emerging technology : In The News

Chemical and Engineering News Magazine reports on the U.S. kickoff of the International Year of Chemistry in Philadelphia, hosted by The Chemical Heritage Foundation in Old City.

About 300 intrepid souls braved Philadelphia's ice and cold on Feb. 1 to celebrate the U.S. kickoff of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). The gathering, which took place just five days after the inaugural world celebration in Paris, featured a panel of industry and academic leaders in a discussion of how chemistry can help solve pressing social and economic problems.

Daniel G. Nocera, professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led a panel discussion, which centered on energy, human health, food, and water. Speakers included DuPont CEO Ellen J. Kullman, Dow CEO Andrew N. Liveris, former National Science Foundation director Rita R. Colwell, Vertex Pharmaceuticals founder Joshua S. Boger, and Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology Director Janet G. Hering.

Original Source: Chemical and Engineering News
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Chester County based biotech company Morphotek is halfway toward completion of a $40 million manufacturing pilot plant.

In April 2010 Morphotek broke ground to build a 60,000-square-foot manufacturing pilot plant for its drugs in clinical trials. The project is currently at the halfway point with completion expected in October.

The new pilot drug plant is a true Chester County project. It was designed by Arcus Design Group of Uwchlan and is being built by HCS Builders of West Whiteland.

Morphotek will use the new space to produce experimental cancer-fighting drugs used in early stage clinical trials.

Morphotek, which has 200 employees now, expects to add 30 to 50 more in 2012, Morphotek President Philip Sass said.

Source: The Mercury
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Naturally, the Canadian Broadcasting Company loves the new dispensing technology for beer lovers that debuted at the Wells Fargo Center for a Flyers game last Tuesday.

The inventors of the Bottoms Up dispensing system claim that their device, which fills cups from the bottom up, can fill a pint cup up to nine times faster than traditional beer taps.

The system uses cups with holes in the bottom. The holes are covered with a magnet, which is pushed up as the beer spews up from the device. Once full, the cup is pulled up off the tap and the magnet comes back down to cover the hole, allowing the customer to grab the pint and get back to the game.

Rapidly ascending Viridity Energy last week drew a series B investment of $14 million from Braemar Energy Ventures and Intel Capital, reports GreenTech.

Founded in 2008, Viridity Energy offers "distributed demand management software, systems and services," that can turn very energy-consuming businesses into producers and sellers of power back to the grid. Viridity's technology can also help companies get paid to control and reduce their energy consumption.

Viridity Energy's chief executive and president Audrey Zibelman said on Tuesday:

"We're moving from an (energy) industry dominated by large-scale generation where customers are passive to one where customers are active in what they consume, and what they produce. First, there were personal computers. Now we're going to personal energy."

Original source: GreenTech
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A Microsoft survey of 2,000 IT decision makers ranked Philadelphia third among U.S. cities adopting and using cloud computing solutions, reports Sys-Con Media.

Philadelphia ranks among the top three "cloud-friendly" cities for small businesses. A majority (87 percent) of IT decision makers at large companies have at least some knowledge of the cloud compared with only half (50 percent) of small businesses. Regardless of company size, a high percentage cites low total cost of ownership as a reason to transition to the cloud.

Original source: Sys-Con Media
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Philadelphia-based Hollandia International will debut its iLight bed, complete with illuminated headboard, in Las Vegas this month, reports Furniture Today.

The iLight Bed is designed to elevate the bedroom experience with the introduction of some new high-tech features, including a color-changing LED system built into the headboard, along with docking stations for iPads, iPhones and iPods, surround sound speakers and Hollandia's Platinum-Luxe adjustable mattress system.

"Our research showed that color and light, when used in the right way, can have a powerful impact on the way consumers feel in their homes, whether the goal is to relax, feel productive or to entertain," said Avi Barssessat, CEO of Hollandia.

Original source: Furniture Today
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Philadelphia Insurance CIO Alfred Goxhaj writes of his Bala Cynwyd-based company's roadmap for cloud-computing in a blog post for industry blog Insurance & Technology.

Businesses need to respond quickly to market demands and to scale resources up or down on demand, while providing customer access to those resources from anywhere at any time -- all while reducing costs. In such a high-pressure, competitive marketplace, building availability, flexibility and agility into the IT infrastructure is key.

With these considerations in mind, Philadelphia Insurance Companies' (more than $2 billion in 2009 gross written premium) IT department has developed a living road map for its private cloud initiative, the drivers of which are standardization, virtualization, distributed data management and automation into the data center.

Original source: Insurance & Technology
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Slate examines the Comcast Experience--the world's largest HD LED screen--and why it's reminiscent of the Renaissance period.

The so-called Comcast Experience runs for 18 hours a day. Some of the segments are little vignettes--"like New Yorker cartoons," says Niles--featuring a recurring cast of Broadway actors, dancers, and acrobats in unusual situations: descending on window-washing platforms, doing back-flips, swimming. The figures appear completely lifelike, thanks to the high resolution of the Belgian-made 10-million-pixel screen. Sometimes the digital wall becomes a huge movie screen. The day I was there, I ! saw a view of Logan Circle, a Philadelphia landmark, as well as an uproarious clip from Flying Down to Rio, chorus girls dancing on airplane wings.

The Comcast Experience is a kinetic version of the wall and ceiling frescoes that were common in the Renaissance and likewise integrated art with architecture. Giant murals were also a feature of public buildings in the 1930s. Perhaps the greatest work of that period was Diego Rivera's mural, Man at the Crossroads, at Rockefeller Center, although Rivera's inclusion of Trotsky and Lenin insulted Nelson Rockefeller, who ordered the mural destroyed. Nobody would find the Comcast moving images insulting; they are more like Veronese's domestic frescoes--good-natured, quirky, and just plain fun.
 
Original source: Slate
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The New York Times holds up the Philadelphia-based Berserker Residents as an example of the current surge of science fiction in modern theater.

The novelist Isaac Asimov once defined science fiction as art contending with "something that is not yet so." And while drama is the original virtual reality, an everyday exemplar of an alternative universe, sci-fi stories have made their way onto the stage far less often than into books or movies. Even though the surrealists and absurdists and symbolists have long since shown us that anything is possible onstage, most playwrights and directors prefer to hew to the laws of time, gravity and thermodynamics.

Many companies, like the Berserker Residents, take a more playful approach to the genre and celebrate a deliberately low-budget aesthetic. "Our particular brand of sci-fi is very comic, goofy, irreverent, slapdash," (The Annihilation Point author Tim) Sawicki said.

Original source: New York Times
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Jack Abraham and Nat Turner, one-time Wharton Venture Award winners, recently sold their companies for big profits, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Abraham sold two-year-old Milo Inc. to eBay Inc. last week in a deal worth about $75 million. Milo, which operates a website that helps consumers find products in brick-and-mortar stores, raised a $4 million Series A funding in November 2009 from True Ventures, Founder Collective and a roster of prominent angel investors.

Turner sold three-year-old demand-side advertising platform Invite Media Inc. to Google Inc. in June for a price north of $70 million. Invite Media, backed by First Round Capital, Comcast Interactive Capital and angels, helps ad buyers more efficiently purchase from the numerous and increasingly more real-time advertising exchanges.

"Penn produces these people that are tech and business savvy," (angel investor Chris) Dixon said. "I would love to say I mentored (Abraham and Turner), but they're just great."

Original source: Wall Street Journal
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The National Science Foundation has awarded a $216,000 grant to Philadelphia-based Azavea to develop its advanced crime risk forecasting software, reports UPI.

HunchLab is a Web-based geographic crime data analysis and early warning software system that provides advanced crime mapping and automated notification to authorities about changes in the geographic patterns of crime incidents.

The system is targeted at the law enforcement agencies and enables police officers to develop and evaluate hunches about geographic patterns in criminal activity in the communities they patrol.

Azavea said it is collaborating with Dr. Jerry Ratcliffe from Temple University, a leading expert in statistical crime analysis who has worked with academic colleagues to develop statistical techniques for detecting "near repeat" patterns in crime.

Original source: UPI
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Tek Lado, the new (and free) Philadelphia magazine catering to tech-savvy Latinos, launched last week with a print run of 20,000, reports the Associated Press.

Mel Gomez, director of niche publishing for Bartash Media Group, self-described geek and Tek Lado publisher, said it fills a void in the marketplace of publications for tech-savvy Latinos.

"I love technology, gadgets, smart phones, gaming, graphic novels. I watch Star Trek," he said with a laugh. "Typical Latino publications are often tabloids, either general publications or some sort of (gossip) rag -- nothing that speaks to geeks and their different subcultures we have in the U.S."

Gomez, Tek Lado editor-in-chief Liz Spikol, two staff photographers and eight bilingual freelance writers are based for now at Bartash's offices in southwest Philadelphia. Tek Lado is the first venture in magazine publishing for Bartash, a 58-year-old printer of catalogs, magazines, newspapers and niche publications for hundreds of companies from Maine to Alabama.

Original source: Associated Press
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Allan Frank, the city's first chief technology officer, announced he'll be leaving his post by Feb. 1, reports Technically Philly.

As recent as this month, Frank spoke at a government employees meet up group about his forthcoming plans for the city's IT direction. Frank will maintain some ties, serving as chair of the newly formed Mayor's Advisory Board on Technology, in which he will remain involved in these projects.

"In actuality, there is no perfect time to leave," Frank told Technically Philly. "I am confident in the new DOT leadership and talent I have attracted to continue the momentum."

Frank first joined city government in July 2008 as Mayor Nutter's Chief Information Officer. A year later, in July 2009, Frank was officially made the city's first Chief Technology Officer, consolidating IT from 33 city agencies.

Original source: Technically Philly
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The month-old Museum Without Walls audio program uses technology to give many of Philadelphia's outdoor sculptures museum-quality perspective, reports the Associated Press.

Its self-guided audio tours are available 24-7 in several different formats: You can call phone numbers listed with each sculpture, use a free smart phone app, download the audio at http://museumwithoutwallsaudio.org to an MP3 player, or scan a special bar code (known as a QR or quick response code) on the free "Museum Without Walls" map at locations around the city.

The project's first phase includes 51 outdoor sculptures at 35 stops along a three-mile stretch of the bustling Benjamin Franklin Parkway from downtown to leafy Fairmount Park, a route popular with bicyclists, runners and walkers.

Original source: Associated Press
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The do-it-all mainstay of one of NPR's most successful and trend-setting radio stations, WXPN, Bruce Warren, talks to the Washington Times about new media, blogging and why public radio isn't just for old people.

Starting at the 35,000 foot view, at WXPN our mission is to connect musicians with audiences. That's the basic philosophical operating principle. At the heart of the XPN community is this idea of musical discovery, and that is a powerful driver of all the activity we engage in with our community. To that end, I think is where the educator, curator and benefactor ideas come in. What artists and records we decide to play, who we decide to book for World Cafe, what audio and video we chose to put on our web site, who we book for our weekly live music concert series with NPR Music, the bands we pick for our Artists To Watch, the musicians David Dye features on World Cafe: Next; all of this activity is seen by our community as them learning about something new (education) and our role in filtering what to feature (curation).

In the social world where there are endless amounts of choices to be made, curation is a powerful activity. But it has to be credible curation, trusted by our community. I think this is a value that you'll find many stations in public radio, of our format (however broadly defined), have in common. We take it seriously. How do I view us in the music industry? I think we're viewed as a very positive anomaly by my colleagues. XPN and my public radio colleagues are highly respected for what we do. And for good reason; we help artists quit their day jobs.

Original source: Washington Times
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