On the heels of a South African law regulating IP from that country’s publicly funded research (see this article), the newly enacted Philippine Technology Transfer Act of 2009 also is expected to hasten the process of technology commercialization and broaden the scope of protection for IP rights in the island nation’s government R&D institutions (RDIs) when it takes effect later this year. “We are optimistic that this new law, a landmark policy on technology transfer, will revolutionize the commercialization of technologies generated by research funded by taxpayers’ money,” says the Philippine government’s Science Secretary Estrella Alabastro.

According to a document released by the Philippines Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the initiative was needed because the existing tech transfer system is characterized by a lack of well-defined and unifying policy, insufficient investment, weak private-public collaboration in R&D and commercialization, and insufficient IP support in RDIs. Such conditions have resulted in a low rate of patent application in the Philippines. Despite the enactment of the country’s IP Code in 1998, RDIs have lacked well-defined IP policies and support systems to protect and utilize their IP. According to DOST, of 2,972 patent applications filed in 2005, only 210 were by local researchers. Of these, only 15 local patents were granted and only one patent was granted for an RDI. These trends were repeated in 2006 and 2007.

The new law is designed to help take technologies to market, to prevent the “brain drain” of science and technology professionals out of the Philippines, and to encourage students to pursue R&D studies. A key provision in the law offers incentives to researchers by providing them with a share in royalties from their inventions and allowing them to launch their own start-ups. The law also provides a national framework to promote efficient and coordinated tech transfer — similar to the Bayh-Dole Act in the U.S. DOST and the Philippines Intellectual Property Office are preparing for the bill’s implementation.

Source: Business Mirror

Idling buses  and trucks waste lots of fuel and add to pollution.  Can technology provide a solution ?

You bet !

" …  The Provider, a school bus operator in Brentwood, N.H., … first embraced wireless navigation technology from Navman Wireless … thinking that it could helps with better tracking the mileage and hours related to individual busing contracts."

" … realized that excessive idling … could be addressed and controlled with the technology. …  When an alert is triggered, dispatchers call the driver in question … because idling wastes fuel. …"

" … Navman Wireless, says his company … tracking 110,000 vehicles. … Navman Wireless estimates that it saves about 552 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions across the fleet it manages. Most of those savings are calculated based on reduced fuel consumption."

Via:  SmartPlanet  LINK

After months of rumor and speculation, Hewlett-Packard announced today that it will indeed purchase Palm Inc. for a grand total of $1.2 billion.

HP had been one of several companies rumored to be interested in acquiring Palm, whose smartphone sales have been lackluster in recent months. The acquisition of Palm gives HP an inroad into the growing handheld market.

Says a VP from HP:

Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices.

The deal is expected to be completed by the end of July.

Hewlett-Packard buys Palm for $1.2 billion [MarketWatch]

Have you ever come across a recipe that had the amount of an ingredient listed in grams and wondered how to measure it? Are you counting calories as part of a weight loss program and want to be precise about your serving sizes? Then you need the easy to use EatSmart™ Precision Pro Kitchen Scale! I know, I sound like an infomercial, but this scale really does rock.

At $25.00, the EatSmart Precision Pro Kitchen Scale is a good value. It holds up to eleven pounds or five kilograms, and is accurate to +/- 1 gram. My favorite feature is the “Tare” feature, which means a button that lets you zero out the scale after you’ve put weight on it. Say you want to weigh something like cereal or blueberries. Put a bowl on the scale, press the Tare button, then add the food. The display will show you the weight of just the food in grams.

The scale also comes with a guidebook to calorie counting that consists of a list of common foods and their Calorie Factor, meaning how many calories are in one gram of that food. So, let’s say you weigh dry roasted almonds and get a weight of 15. The calorie factor in the guidebook is 5.97, so your portion of almonds is 15 x 5.97 = 89.55 calories. There are also blank lines in the back of the book to put in foods you regularly eat that aren’t listed. The guidebook explains it all really well.

Whether you want to be precise in your flour measurement for bread or want to find out how many potato chips are really in a serving, a good food scale is a must-have. My old twist-a-dial food scale is in the garage sale box and my EatSmart Precision Pro Kitchen Scale has taken it’s place! Thank you so much to EatSmart for sending me the scale to review. I love it!

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The University System of Ohio and Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble have inked an agreement that simplifies the legal process they use to negotiate research projects. “For the first time, with just one agreement we are unleashing the collective power of Ohio’s universities to help turn ideas into products and products into jobs,” says Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, who proposed the deal in his 2010 State of the State address. The project also increases industry-financed research spending — a key goal of Ohio’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education. The Chancellor’s Office and Attorney General’s Office negotiated the agreement in coordination with Ohio’s public universities and P&G.

When considering a specific project, the parties will start with the contract framework and will only negotiate unique terms, such as scope of work and financial issues. The process is designed to enable faster collaboration — 12 to 18 months ahead of similarly positioned universities in other states. “We will continue to do everything possible to streamline the legal process in the service of innovation,” says Attorney General Richard Cordray. “Getting things right matters, but simplicity and speed are just as important.”

Modeled after a structure that the University of Cincinnati and P&G pioneered in 2005, the agreement governs terms and conditions that are standard in research projects between industry sponsors like P&G and Ohio’s public universities, such as the treatment of IP and confidential information. The agreement helps to promote co-ops, internships, and postdoctoral fellowships through new research projects and creates opportunities for similar agreements between the University System of Ohio and other companies. All 14 universities within the state systems will participate in the deal with P&G.

Source:  Gov Monitor

The Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB) in Newark, DE, the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation (CMI) in Boston, the Boston University College of Engineering, and the biopharmaceutical company iBio, Inc., in Newark have developed a fully automated, scalable “factory” that uses natural (non-genetically modified) green plants to efficiently produce large quantities of vaccines and therapeutics in just weeks. The first-of-a-kind, plant-based vaccine factory takes advantage of plant viral vector technology developed by Fraunhofer CMB for iBio. The technology has the capability to produce specific proteins within the leaves of rapidly growing plant biomass. The factory’s robotically tended machines, designed by Fraunhofer CMI, plant seeds, nurture the growing plants, introduce a viral vector that directs the plant to produce a target protein, and harvest the biomass once the target has accumulated in the plant tissue. “Traditional methods of vaccine production can take many months. Our plant-based technology provides the means for rapid, large-scale production of vaccine material in a cost-effective manner,” says Vidadi Yusibov, PhD, executive director of CMB.

The factory has the capacity to grow tens of thousands of plants in one batch. The plants are grown in multi-plant trays that are used to handle and transport the plants to different processing stations. To automate the process, robots glide up and down a track, tending the plants — delivering trays from the lighted, irrigated growth modules to each processing station at the appropriate time. “In order to quickly produce large quantities of vaccine material or other protein-based medicines such as antibodies in compliance with [current Good Manufacturing Practices], it was necessary to develop a consistent, repeatable process. We have taken a biological process and turned it into an industrial process,” says Andre Sharon, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University and director of CMI. “Even though the process of making vaccines from plants includes many aspects of traditional horticulture, we have developed a way to automate those functions to quickly, safely, and cost-effectively scale up from a few milligrams in a laboratory setting to the many kilograms that would be required in case of a pandemic.”

In a separate collaboration, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) of Burlington, NC, have formed a joint venture to commercialize new biomarkers in a similar factory-like approach. The entity is designed to speed the translation of newly discovered biomarkers into clinical tools that can measure individual therapeutic responses, predict disease progression, and evaluate any number of biologic or disease-causing processes. Dubbed the Biomarker Factory, the joint venture combines Duke’s expertise in biomarker discovery and validation with LabCorp’s experience in the development and commercialization of diagnostic and laboratory tools. “The Biomarker Factory is at the intersection of translational medicine and personalized medicine,” says Victor J. Dzau, MD, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and CEO of Duke University Health System.

Biomarkers are being used to develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and breast and lung cancer. Research by Duke scientists John McHutchison, MD, associate director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and David B. Goldstein, PhD, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and director of Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, demonstrates how biomarkers can give critical information about the likelihood that a patient will benefit from treatment for hepatitis C. “A particularly exciting aspect of this partnership is that we will be developing deep knowledge about appropriate use of biomarkers in clinical practice and how to provide this information so that patients and doctors can make better decisions,” says Andrew Conrad, PhD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of LabCorp.

The Biomarker Factory will benefit from hundreds of thousands of biological samples contributed by Duke as well as the infrastructure in place in the Duke-led, large-scale epidemiology study known as MURDOCK, which is currently recruiting 50,000 people into a registry. The Biomarker Factory also will capitalize on LabCorp’s biorepository being developed to discover and validate biomarkers in human disease. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Sources: EurekAlert! and MarketWatch

2015. That’s when the First Interplanetary War starts, when Japanese humanoid robots arrive to the Moon to fight the Nazis stationed there. If there are no Nazis, however, they’ll just set up camp and explore, waiting for humans to arrive. More »

Press Release: HP and Palm, Inc.  today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which HP will purchase Palm, a provider of smartphones powered by the Palm webOS mobile operating system, at a price of $5.70 per share of Palm common stock in cash or an enterprise value of approximately $1.2 billion. The transaction has been approved by the HP and Palm boards of directors.

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

“Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy and create a unique HP experience spanning multiple mobile connected devices,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, HP. “And, Palm possesses significant IP assets and has a highly skilled team. The smartphone market is large, profitable and rapidly growing, and companies that can provide an integrated device and experience command a higher share. Advances in mobility are offering significant opportunities, and HP intends to be a leader in this market.”

“We’re thrilled by HP’s vote of confidence in Palm’s technological leadership, which delivered Palm webOS and iconic products such as the Palm Pre. HP’s longstanding culture of innovation, scale and global operating resources make it the perfect partner to rapidly accelerate the growth of webOS,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, Palm. “We look forward to working with HP to continue to deliver industry-leading mobile experiences to our customers and business partners.”

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Palm stockholders will receive $5.70 in cash for each share of Palm common stock that they hold at the closing of the merger. The merger consideration takes into account the updated guidance and other financial information being released by Palm this afternoon. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of domestic and foreign regulatory approvals and the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The transaction is expected to close during HP’s third fiscal quarter ending July 31, 2010.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

Comment:

Of all the companies that were posited as possible suitors, HP has never been high on the list. HP has long been a Windows Mobile licensee, and has recently dabbled in Android. They are also a confirmed Windows Phone 7 OEM.  The details above appear to indicate that Palm will continue to run largely independently, which may limit the synergies Palm can extract from the union.

What do our readers think of this dramatic move? Let us know in the comments below.

I used to write for the Huffington Post, before it became overrun with antiscience alt-med antivax garbage so thick I could smell it through my monitor.

Case in point would be a somewhat targetless essay by Dr. Larry Dossey, who seems to be trying to say that because science is portrayed as an individual effort, but is actually usually a team effort, students get confused and marginalized. Or something. His point is difficult to determine. But in any case, he’s quite wrong; the idea of science being done by groups of people collaboratively is everywhere, from astronomy to zoology.

I need not go into details, because, happily, Steve Newton from the NCSE has posted a rebuttal on HuffPo that tears Dossey to shreds. My favorite part was when Dossey says Nobel Prizes are only given to individuals, and my first thought was “Wow, I wonder if the IPCC knows about this?”… in his essay, Newton says almost exactly the same thing. Great minds, yadda yadda.

Anyway, I suggest you read Dossey’s screed, and then read Newton’s slamdunking of it. It’s a wonderful exercise in muddied and clear thinking, in that order. With people like Newton writing for HuffPo, it makes me feel a bit better that I don’t need to as much.

Tip o’ the white lab coat Robert Luhn of the NCSE.

Below are links to news stories of interest from newspapers that came up during a search today.  These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to your computer is recommended  

State News

Daily Herald Pension Series

Reducing benefits, raising taxes among proposed pension fixes  Imagine borrowing money to pay your mortgage every year. That’s right, actually going deeper into hock to pay your debt. 

First steps to solve pension crisis  This could be the year Illinois legislators make their payment to the state pension systems, rein in pension excesses and demonstrate their commitment to carving away at a $78 billion debt they’ve spent decades ignoring.   

D-26 lays out new options for teachers
Crystal Lake Northwest – The outlook for District 26 teachers is more grim than once thought. For the fourth time, the school board formally has requested that the union make concessions to help alleviate the pain of recent budget cuts and layoffs.   

Some teacher jobs saved in Kaneland
Beacon News – The Kaneland School Board has authorized the hiring back of teachers previously pink-slipped under a plan that could have eliminated as many as 30 staff positions. The jobs are being saved as a result of the teachers union’s acceptance of a salary freeze, 

Illinois school bias task force tussles with time
Alton Telegraph – A task force assigned to study why black students are suspended and expelled from Illinois schools at much higher rates than whites is in danger of missing the deadline to hand in its assignment. The panel, created by an Illinois Senate resolution,   

Letter: Quinn, Madigan: Get some guts, stop the cuts
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus Leader – I marched in Springfield last Wednesday with my two sons. I am not a teacher or a state trooper or a state employee. But I am also no fool.  We cannot cut our way out of this crisis. What we need is enough revenue to pay for services our state provides! We must pass House Bill 174!   

Unit 5 to discuss another $7.1M in cuts
Bloomington Pantagraph –  $86 million for 2010-11. “We’ll have (everything) we actually have to implement set and ready,” Getty said, noting the board is trying to make “flexible, thoughtful decisions.” Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed cutting the per-student foundation grants by $450 in the state budget that will begin July 1. That would reduce that key source of school revenue to $5,769 per student.   

Parents, teachers object to multi-age classroom proposal  The majority of parents and teachers at a Tuesday meeting about implementing multi-age classrooms at the new Marquette Academy gave the concept a failing grade.   

None of your business
Chicago Tribune Editorial –  One measure would remove a provision awarding attorneys’ fees to citizens who have to sue to obtain documents that are illegally withheld. Lawmakers began this assault in January by exempting teacher evaluations, in exchange for teachers union support on a bill that was supposed to help Illinois qualify for federal Race to the Top money.   

Plainfield school board in turf war
Plainfield Sun – Plainfield School Board agreed Monday night to investigate installing artificial turf at its four high school stadiums despite budget concerns.   While board member Mike Kelly likes the idea of turf, he said it wasn’t the right time to conduct a feasibility study.  

Finances may force pay-to-play at Mercer County schools
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus – “The revenue shortfall will cause us to use our cash reserves. That, in turn, will make us vulnerable to future revenue shortfalls.” Last month, the school board cut 16 staff member and eliminated 21 positions to save the district an estimated $589,000. The board is seeking to cut $1.2 million from a roughly $14 million budget next year.   

PHOTO: Stepping out
Alton Telegraph – The Alton High School A-Town Steppers performed this past month in front of 1,500 educators for the Illinois Education Association Conference in Rosemont. The A-Town Steppers opened the conference with a performance that received a standing ovation from the educators and government officials.   

SIUE students return to Springfield to ensure MAP grants
Edwardsville Alestle – He said Gov. Pat Quinn will not cut huge amounts of funding in an election year, but something will need to be done about the money situation. Currently, the 2011 budget has a $1.3 billion cut in education funding, but a 1 percent income tax increase may take the place of the funding cut. State Senator Bill Haine said SIU has made some great improvements to its campus   

WIU asks Governor for funding schedule
Quincy KHQA (CBS) 7 – the university’s annual income…putting stress on the school to pay their own bills and payrolls. Now University leaders, including WIU’s President Al Goldfarb, have sent a letter to Governor Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes asking them to set up a regular payment schedule to enable public universities to stay afloat. Goldfarb said, “It’s unprecedented.  We spend every month wondering   

Political News

State lawmakers plan to leave Springfield with no budget
Streator Times-Press – Illinois lawmakers expect to be home at the end of next week, even if it will take a little longer to finish the new state budget.  Legislators expect their last day in Springfield to be on or about May 7, the scheduled adjournment date — and about three weeks earlier than usual. But few if any legislators say the state will have a budget by that time.   

Illinois lawmakers send sexting bill to governor
Chicago Tribune –  post online racy pictures of their underage classmates would get juvenile court supervision that could result in mandatory counseling or community service, under legislation sent to Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday. The measure aims to educate teens about the dangers of “sexting” while modernizing state statutes for the Internet age. Under current Illinois law, teens caught with nude photos   

Quinn responds to Civic Federation criticism of his budget proposals
necessary this legislative session to move Illinois toward budget and fiscal stability. Budget cuts in discretionary spending made by the Quinn administration both last year and this year must continue, and new revenues are needed to restore fiscal balance. One without the other cannot do the job. Both are necessary   

Redistricting proposal advances to House floor  A Democratic-backed redistricting plan is just one step away from legislative approval. But it still lacks the crucial support from Republicans in the Illinois House to clear that final step.   

Jil Tracy throws her support behind bill to stop unfunded mandates
Quincy KHQA (CBS) 7 – State Representative Jil Tracy is co-sponsoring a bill that hopes to put an end to unfunded mandates for Illinois school districts. QUINCY, IL — Every year schools are forced to follow new guidelines about one thing or another. But many times these mandates do not come with additional funding   

NEW: Senate nixes taxpayer-funded Blagojevich portrait
Alton Telegraph –  A proposal that would keep tax money from funding a statehouse portrait of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is headed to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk. The bill passed Tuesday on a 52-1 vote with state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, casting the only dissenting vote  

Giannoulias at financial reform rally in Chicago  Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is calling on lawmakers in Washington to pass financial reform, and he says those who don’t supp  rt it will have a fight on their hands. 

Emanuel: No Subpoena From Blagojevich’s Lawyers
Chicago Public Radio – White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says lawyers for Rod Blagojevich have not subpoenaed him to testify in the ex-Illinois governor’s corruption trial. Blagojevich’s attorneys have asked the judge to subpoena President Barack Obama. They say Mr. Obama’s public statements contradict statements from other witnesses, and they want him to take the stand 

National News

17,000 NJ Students Use Facebook To Organize Statewide Walk-Out
Chicago Tribune –  Last week, students in Edison and Teaneck protested their failed budget. 58 percent of school budgets in the Garden State were recently defeated in a vote. The NJ Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, say they do not endorse Tuesday’s mass student walkout. “I think the best outcome would be for the students to be in

Bill would put new ND employees into 401(k) plans
Belleville News-Democrat – Newly hired government employees and school teachers in North Dakota should have their own retirement savings plans instead of a pension that’s guaranteed by taxpayers, a state lawmaker says

 Wall Street Journal: Teacher Absences Plague Schools

(Barbara Martinez, Op-Ed, New York)

“One-fifth of New York City teachers missed work for more than two weeks last school year, with absenteeism most acute in some of the poorest districts, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.”

Politics Daily: Utah to Consider Elimination of 12th Grade

(Elizabeth Schiffman, News, Utah)

“We don’t want to rush students’ learning experience,” Alexis Holmes, policy analyst in the National Education Association’s Department of Education Policy and Practice, said. “There is a reason for allowing students to have the time to naturally mature academically as well as emotionally. . . . To encourage students to leave school in 3 years and provide them with no support, we don’t see that as being a successful proposal.”

TIME.com Today’s Top Stories

Capping Career, Dodd Relishes Fight For Financial Reform

Some observers speculated that the Connecticut Senator might move the bill more to the right. But instead he has doubled down on Main Street

Is Netanyahu Quietly Freezing Jerusalem Settlements?

Publicly, the Israeli government remains defiant of U.S. demands to halt building on occupied land, but the bureaucratic mechanism for authorizing new construction appears to have ground to a halt

The Derby: Is Kentucky Losing Its Horse Supremacy?

Behind the undiminished pageantry of Saturday’s Run for the Roses, the state’s defining industry is in trouble

Greek Crisis: It’s Gut Check Time for Europe

So now Europe may have a real crisis on its hands. It’s been clear to financial markets for months that the debt woes in Greece could spread to the Eurozone’s other financially unsound PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain).

American Idol: A Little Bit Country

American Idol introduced megaselling mentor Shania Twain as the woman who “made country pop”

Word of the Day for Wednesday, April 28, 2010

pellucid \puh-LOO-sid\, adjective:

1. Transparent; clear; not opaque.
2. Easily understandable.

In a nice example of how universities can effectively support their start-ups, Chromatin, Inc., a biotechnology company that has occupied space in the University of Illinois Research Park since 2005 through the EnterpriseWorks incubator, is expanding operations and graduating to a 5,000-sq. ft. facility. The expansion marks the company’s continued progress in commercializing its technology, which includes mini-chromosomes that were originally developed at the University of Chicago by company co-founder and CEO Daphne Preuss, PhD. With the larger laboratory and office space, the company will continue to expand its R&D activities — which enable the development of new seed products and the delivery of multiple genetic traits in plants through gene-stacking — while widening its focus to pursue new applications, such as improved feedstocks that target the bioenergy sector.

Chromatin isn’t just graduating from UIUC’s EnterpriseWorks incubator, where the Research Park provided laboratories, equipment, and greenhouse space. IllinoisVentures, the university-affiliated VC firm, was an early Chromatin investor, and the university provided early funding for student employees to work as researchers for Chromatin and MBA students to provide commercialization consulting, according to Avijit Ghosh, vice president of technology and business development for the university. U of I also provided entrepreneurship support services. “Our current expansion is a direct result of our success in commercializing Chromatin’s technology and successfully attracting financing, both of which were greatly facilitated by the university’s resources, facilities, and significant talent pool,” Preuss acknowledges.

Since Chromatin was founded in 2000, the company has licensed its technology through commercial agreements with leading agbiotech companies, including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and Bayer CropScience. The company now employs more than 30 people, including 11 in Champaign, and plans to hire additional staff this year.

Source: Grainnet

The most terrifying words I’ve seen written so far about the growing crisis in Greece were penned by Yves Smith yesterday:  “So the whole idea that the financial crisis was over is being called into doubt. Recall that the Great Depression nadir was the sovereign debt default phase. And the EU’s erratic responses (obvious hesitancy followed by finesses rather than decisive responses) is going to prove even more detrimental as the Club Med crisis grinds on.”

The Great Depression was composed of two separate panics.  As you can see from contemporary accounts–and I highly recommend that anyone who is interested in the Great Depression read the archives of that blog along with Benjamin Roth’s diary of the Great Depression–in 1930 people thought they’d seen the worst of things. 

Unfortunately, the economic conditions created by the first panic were now eating away at the foundations of financial institutions and governments, notably the failure of Creditanstalt in Austria.  The Austrian government, mired in its own problems, couldn’t forestall bankruptcy; though the bank was ultimately bought by a Norwegian bank, the contagion had already spread.  To Germany.  Which was one of the reasons that the Nazis came to power.  It’s also, ultimately, one of the reasons that we had our second banking crisis, which pushed America to the bottom of the Great Depression, and brought FDR to power here.

Not that I think we’re going to get another Third Reich out of this, or even another Great Depression.  But it means we should be wary of the infamous “double dip” that a lot of economists have been expecting.  The United States is in comparatively good shape, but the euro is in crisis, and already-weak European banks seem to be massively exposed to Greece’s huge debt load.  They’re even more exposed to the debt of the other PIIGS, which is far too large for it all to be bailed out.  The size of the rescue package that Greece needs is already going to take a fairly substantial chunk of the IMF’s war chest.

And yet, like a lot of analysts, I don’t see much chance that a bailout is going to work.  As Felix Salmon points out, even a substantial IMF intervention isn’t going to bring yields down to their pre-crisis levels, because the new debt is going to jump in front of other creditors–so while it reduces the odds of default, it also increases the haircut that debtors will have to take if the bailout actually happens.

It’s not clear that Greece has the political will for the austerity measures it’s going to have to make even if its debt yields come back down–and the higher they stay, the smaller the chance.  This is about the calculation its creditors are making, which is why yields are now in the 20% range.  Which, perversely, makes it more likely that they’re going to lose their money.

Join the conversation about this story »

The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Technology Transfer (CTT) has introduced UPSTART, a program aimed at developing UPenn IP by helping faculty form companies based on their inventions and technological innovations. The program, a suite of services designed to connect entrepreneurs, investors, and funding organizations with Penn researchers, combines the business-creation strengths of CTT and Penn’s New Ventures Team with the entrepreneurial interests of faculty founders and regional investors.

UPSTART representatives partner directly with university faculty and staff to complete the steps required to legally form a company, raise funds, and recruit employees. The program provides access to business planning, advisory, and support resources through its network of collaborative relationships with entities such as the University Science Center, the Wharton Small Business Development Center, and Penn’s Commercialization Acceleration Program. These and other resources help emerging UPSTART businesses analyze the size of potential markets, address competitive landscapes, develop product strategies, and define their infrastructure needs.

Once a marketing and business plan is established, UPSTART develops strategies and timelines to pursue external funding, including outreach to angel investors, economic development funds, seed stage VC funds, and government grant programs. UPSTART representatives also take the lead in introducing company founders to local entrepreneurs who have the capabilities to build a management team and company infrastructure. “We developed the program with substantial input from faculty members and key stakeholders at Penn, so it truly reflects a partnership between the university and faculty founders that facilitates the process of new venture creation,” says John Swartley, deputy executive director of CTT.

Source: Penn Communications

While most technology transfer offices may still be in the throes of validating the merit of expending resources on Twitter, a blog, or LinkedIn, some have already leapt into the fray, convinced these trends are not passing fads. Betsy Merrick, associate director of marketing/public relations in the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Texas-Austin, says her organization made the decision to dive in with a full-scale multi-media strategy, hoping to improve client interactions through OTC’s presence on RSS feed, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

What pushed her to launch the multimedia initiative? “I read something from Nielsen that said, across the globe in 2008, activity in ‘member communities’ accounted for one in every 11 minutes,” Merrick says. “We needed to get in on it. Our business is part of a global network. We’ve got a global ecosystem. Social media can simultaneously reach more people than traditional offline tools,” she explains. It’s understandable, she adds, that “TTOs and other similar business might have a little hesitancy. There are a number of fears of social media . . . such as a fear of the time commitment. We have a limited staff. Another thing is the fear of the unknown. It’s a new communications channel.” But the social media train has left the station, Merrick stresses, and those fears must be overcome. “It’s time for TTOs to get in on this.” A detailed article on UT-Austin’s social media marketing strategy, including 10 key steps for success, appears in the April issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To start a subscription and access the article, along with three years of archived case studies and best practices, CLICK HERE.

President Bill Clinton spoke at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington, D.C., about how he would advocate for fiscal responsibility were he running for office in 2010. His big pitch boils down to two ideas: (1) the future and (2) immigrants.

Here were his self-transcribed (read: rough, but directionally accurate) statements.

On reducing the deficit

We’re only a few short weeks away from the two-day developer event known as Google I/O.  Android developers and enthusiasts are expecting to hear some big things about our favorite mobile platform.  At this stage, we fully expect Andy Rubin and pals to give us our first looks at the next build of Android, Froyo.  Once the keynotes are finished, developers are encouraged to participate in various breakout sessions, campfires, and roundtables. 

As of right now, there are 7 Android-related sessions spread out over May 19th and 20th.  Taking a quick look at the calendar, we see a few spots left open on Thursday with “TBA” listed under Android for three time frames.  Now of course there are other TBAs listed next to a couple of other categories, but we like to think Google could be waiting to reveal these after a keynote.  Perhaps something like “Integrating Flash into your Android app” or something along those lines?

Why would we think Google might be deliberately holding out on us?  Tim Bray, a recently hired Developer Advocate,  just took to twitter with a vague, possibly coy tweet.

Google IO session schedule. Interesting TBA’s: http://code.google.com/events/io/2010/session-schedule.html

If anyone would/should know what Google is doing, he ought to be one of the inside guys.  Could he be teasing us with something awesome?  On the other hand, maybe he just happened to stumble upon the calendar in a totally innocent manner.

Do any of you have a guess as to what these sessions will be about?

Thanks Chuck!

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  It’s Sunday again so that means it’s time to catch up on the videos and podcasts from last week over on AndroidUploads.

  Be sure to swing by the site a time or two throughout the week to see what And…

Continuing our coverage of the EPA’s new Climate Change Indicators in the US report, below are key summary findings regarding snow and ice.

Despite what you may have heard in false science circles, we definitely have less snow cover, snowpack and ice than in the past these days.

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