panels that show real-time home energy use, and even real-time energy use broken out by individual appliance, will go a long way toward helping change homeowners' energy behavior and will drive energy conservation.
• To read more, click here.

source: in-Pharma Technologies

Vaccines could be produced in less than 10 weeks from first isolation of the RNA sequence by using insect cell derived influenza VLPs, according to research which has implications for H1N1 and H5N1.

The threat of newly emerging pandemic influenza strains, and limitations of egg-based culture, has driven the need for rapid response manufacturing methods. Researchers from Austria believe they have developed an approach that could satisfy this demand.

In a paper published online on 29 December in Biotechnology Journal the researchers detail why they believe insect cell derived influenza virus-like particles (VLPs) “are a very fast, safe and effective alternative vaccine approach”.

Using two insect cell lines, namely Sf9 and BTI-TN5B1-4, the team was able to produce the first batch of VLPs 51 days after cloning work began. Accounting for an additional two weeks of gene synthesis, vaccine production of a new influenza subtype could start less than 10 weeks after isolating the RNA sequence.

In earlier work published in The New England Journal of Medicine Baxter claimed it could produce a H5N1 vaccine within 12 weeks of an outbreak. This used African green monkey kidney cells and the Austrian researchers draw parallels between mammalian and insect cell culture.

Both techniques offer fast production but notably the systems differ in the way they perform complex glycosylation. However, there have been no reports that this negatively impacts on the immunogenicity of products manufactured using either method. Read more here.

Source:OptoIQ

Precompensation for high-order chromatic dispersion makes possible the use of pulses as short as 10 fs for nonlinear optical microscopy. The resulting signal-to-noise increase can enable better-quality depth-resolved imaging.

Because of their inherent three-dimensional (3-D) sectioning capabilities, nonlinear optical microscopy methods such as two-photon excitation fluorescence¹ (TPEF) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) are gaining popularity. With these methods, the signal is generated within a narrow region near the focus of the microscope objective, and it is well separated spectrally from the laser's excitation wavelength. Photodamage, if any, is also spatially confined to the focal volume. To read more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Despite economic crisis, OCT market grows to $315 million in 2009

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is continuing its rapid expansion as a fast, high-resolution imaging tool for clinical diagnostics. According to a new study from US market research firm Strategies Unlimited, OCT systems sales grew to $315m in 2009, with a compound annual growth rate of 20% expected through 2014. To read more, click here.

Source: optics.org

Optical technology is helping the US Forest Service to gain a better understanding of wildfire behaviour.The frequency, duration and severity of wild land fires in the western US has increased over the last few decades and the pollutants carried in the resulting smoke plumes are found to be detrimental to both human health and the environment. Now, researchers at the US Forest Service are hoping to shed light on the trajectories, rise and dispersion of these pollutants by probing smoke plumes in the vicinity of wildfires (Appl. Opt. 48 5287).  To read more, click here.

Source: Xconomy

If you want to know which companies are looking to hire top young business talent around town, just ask the group of 20 or so first-year MBA students from MIT Sloan School of Management. The students from Cambridge, MA, are in Seattle this week looking to make contacts for jobs and summer internships.

It’s all part of the annual “tech trek” program in which some 150 Sloan MBA students split up to visit companies in Seattle, Silicon Valley, and the Boston area. The students on the Seattle leg visited Adobe, Microsoft, and RealNetworks yesterday, and they are at Amazon, Starbucks, and T-Mobile today.

I met up with a group of them over drinks last night. They had a refreshingly candid perspective on job prospects at Seattle tech companies, and some valuable insights into the local tech-business scene. (Almost worth the $43 parking ticket I got from the BluWater Bistro lot—it’s been one of those weeks.)Read more here.

Source: Burill & Company

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 26 new drugs in 2009, besting 2008 by a hair, according to Washington Analysis, which provides research to institutional investors. The number of new approvals for small molecule drugs actually fell slightly, while the number of new biologics approved grew. We spoke to Ira Loss, senior health policy analyst with Washington Analysis, about the numbers, whether they reflect a push by Big Pharma into biologics, and whether the FDA under a new administration is faring any better. Click here to read more

Source: VentureBeat

Last year was just miserable for private equity fund-raising in the United States. Hitting its lowest point since 2003, private equity (including venture capital) fell 68 percent to $95.8 billion across 331 funds, down from $300 billion across 508 funds in 2008, according to Dow Jones LP Source. To read more, click here.

Source: Techcrunch

Later today, Facebook will be announcing the launch of a new Fellowship program, inviting Ph.D. engineering students across the United States who are working on fields related to social computing and other Internet technologies to apply for one of five valuable fellowships. To read more, click here.

Source: LFW December 09 and BIooptics World December 09

Multiphoton drillung liberates oils, unharmed, p.17

Trappimg near resonance could reduce biological damage, p.18

Stimulated-emission microscopy lases a trail (Research by Sunney Xie), p.22-23

Miniature microscope images active neurons, p31-32

In Biooptics World:

- Stimulated-emission microscopy makes nonfluorescing molecules glow, p.6-7

- Optical profiling enables large-scale measurement of cellular nanomechanics, p.16-19

Source: MHT

When Paul Graham's Y Combinator pulled out of Boston, there was an audible moan. Leaving Boston to focus on "Silicone Valley" opportunities was the reason Graham gave for the move. The media fallout would have you believe that the very core of entrepreneurship was leaving and that it was another blow to Boston dealt by Silicon Valley. It was a sad event but by no means the end of something core to Boston. The rivalry between Boston and Silicon Valley as the top choice for entrepreneurs is one of Boston's mythologies, and it's time we busted it.

While living in New York, I never once heard a local New Yorker mention the Red Sox. It seems the only people who care about keeping that rivalry alive are Red Sox fans. The same is true of the Boston-Silicon Valley debate. We're trying too hard to compete for that top spot, and it's distracting us from what is amazing about Boston.
To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

The tiny parts used in nanotechnology-based manufacturing have the potential to bring a big boost in jobs to the Bay State, sparking a manufacturing renaissance that brings to mind the heyday of the textile industry.

Some companies already are hiring for nanomanufacturing jobs, and if the industry explodes in the way experts suggest it might, there may not be enough qualified workers to fill all the potential jobs.

Some experts, however, say that the jobs will not be as technically challenging as, say, pharmaceutical production, and a number of local universities and groups are working to make sure that turns out to be true, by developing standardized manufacturing processes.

New England is at the spear point of nanotech research. The National Science Foundation has funded 19 nanoscale science and engineering centers around the country, and four of those focus specifically on nanomanufacturing. Two of those are right in New England. One is a consortium made up of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Northeastern University and the University of New Hampshire. The other is based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is run by Mark Tuominen, a professor in the department of physics, and director of the National Nanomanufacturing Network.
To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Optics technology-maker Boston Micromachines Corp. reports it has landed about $200,000 from NASA to develop optics technology.

The $200,000 comprises two Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research grants. Under one of the grants, Boston Micromachines will partner with Boston University to develop a microelectromechanical systems-based actuator device for use with deformable mirrors used in NASA's imaging technology. The researcher's goal is to develop a driver with a minimum hundred-fold reduction in power consumption and a tenfold reduction in size, while maintaining a high level of precision and decreasing costs.

Under the other SBIR grant, Boston Micromachines will develop a process for making high actuator count deformable mirrors used in space-based imaging instruments. The goal of the process is to create larger deformable mirror devices that shape more light using less hardware in fewer configurations. To read more, click here.

Source: MHT

Massachusetts cleantech companies bucked the trend of lower venture capital investment in 2009 and raked in 21 percent more funding last year, according to a report released today by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte LLP.

Bay State cleantech firms received $356 million in 27 deals last year, making it the second leading state for investment. California, the state with the most cleantech funding, saw its investment decline 38 percent from 2008 to $2.1 billion in 116 deals. In North America, venture capital investment in cleantech fell 42 percent over last year and 17 percent over 2007 to $3.5 billion in 298 deals.

To read more, click here.

Source: Xconomy

We look at amazement at strange technologies from the past. How did people function in worlds with quill pens or connect with each other by Morse code and telegrams? Within biotechnology’s short history, we have already seen approaches from the ’90s such as Southern blots that look at sizes and amounts of DNA, and antisense therapies, are being replaced. I guarantee you at least 50 percent of what we think of as the enabling technologies and approaches to biological knowledge will be relegated to museum displays in the next five (OK, maybe 10) years.

Here are five that are ready to be replaced:

1. Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) studies based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This is the approach that does high-speed scanning for markers across the complete sets of DNA, or genomes, among many individuals to spot small variations that might be associated with a particular disease. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) analysis isn’t going to last long as a major driver of biologic insight. Within the next one to two years, people will wake up to “ITEGS”—”It’s the entire genome, stupid.” Technologies are poised to allow analysis of variations in thousands to even hundreds of thousands of people. Do not be surprised when all the people with a disease such as Huntington’s are analyzed for DNA alterations across their entire genome. Groups such as Cure Huntington’s Disease Initiative are already preparing for this world. Read more here.

Source: InformationWeek

The cloud is an emerging platform that can ease the strain on application development, analysts at Forrester Research conclude in a report published Monday, "The Top Five Changes For Application Development In 2010."

Analysts Mike Gualtieri, John Rymer and Jeffrey Hammond conclude that Amazon Web Services' (AWS) cloud, EC2, and other public clouds, such as Salesforce.com's Force.com, AT&T Synaptic Compute cloud, Rackspace Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, are offering mature operational environments that can be used to speed the development and launch of cloud applications. Read more here.

Source: abovethecrowd.com

 In a recent New York Times article, Kathryn Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst was quoted suggesting that Apple’s iPhone is the key catalyst for an important new technology trend. “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend – one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.” This argument rings true in that the “after iPhone” smartphone market is dramatically more interesting than the “pre-iPhone” smartphone market. Later, Ms. Huberty made an even bolder statement, “The iPhone is something different. It’s changing our behavior…The game that Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market.”  Or perhaps not.

Many analysts and bloggers have worked hard to position “iPhone vs. Android” as the title fight of the decade in the technology industry. It is an easy comparison to want to make. Both phones use rich microprocessors, are graphical, both have GPS and Wifi. They both run a sophisticated operating system, and they both give you access to thousands and thousands of third party applications. In most practical ways, they seem similar. However, there is one fundamental difference – business model choice.

 When Apple launched the iPhone, it was able to secure an unprecedentedly strong business relationship with AT&T. Not only did Apple want control over the user interface, something carriers had been extremely reluctant to cede, it also wanted previously unrealized economics for a handset or OS designer. Apple insisted on upfront revenue dollars as well as a cut of the cellular service stream. AT&T, desperate for a win vs. Verizon, acquiesced.  The product was launched to rave reviews from analysts and consumers alike. It really was a brand new market and a brand new product. As noted earlier, we only “thought” we had seen smartphones before the iPhone. This market, as Ms. Huberty notes, looks like one that is Apple’s to lose. Read more here.

Source: InformationWeel

As government IT professionals develop cloud computing strategies and evaluate technologies to build and deploy clouds, they must be aware of the open source options that are available. The Linux operating system, Eucalyptus clustering software, Globus Nimbus toolkit, and other open source programs are well suited for cloud computing.

In this report, InformationWeek looks at the leading open source components used for cloud computing and how those pieces fit together to create elastic, on-demand IT environments. Whether government agencies are assessing internal clouds, public cloud services, or private-public hybrid cloud environments, this report shows where open source may fit into those plans. Read more here

Source: InformationWeek

The year 2009 proved a milestone for Microsoft, but not a good one. In April, the company had its first-ever quarterly loss; it responded with a slow-motion removal of the bandage, shedding about 5,000 positions over the course of last year. Is there some hope that 2010 can be better for Microsoft?

Source: Yahoo! News

MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report they stopped the growth of blood vessels that are crucial to tumor survival by lowering the level of a protein found in brain cells.

The protein, known as delta-catenin, is known for its effects on the growth of the brain cells called neurons, but is also produced by cells in human blood vessels. Researchers found that they could disrupt the development of blood vessels that are connected to tumors and wounds by diminishing levels of the protein.

The researchers, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, noted that the process did not disrupt the normal development of blood vessels. Because of this, manipulation of the protein could help fight cancer, they believe. Read more here