Emerging Technology : In The News

Comcast Interactive Capital and DreamIt Ventures partner to provide business development to minority owned initiatives, according to TechCrunch.

Comcast Interactive Capital, the venture capital arm of the media giant, has partnered with Philadelphia based venture fund and startup accelerator Dreamit Ventures to provide seed funding, training, mentoring and other benefits to minority-led startups through DreamIt's accelerator program.

The new $350,000 fund will give five minority-led startups for its Fall Philadelphia 2011 program a extra infusion of capital on top of the funding DreamIt provides for its class of startups. For Comcast Interactive Capital, this is the first investment initiative from the $20 million fund that was created as part of the acquisition of NBC Universal. The $20 million fund will be used to invest in other minority led startups and initiatives (outside of DreamIt), mainly in the technology sector.

Source: TechCrunch
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NJ.com reports on Salem County's LuNaTecs robotics team, which took top honors at a national competition held at the Liacouras Center, advancing to the international competition.

PSEG, DuPont and Boeing sponsored FIRST robotics Team 316, the LuNaTeCs from Salem County, along with 55 other high school robotics teams from across the country as they competed in the FIRST Robotics Philadelphia Regional Competition on April 8 and 9 at the Liacouras Center at Temple University here.

After two days of stiff competition, the LuNaTeCs, along with 23 other teams, advanced out of the qualifying rounds and into the quarterfinal matches. Perhaps many did not expect Team 316 to do too well since they were ranked 23rd coming out of the qualifying rounds so it was no wonder that such a shocked hush fell on the packed stadium when the LuNaTeC's alliance beat the No. 1 and No. 2 seeded teams.

Source: NJ.com
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Philly Watchdog gives citizens an active role in reporting fraud via iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Philadelphia is using 21st-century technology to fight corruption.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz launched an iPhone app that allows citizens to upload and send audio, photos and video to the city's Fraud Unit, so it can investigate. The free Philly Watchdog app allows for anonymous tips, has a geolocation feature that provides the location of the incident and a one-touch button to call the unit directly.

"When it comes to reporting fraud and waste in Philadelphia, I'm proud to say that 'we now have an app for that,' " Butkovitz said last week at a press conference announcing the app.

Source: The Wall Street Journal
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Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University, working in tandem with University of Zurich scientists discover a chemical thought to be a vital piece in the Multiple Sclerosis puzzle, according to The Daily Mail.

In a major breakthrough in the battle against the devastating disease, researchers have pinpointed the chemical 'driving force' behind MS.

Without it, the disease does not develop. And when it is mopped up, symptoms are greatly eased, even in brains already ravaged by the illness.

The results come from experiments on mice but the researchers say they are 'quietly optimistic' that taking the same tack will help people with MS. The first trials on patients are penciled in for later this year.

Source: the Daily Mail (UK)
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Comcast announces the rollout of its much anticipated Extreme 105 Xfinity Internet Service, according to Techspot.

Comcast has finally announced the initial availability of its Extreme 105 Xfinity Internet service, which is currently available to 40 million homes in major markets such as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Washington DC.

First introduced last May, the service delivers download speeds of up to 105Mb/s (10Mb/s upstream), which is a substantial boost over the company's previous 50Mb/s service. According to the company's figures, you can download an HD movie in five minutes and a standard-def TV show in 20 seconds.

Source: Techspot
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Johnson & Johnson plans to buy West Chester-based Synthes, and the deal may usher in future medtech investment, according to Reuters.

Johnson & Johnson's plan to buy Synthes for some $20 billion may mean more deals in the sector as rival medical technology firms try to bulk up in tough times, though antitrust issues are a hurdle.

A weak economy and high unemployment have hit sales of medical devices hard, since patients have to take time off and, in the United States, dig deep into their own pockets to help pay for procedures such as knee replacements.

As a result, more and more companies are looking at acquisitions as a way to add new avenues of growth.

Source: Reuters
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New technology to electronically assess head trauma is being developed by Villanova University engineering professor, according to the National Post.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discover more genes that may be linked to Alzheimer's, according to NPR.

Two groups of researchers have scanned the genomes of thousands of individuals, looking for clues to genes involved in Alzheimer's disease. Gerard Schellenberg of the University of Pennsylvania explains how locating those genes could lead to new ways to treat or prevent the disease.

Alzheimer's disease is one of medical science's big mysteries, of course. It's difficult to diagnose. We don't really know what causes it, if there is any single cause. We have no real cure for it.

Well, writing this week in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers may have found some new clues to the disease. Two big consortia of researchers, one in the U.S., one in Europe, have sifted through the genomes of thousands of Alzheimer's patients and have come up with a handful of genes that seem to be linked to the condition. 

Source: NPR
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An Allentown battery manufacturer is installing its large format lithium ion energy storage system ona 2,700 square foot building at the Philadelphia Navy Yard as part of its Energy Innovation Hub, reports CNET.

"The Energy Innovation Hub will include a live demonstration of a microgrid with a 2,700 square foot net-zero energy home. International Battery will provide Sunverge with an 8.2 kilowatt-hour Lithium Iron Phosphate battery pack for use in the residential SIS (Solar Integration System)," the company announced Thursday.

The battery pack will be used to store solar energy that can be retrieved for later use in conjunction with the solar system and micro smart grid, also being constructed on site, according to International Battery.

Source: CNET
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The Drexel Smart House has gone national and is building support, with presentations to student and professional groups, according to Forbes.

A student-run group that operates much like a business, the Drexel Smart House was founded four years ago with the intention of exploring cutting-edge technologies that are environmentally friendly, using an actual house as a testing ground.

As their success grows, the passionate and dedicated students who run this project continue to offer pearls of wisdom for the sustainable business community. An ambitious and complex initiative like this one requires a hefty amount of funding, which the students have been successful at receiving both from Drexel University and outside sources. Most recently, when I checked in with one of the student group's organizers, Amanda Moser, I found that its funding strategy appealed to companies looking to get customers to take a chance on sustainable technologies or initiatives.

The group learned to frame its funding conversation in terms that its audience would care the most about. For instance, according to Drexel Smart House President Cody Ray, "We recognized that (Drexel University) President John Fry was interested in community engagement and development. So, we offered Drexel Smart House as a platform for him to build upon to achieve his objectives."

Source: Forbes
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Online auction giant eBay announced it will acquire GSI Commerce, a leading provider of eCommerce and interactive marketing services, according to GigaOm.

Auction giant eBay said today that it will buy GSI Commerce, a King of Prussia, Pa.-based provider of e-commerce and marketing services for a whopping $2.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal is part of eBay's continued makeover from an auctions-oriented company to an e-commerce platform.

Source: GigaOm

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Philadelphia's Osage University Partners has set up a fund to provide profit to schools where initial research is done, according to The New York Times.

THERE are a lot of smart people in universities. Some may even be geniuses. Many of them are certainly good at inventing technologies that will change our lives.

But for the most part, universities aren't particularly adept at extracting the full measure of profit from all those innovations. While university technology transfer offices routinely license the intellectual property developed on campus, the schools themselves often aren't very nimble at retaining large stakes in the start-ups that exploit that property.

Source: The New York Times
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Surgeons at the University of Pennsylvania fix a patient's sleep apnea with a procedure involving robots, according to NPR.

At 32, it just didn't make sense that Daniel Sheiner was exhausted literally from the moment he woke up. "It didn't get any better over the course of the day, and I knew that was not normal," Sheiner says.

A sleep study confirmed Sheiner had one of the worst cases of apnea his doctors had ever seen. After trying a number of different treatments, his doctors finally tried a surgery using robots to treat his stubborn apnea � with positive results.



Source: NPR
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Aker Philadelphia Shipyard improves work safety and saves millions through data tracking practices, according to Industry Week.

When it takes 10,000 labor tasks and 1.2 million labor hours to build one product, tracking costs is quite a task. Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, a leading U.S. commercial shipyard constructing vessels for customers including the U.S. Navy, employs 700 full-time and 500 contractors to build 2.8 ships per year. Managing such a large workforce requires complex tracking system.

Michel Boeckx, Chief Technology Officer at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, deftly used safety data he collected, via software company Kronos, in order to improve work practices. The company saw 41% fewer eye incidents over a year. These collective improvements enabled the company to reduce medical insurance by two million dollars.

Source: Industry Week
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A new study by Thomas Jefferson University researchers finds that spontaneous cessation of smoking may signal the onset of lung cancer, according to The Washington Post.

A provocative, though small, study suggests that the very act of quitting smoking may be a symptom of not-yet-diagnosed lung cancer.

That's the curious conclusion reached by a team of researchers led by Barbara Campling at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia when they surveyed 115 lung cancer patients, all of them current or former smokers, at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Source: The Washington Post
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