News

Idaho Office of Science & Technology December 2007

cl.idaho.gov

In this issue:

# Alpha Bay Expands to Boise

# Wind Energy Project Proposed for Nevada/Idaho

# MobileDataforce Releases Mobile Software for Automotive Industry

# JBS Swift Adopts PakSense Monitoring Labels

# Solex Names New CEO

# Crucial Receives CDW Partner Honors

# Dallas Firm to Buy CRI Advantage

# AMIS Receives E-Legacy Award for Medical Advances

# Engineering Dean First Woman to Receive Three IMAPS Awards

# Invest Northwest Seeks Life Sciences Companies

# UI Scientists Developing Kryptonite for Superbug

# Intrepid Hires Investment Banking Firm

# Tribe Enterprise Inks $400 Million Contract

# AMIS Releases New CAN Transceiver Product Family

# Micron Introduces Solid State Drives

# WBT Showcase Accepting Applications

# DigiTar Software Blocks Spammers

# Ideas Innovations Idaho License Plates For Sale
Alpha Bay Expands to Boise

(Boise) Retail systems software and services provider Alpha Bay Corporation has opened a new development office in Boise. Boise was selected because of its strategic location as a thriving technology and engineering market with proximity to the corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City.
Alpha Bay has relocated Joseph Milner, a senior product manager, to the Boise office. In addition to his product management role, Milner will lead the company’s recruitment and expansion efforts in the Boise area, and help bring the corporate vision and culture to the Boise office. As part of the expansion in Boise, Alpha Bay will be hiring experienced Java engineers, product managers, and business analysts.
"The high-tech market in Boise will allow Alpha Bay to rapidly expand our development and product management departments, by hiring talented individuals, who will serve a
crucial role in the success of our company," said Jack Blount, CEO of Alpha Bay Corporation.
Alpha Bay software gives retailers the integrated, real-time data access they need to see where their inventory is, when they need it, across all channels of their business.

Wind Energy Project Proposed for Nevada/Idaho

(Las Vegas) Sierra Pacific Resources and Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc. announced today that they are in discussions toward an agreement to jointly develop and operate a large wind-energy project, known as the China Mountain Project, proposed in northeastern Nevada and southern Idaho.
Located at the Nevada/Idaho border on a combination of federal, state and private lands, the proposed China Mountain project is expected to generate more than 200 megawatts of electricity. This agreement would be subject to approval by the PUCN.
"The area where this project would be located provides the combination of a good wind resource and the relatively gentle terrain needed for construction access," said Tom Fair, Sierra Pacific Resources executive, Renewable Energy Program. "Preliminary wind resource analyses completed to date have found this site to be favorable for developing a utility scale wind-energy facility."
The project will go through a rigorous environmental review process as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. An official notice for preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement is expected early in 2008.
The project will use state-of-the-art large-scale wind turbines to produce electricity to deliver energy to Sierra Pacific Resources’ power grid.
Headquartered in Nevada, Sierra Pacific Resources is a holding company whose principal subsidiaries are Nevada Power Company, the electric utility for most of southern Nevada, and Sierra Pacific Power Company, the electric utility for most of northern Nevada and the Lake Tahoe area of California. Sierra Pacific Power Company also distributes natural gas in the Reno-Sparks area of northern Nevada.
RES Americas is one of the fastest growing wind development and construction companies in North America.

MobileDataforce Releases Mobile Software for Automotive Industry

(Boise) MobileDataforce has released a mobile software solution called FieldSync Automotive, which was designed for companies involved in the mobile automotive services market.
The software will focus on mobile services such as windshield repair, dent repair, upholstery/fabric repair, bumper repair, auto lease inspections and other services that require vehicle inspections, work orders, VIN scanning and decoding, mobile invoices and reports.
FieldSync Automotive is designed to fit a sole proprietor or franchise model and can be customized for most types of mobile automotive services business.
More information is at mobiledataforce.com.

JBS Swift Adopts PakSense Monitoring Labels

(Boise) PakSense Inc. announced today that JBS Swift & Company, North America, has adopted the PakSense TXi™ Label to monitor time and temperature of product during distribution. PakSense Labels are currently in use on truckloads of fresh beef and pork from JBS Swift & Company, North America, processing plants to customer locations throughout the United States.
PakSense Labels are placed on fresh beef and pork loads and then shipped to customer locations. When the truck is received, JBS Swift customers examine visual indicators on PakSense Labels to verify that acceptable temperature ranges were maintained during shipping. Labels are then pulled at customer locations and mailed back to JBS Swift’s Greeley, Colorado, office as part of a temperature traceability program.
The Label’s small size enables it to be mailed back in the postal system and, once received, they are filed with shipping paperwork. The Label’s non-volatile memory means that data is perpetually stored and can be downloaded at any point in the future. PakSense Labels are a definitive resource if questions regarding temperature during distribution ever arise.
"The PakSense Label replaces a paper strip chart temperature monitoring device and is a technology upgrade," explains Warren Mirtsching, Food Safety & Quality at JBS Swift. "In the past, it was difficult to keep track of these strip charts and tie them back to a particular shipment. The PakSense Label is a vast improvement over the old system and is a great tool to promote better food quality throughout the industry."
JBS Swift & Company is the latest to adopt the award-winning PakSense time and temperature monitoring label. Albertson’s LLC also recently announced that PakSense Labels will be included in product shipments.
The PakSense TXi Smart Label was named runner up in the 2006 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards in the technology design category.

Solex Names New CEO

(Idaho Falls) Financial services veteran John Walsh has been named CEO of Solex, an online lending software firm based in Idaho Falls.
Walsh brings more than 20 years of senior management experience in the financial services industry and more than 10 years leading technology firms similar to Solex.
Most recently, Walsh served as president of San Diego-based Del Mar Database, the leading provider of technology solutions to residential lenders. Previously, Walsh was the president of Oakland, Calif.-based RF/Spectrum Decision Science Corp. and chairman and CEO of Burlingame, Calif.-based PureCarbon, Inc. (now Workstream, Inc.).
Solex is an online lending solution that was designed for dealers and provides finance and insurance managers with instant loan approvals and compliant loan documents. Solex connects dealers, credit bureaus and lenders in a seamless integration to provide multiple financing options within seconds.
More information is at http://www.solex.com.

Crucial Receives CDW Partner Honors

(Boise) Crucial Technology has received CDW’s Partner of the Year award for providing exemplary products, programs and support.
Crucial is a brand of Lexar Media, Inc., a subsidiary of Micron Technology, Inc. Lexar sells and manufactures NAND flash and DRAM memory products under the Lexar and Crucial brand names. Lexar also sells flash memory products under the Kodak brand.

Dallas Firm to Buy CRI Advantage

(Meridian) CRI Advantage Inc., a Meridian information technology consulting and services firm, has signed an agreement to be purchased by Dallas’ Shea Development Corp.
The purchase will extend Shea’s enterprise service offerings in the business process management market, expand its enterprise customer base, and increase the company’s presence in the local, state and federal government sectors.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of 2007.
Shea serves its customers through its subsidiaries Riptide Software, Inc., Bravera Inc., and its MeterMesh products, and currently holds offices in Reston, Virginia; Orlando, Florida; and Ft. Worth, Texas. For more information about Shea and its subsidiaries, go to riptidesoftware.com.

AMIS Receives E-Legacy Award for Medical Advances

(Pocatello) AMI Semiconductor’s Ezairo 5900 series of reconfigurable application-specific signal processors was announced the winner in the ‘Medical Advancement’ category at the first ever e-Legacy Awards.
The awards, hosted and organized by Electronic Product Design magazine, are unique in the industry in that they recognize a company or design’s contribution, motivation and corporate social responsibility. There are six categories which include Environmental Design, Medical Advances, Contribution to Sustainability, Investment in Training, Investment in Education and Contribution to Safety.
The Medical Advancement Award recognizes an electronic product that enhances patient care, provides the relief or treatment of a medical condition or identifies medical conditions for the first time or in a new, more efficient way. Alternatively, it is for a product or system that delivers treatment in a way that can liberate patients from previous treatment restrictions, such as hospital visits for monitoring, and increase patient mobility and independence.
Ezairo, AMI Semiconductor’s newest digital signal processor, enables hearing aid manufacturers to develop products that provide superior computing capability, ultra-low-power consumption and high precision sound which for the end user, equates to more sophisticated sound processing features for the same or better battery life, increased comfort in different listening situations and overall better sound quality.
"Hearing loss affects one in ten people worldwide," said Marc Niklaus, Product Manager of Hearing Solutions for the AMI Semiconductor Medical Business Unit. "Ezairo was architected to process sound with unprecedented performance so hearing aids could be developed that improve not just speech intelligibility, but the full depth of the listening experience, from speech to music."
Electronic Product Design is the United Kingdom’s best-read technical monthly magazine and is targeted to senior design engineers.

Engineering Dean First Woman to Receive Three IMAPS Awards

(Moscow) Aicha Elshabini, University of Idaho’s Engineering Dean, has received her third national award from the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society.
"Aicha is more than just a success story; she’s an outstanding example and mentor for young women who want to pursue careers in math and science," said Ann Bell of IMAPS.
Elshabini earned the society’s Outstanding Educator award and becomes the first woman to earn three top awards from the organization in its 40-year history.
Last year, she was awarded the Daniel C. Hughes award for lifetime achievement in microelectronic packaging. Previously, she received the Fellow of the Society award. She also was the first woman to receive each of those honors. The Outstanding Educator award is given to an individual with significant contributions to education for the microelectronics and electronic packaging industry, and to the advancement of IMAPS student chapters.
Elshabini has conducted research with Motorola, Northrop Grumman, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, Intel, Xerox, NASA and various military groups.
She was awarded the 1996 John A. Wagnon Technical Achievements Award in recognition of "significant contributions to the microelectronics industry in the fields of microwave hybrids and thin-film technology; and for commitment to the dissemination of knowledge as a professor, and as editor of the IMAPS International Journal of microcircuits and electronic packaging."
Elshabini joined the University of Idaho’s College of Engineering as dean in 2006. Under her leadership, the college is undergoing strategic planning and development efforts incorporating high school students, student organizations and each of the college’s eight engineering programs around the state.
Prior to her arrival at Idaho, Elshabini served for 20 years as a professor and chair for the Electronics and Networks committee at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and seven years as the department head in the electrical engineering department at the University of Arkansas.
Elshabini earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communications from Cairo University in Egypt; a master’s degree in microelectronics from the University of Toledo in Ohio; and a doctorate in electrical engineering and solid state devices from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Invest Northwest Seeks Life Sciences Companies

(Northwest) Life sciences companies from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, British Columbia and Alberta are encouraged to submit their applications to present at the seventh annual CEO and Investor conference, Invest Northwest, organized by the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association. Submissions will be accepted no later than December 7. Invest Northwest will be held March 18-19, 2008 in Seattle.
Applications to Present and details on eligibility are online at http://www.investnorthwest.org/
Invest Northwest is a forum for senior executives from Northwest public and private life science companies to tell their stories to institutional investors, analysts, investment bankers, fund managers, venture capitalists, angel investors and prospective corporate partners. Produced by the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association in collaboration with BC Biotech, BC Medtech, BioAlberta, BioIdaho, Montana BioScience Alliance and the Oregon Bioscience Association, the yearly event typically attracts more than 600 attendees.
Members of the professional investment community and bioscience leaders are invited to register to attend at http://www.investnorthwest.org or call WBBA for more information at (206) 732-6700.

UI Scientists Developing Kryptonite for Superbug

(Moscow/Post Falls) University of Idaho researchers are crossing academic and geographical bounds to develop more effective defenses against Staphylococcus aureus bacteria and other deadly pathogens.
One of the goals of that effort is to create much faster and more accurate identification of strains resistant to the antibiotic methicillin, formally known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
Nanoelectronic biosensors at the university’s Center for Advanced Microelectronics and Biomolecular Research (CAMBR) recently have cut detection time for staph from the industry standard of up to three days down to three hours.
Researchers now are focused on tweaking the device so that it can provide a complete toxin profile of staph that will quickly reveal the virulence of infections. To accomplish that goal, researchers from the university’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) are partnering with CAMBR scientists.
Eventually, it is hoped that even the hard-to-identify MRSA bacteria will be detected quickly using some iteration of the nanotechnology.
MRSA’s resistance to antibiotics has earned it "superbug" status. It is responsible for more 94,000 infections and 16,000 deaths annually in the U.S. alone, according to recent Center for Disease Control reports. Those numbers indicate it is a greater health threat to Americans than the AIDS virus.
Researchers also are looking at the mechanisms staph bacteria employ to enter host cells and proliferate.
Using nanowires and other nanomaterials, they aim to hijack the methods bacteria use for toxin delivery, and use them to deliver drug therapies specifically to infected cells.
The Idaho researchers have found that namomaterials penetrate tumors easily, and can do so coated with antibodies or other materials that seek and destroy infected cells, while sparing normal cells.

Intrepid Hires Investment Banking Firm

(Twin Falls) Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc., a renewable alternate energy company, announces the retention of the investment banking firm MDB Capital Group LLC to assist the company in the formation of new projects, financing and seeking other corporate opportunities which may include mergers or acquisitions.
MDB is an investment banking firm located in Santa Monica, Calif. with experience in the biogas industry and financing emerging growth companies.
Additionally, Dr. Dennis Keiser has stepped down from the position of CEO and will remain as a consultant to the company. Jake Dustin will assume the additional duties as the company’s president.
Intrepid Technology is in the biogas products and services industry specifically using renewable agriculture feedstock and industrial and agriculture waste materials.

Tribe Enterprise Inks $400 Million Contract

(Plummer) Berg Integrated Systems, an enterprise of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, has been awarded a five-year contract with the U.S. Army worth up to $400 million for the production of 210,000-gallon fuel tank bladders.
First-year revenue projections for the contract will be in excess of $40 million. The contract announcement comes after months of negotiations with the U.S. Army’s TACOM Life Cycle Management Command, headquartered in Warren, Mich., which is one of the Army’s largest weapon systems research, development, and sustainment organizations.
Berg Integrated is located in Plummer, Idaho.
"This contract is a major milestone in our initiative to expand our economic portfolio, while also creating sustainable employment opportunities for our future," said Coeur d’Alene Tribal Chairman Chief James Allan.
The fuel bladders are part of a larger system called the Inland Petrol Distribution System which connects four bladders together to store JP-8 fuel used by the military for aircraft, vehicles, and most of the military arsenal. When fully deployed, a 210,000-gallon fuel bladder has a footprint of 72 feet by 72 feet, by 6 feet tall.

AMIS Releases New CAN Transceiver Product Family

(Pocatello) AMI Semiconductor has released an ASSP family for long-wire and low baud rate Controller Area Network (CAN) applications.
Designers now can use a qualified and proven CAN transceiver for very long wires and/or low baud rates, enabling the use of CAN-enabled equipment in industrial applications requiring line lengths in excess of 500 meters.
"The expansion of building automation, factory control and other wide distributed systems has created a need for robust, wired data communications over hundreds of meters," said Guido Remmerie, manager, worldwide industrial ASSPs at AMIS. "Our new long-wire CAN transceiver chips, with their pedigree of automotive-proven quality and reliability, enable the design of more complex industrial systems for important operations such as energy management, process optimization and facility security."
The AMIS long-wire CAN transceiver ASSPs target end applications with wired communication in physically long or distributed systems. Examples of these systems include elevators, security monitoring systems, in-building communication, building control, process control, machine control, and HVAC systems.
More information is at amis.com.

Micron Introduces Solid State Drives

(Boise) Charting new directions and opportunities for NAND-based storage, Micron Technology, Inc. entered the growing solid state drive market by announcing its RealSSD family of products. Micron’s solid state drives are designed for computing, enterprise server and networking applications.
The first of Micron’s solid state drives vary in density from 1 to 64 gigabytes. Aside from the obvious benefits of sold state drives over hard disk drives – lower power, faster boot-up time, increased reliability, improved performance and reduced noise – these new products usher in a new set of application-specific features and capabilities.
The devices are being sampled and mass production is expected in the first quarter of 2008.
"SSDs are becoming the new storage medium, fundamentally altering the way data is stored," said Dean Klein, Micron vice president of memory system development.
More information is at http://www.micron.com/media.

WBT Showcase Accepting Applications

(Texas) Entities with research or a technology ready for its first or next round of private equity or a licensing deal can apply to showcase at the annual World’s Best Technologies showcase set for March 26-27.
The event showcases technologies emanating from top universities, labs and research institutions from across the country and around the globe. This year, more than 200 venture capitalists, angel investors and licensing professionals will collaborate to screen and mentor 75 seed stage companies and intellectual property seeking for investment capital or strategic partners.
The showcase is produced by Development Capital Networks, LLC, a for-profit professional firm involved in seed and early stage investment, technology commercialization and development finance serving investors, entrepreneurs, and governments. DCN is an approved GSA contractor on the MOBIS Schedule and under contract with the National Science Foundation providing professionally mentored technical assistance to over 280 SBIR/STTR Phase I grantees.
Information is at http://www.wbtshowcase.com. There is no cost to apply.

DigiTar Software Blocks Spammers

(Boise) DigiTar has released intelliBLOCK, a directory harvest blocking technology that keeps spammers in the dark about your confidential email users list while enabling notification of innocent senders who accidentally mistype an address.
The software empowers enterprise email networks to choose the blocking behavior that best suits their organization.
Before intelliBLOCK, enterprises have either used no protection at all, or "stealth" protection. Stealth protection (silently dropping messages) keeps spammers from knowing which recipients are valid. However, silently dropping messages to invalid recipients prevents innocent senders, who mistype an e-mail address, from knowing that their message was not delivered.
More information is at http://www.digitar.com.

Ideas Innovations Idaho License Plates For Sale
(Statewide) Specialty license plates that support Idaho’s science and technology industry are for sale through the Idaho Transportation Department.
A portion of the proceeds from each plate sold goes to a fund that is used to develop programs and market the state’s technology sector.
A picture of the license plate, and information on how to purchase one, can be viewed at technology.idaho.gov/license.

Have an Idea/Submission for this Newsletter?
Contact Julie Howard at the Idaho Department of Commerce’s Office of Science & Technology at (208) 334-2650, ext. 2147, or at [email protected]

Read More Idaho Technology News
Miss last month’s Science & Technology newsletter? Find the complete newsletter archives at technology.idaho.gov and click on "news."

2007 Events Calendar

December 6
Kickstand
Twin Falls
Southern Idaho’s Kickstand, a monthly networking event for innovators, meets at Pandora’s in Twin Falls, 6-7:30 p.m. Speaker will be Steve Peterson, J.D., C.P.A., speaking on business entity options. RSVP at http://www.kickstandidaho.com.

December 13
Excellence in Performance
Boise
Workshop is presented by Price Associates for business leaders at any stage in their careers.
Cost is $99, 8-11 a.m.
Register at http://www.price-associates.com or call (208) 442-0556.

December 13
Kickstand
Boise
Kickstand in Boise, a monthly networking event for innovators, will have its December meeting at the Discovery Center of Idaho, 131 W. Myrtle St. Guest speaker is a "surprise." For information, go to Kickstand.org.

January 7
Idaho Legislature Opens
Boise
Annual session convenes.

January 9
Annual Legislative Tech Luncheon
Boise
Annual event focuses on technology industry issues. Information to come at http://www.boisechamber.org

January 23-24
Idaho Business Expo
Boise
2008 Business Expo features the latest in technology and business. Meet the pros, view displays, attend educational seminars and learn about job openings. More information at http://www.idahobusinessleague.com.

February 2
Discover Engineering
Boise
Annual Engineering Day at Boise State University features activities and presentations for all age levels. More information is at jasonidaho.boisestate.edu.

For more calendar information, visit Conferences and Events at cl.idaho.gov

"We Create Jobs, Strengthen Communities and Market Idaho."

IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
PO Box 83720, Boise, Idaho 83720-0093
Tel: 208-334-2470; Fax: 208-334-2631
Web: technology.idaho.gov
08-62000-250

C.L. "BUTCH" OTTER, GOVERNOR
JIM ELLICK, DIRECTOR

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