Emerging Technology : Buzz

The University of Minnesota's recent decision to begin offering free online courses via development firm Coursera caused a nice amount of stir after the announcement. Local business and news publications highlighted the story, as well as popular technology blog TechCrunch.
 
A story in the Pioneer Press noted that the university is among a growing number of educational institutions that will be offering free online courses. These types of courses have attracted millions of students, the article states, and five U. of M. professors have already signed on to create the courses.
 
"This partnership will give people from around the world the opportunity to learn from the U's world-class faculty at a time when we are working harder than ever to increase access to higher education, reach broader audiences, and strengthen our land-grant mission," University Provost Karen Hanson told the Pioneer Press.
 

Business magazine Forbes released its annual list of "America's Most Promising Companies," and two Minnesota businesses got nods.
 
Hastings-based Anytime Fitness ranked 14th on the list of 100. Forbes noted that the company's steady growth and high sales were notable, as is the franchise model's numerous locations.
 
Code 42 Software, based in Minneapolis, came in at 53rd on the list. The company creates cloud-based backup systems for consumers and companies, and notable clients include Google and Apple, Forbes noted.
 
Companies were ranked based on factors like market size, key partnerships, quality of management team, presence of investors, and demonstrated growth. The magazine considered Florida-based mobile platform developer 3Cinteractive the most promising company in the country.

MedCity News, an online publication focusing on medical innovation, recently singled out Minneapolis-based Clear.MD for its distinctive technology platform.
 
The article noted that about 35 percent of U.S. adults have gone online to diagnose a medical issue, and that Clear.MD is one of two interesting startups trying to help consumers break the "online diagnosis" habit.
 
The company has developed a tech platform that doctors can use to create short videos about various health topics. Clear.MD also offers a tool that users can use to find doctors close to them geographically.
 
With the system, patients get accurate information about a disease, a surgical procedure, or symptoms, the article states, while doctors can "rest easy knowing that patients can go home and access videos with instructions for postsurgery, for instance."

Audit, consulting, and tax services firm Deloitte released its annual ranking of fastest-growing technology companies, and three Minnesota businesses made the list.
 
SPS Commerce, Knowledge Marketing, and Outsell all showed strong revenue growth over the past five years. In creating the list, Deloitte looked at both public and private companies, and considered growth from 2007 to 2011.
 
 The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 is now in its 18th year, and is considered one of the most notable indicators of technology business health. Innovative companies in a range of industries are considered, including hardware, software, life sciences, telecom, and clean technology.

Technology career site Dice.com highlighted a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that put Minnesota in the top five states for fastest job growth in computer systems design and related services.
 
Dice's managing director, Alice Hill, noted that the Minnesota High Tech Association has the goal to make the state one of the country's top five in all types of technology by 2020. Also, IT hiring in Minnesota goes beyond tech firms and includes retailers, healthcare companies, consulting firms, insurance companies, and manufacturers.
 
Maryland showed the strongest growth in the nation for the computer systems design sector, followed by Massachusetts, Texas, and New York. An interesting aspect of the report, Dice pointed out, was that technology powerhouses California and Washington didn't make the list of the top 10 fastest-growing states for IT jobs.

Inc. magazine released its annual list of fastest-growing private companies in the United States and seven Minnesota companies made the list.
 
Highest-ranking at no. 71 was Plymouth-based GarbageMan, a firm that franchises environmentally conscious garbage and recycling services. Also on the list is Code 42 Software (see our previous coverage here), a Minneapolis-based developer of data protection and backup software.
 
Other Minnesota companies that made the list were MetroSpec Technology, DefySupply.com, Erickson Builders & Co., Intuitive Technology Group, and aimClear.
 
Despite a tough economic environment, the magazine noted, the median three-year growth of this year's list was a remarkable 1,436 percent--the highest rate in the list's 31-year history. Topping the list was payment processor Unified Payments, which reported a three-year growth rate of nearly 25,000 percent. Other prominent brands on the list include Facebook, Yelp, and Chobani. 

Three Twin Cities companies have made Fortune's "Inner City 100" list of the fastest-growing urban firms in the nation.
 
The magazine singled out data infrastructure provider Atomic Data, bike-rack design firm Dero, and IT consultancy On-Demand Group (see The Line's coverage of On-Demand here).
 
The fastest-growing inner-city company in the nation, according to Fortune, is Coyote Logistics, a Chicago-based transportation firm.
 
Companies were ranked by compound annual growth rate based on their revenue over a five-year period between 2006 and 2010. The survey was part of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a project designed to examine urban economies and spur economic development in cities.
 

Minneapolis is full of opportunity for job seekers looking to work in social media, according to a study on the Mediabistro/All Twitter web site, City Pages reports.

The city comes in number 13 nationally, “second in the Midwest only to Chicago,” City Pages states.

New York, San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston top the list.

In Minneapolis, the highest-paying job in this niche is social media marketing manager, which has a salary range of $54,000 to $85,000. “Minneapolis may not be the home of new-media giants like Twitter and Google, but we're aren't the social media backwoods, either,” says City Pages.

Recently the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) released a list of the top 10 states for green building through the internationally recognized LEED standards.

The results are based on U.S. Census data from last year.

Minnesota rounds out the list that’s topped by the District of Columbia.  

The LEED Platinum Marquette Plaza in Minneapolis is named in a prepared statement about the list.

Technology site Lead411 has released its annual survey of the top 200 tech companies in the nation, and five Minnesota companies made the list.
 
Ranked sixth on the list is Minneapolis-based Code 42 Software, a development company that produces onsite, offsite, and cloud backup applications for consumers and enterprises.
 
The other four companies are iBuyOfficeSupply.com, MSpace, The Nerdery, and CaringBridge.
 
The Tech 200 is based on revenue percentage growth from 2008 to 2010, and companies had to be privately-held U.S. businesses that earned more than $1 million in the past year.

Despite losing some tech jobs in 2010, Minnesota remained the 17th largest cyberstate, according to non-profit firm TechAmerica Foundation.
 
In its annual Cyberstates rankings, the organization analyzed the health of the tech industry in all 50 states.
 
In a press release announcing the results, Minnesota High Tech Association CEO and president Margaret Anderson Kelliher noted that "Minnesota will recover with policies that encourage education in science and technology." She also mentioned economic development tools such as the data center sales tax exemption that was recently approved by the state legislature.
 
Compared to other states, Minnesota ranked second in electromedical equipment manufacturing employment, and sixth in computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing employment.

Eight Minnesota companies have landed on America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies, a list put together by Inc. Magazine.
 
Among the top performers highlighted are MetroSpec Technologies in Mendota Heights, Jobs2web in Minnetonka, iBuyOfficeSupply.com in Plymouth, and BulkReefSupply.com in Golden Valley.
 
The companies were listed according to a three-year growth rate. For example, BulkReefSupply.com, an online retailer of saltwater and reef aquarium supplies, reported a growth rate of 1,248% from 2007 to 2010.
 
Other Minnesota companies on the list were ShopJimmy.com, Renters Warehouse,  Erickson Builders & Co.,and Modern Automotive Performance.

Cool Hunting, which showcases interesting new developments every week in the areas of design, tech, style, travel, culture, and more, recently featured an invention that comes out of Minneapolis.

Bike Fixtation, the bicycle-repair kiosk from the Minneapolis company of the same name, topped a recent list of picks on the Cool Hunting website.

"If you've ever ended up stranded in the city with a flat tire, you'll find the new Bike Fixtation kiosks helpful. The self-service stations are open extended hours for bicyclists in the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan areas," the notice reads.
 
An international team of editors and contributors at Cool Hunting sort through all kinds of innovations to provide the weekly digest.

Hey, look over here. No, here. That's right.

3M has fine-tuned its tool to track just where your eyes went--and where they go--when you visit a website.
 
In a June 9 Fast Company article, Austin Carr takes a detailed look at 3M's visual impact scanner (VIS), which uses an algorithm called visual attention service.

William Smith, business manager at 3M's graphics division, tells Carr that the tools "predicts visual impact" — something of interest to advertisers and designers alike, Carr notes.

The article includes a video and several visual examples of the VIS at work.

The $1.65 million "city automation project" (which includes $150,000 from the city) would "cut across several areas of municipal responsibility, including transportation, public safety, and planning for public events," writes Alexander.

An example is the possibility of people using smartphone apps to interact with city departments, or centralizing the city's monitoring of parking lot, security, and traffic video cameras to save money.

IBM has worked on "smarter cities" projects with about 2,000 municipalities around the world, according to the article.

The Minnesota Cup has added $35,000 to its 2011 pool of prize money, reports Wendy Lee in a May 9 StarTribune article. That's 42 percent higher than last year's total prize money, she writes.

The increase is the result of the competition adding sponsors, a Cup spokesperson tells Lee. Carlson Companies was already a new sponsor at the time of the competition's launch last month, and General Mills is the most recent addition as a new General Division Lead Sponsor, according to a press release from General Mills.

On May 6, Best Buy CTO and Geek Squad Founder Robert Stephens posted to his blog an article titled A Few Key People in Minneapolis/St. Paul Can Make a Huge Difference.

The long post is a call to entrepreneurs that includes a ten-point "recipe" for the Twin Cities startup community.

It was an interesting rhetorical move, as the text is a repost of an almost identical post by Mark Suster on TechCrunch — about Seattle.

Inspired, Stephens asked permission to post the copy, swapping out the names of the cities, universities, companies, and startups for local Twin Cities ones.

"His thoughts really apply to most cities in the US, if not the world," writes Stephens of Suster's post in his  introduction.

Local duo The Ultramods brought a new claim to fame to the Twin Cities by becoming the first artist to record an album on the iPad, reports Brian X, Chen in Wired.

The iPad 2 offers a GarageBand app, which Max "Bunny" Sparber and Coco Mault used to record every instrument and track for their album Underwear Party.

The album is available for $10 on the Ultramods' website, and a free MP3 track is available through the Wired article. (Note: judging by the song titles and description, the "pervy collection of two-chord songs" is not for tender ears or the very young.)

Whether it's through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, Minneapolitans know how to build a buzz.

Minneapolis is the country's fourth most socially-networked city, according to a recent study from Men's Health magazine, which ranked 100 metropolises. At the top of the list is Washington, D.C., followed by Atlanta and Denver. Seattle follows fourth-place Minneapolis. At the bottom: El Paso, Texas.

Men's Health studied the number of Facebook and LinkedIn users per capita, plus overall Twitter usage, it states. What kind of traffic came from various social media sites also factored into the results, as did an estimate of chat room conversationalists and blog readership.  

Dana Severson talks with Aaron Street of StartupLawyers.mn in his Feb. 22 Start Me Up blog for Twin Cities Business.

Street and Sam Glover are the attorneys behind the St. Anthony Main-based practice--self-dubbed "business lawyers for geeks."

The firm offers to entrepreneurs legal services packages ranging from $199 to $1,999 per month, rather than at an hourly rate, Street points out in the Q&A.

They also publish the law practice blog Lawyerist.com through their company Lawyerist Media.

Plymouth-based Kips Bay Medical Inc. raised $16.5 million in its initial public offering on Feb. 18, according to an Associated Press report in Bloomberg.

That amount is lower than the $21.2 million originally expected--and far lower than expectations of $57.5 million announced in April 2010, writes Dan Haugen in a Feb. 4 MedCity News article.

The company's product, eSVS Mesh, is used to reinforce leg veins during coronary artery bypass surgery.

The Business Journal's Katharine Grayson, who has been tracking venture capital investments in Minnesota, reports on the latest MoneyTree Report.

It's not good news: Venture capital investments in 2010 were the lowest on record since MoneyTree started compiling the report 15 years ago.

Nationally, venture capital investments were up 19 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. However, they were down 9 percent for medical devices, and Minnesota's concentration in that sector may help explain the drop here.

More at Grayson's In Private blog.

Did you miss last week's MinneDemo event? TECHdotMN has it covered, complete with video of all ten entrepreneurs/tinkerers who showed off their projects, which ranged from mobile games to a potentially disruptive web healthcare start-up.

As for the event itself, TECHdotMN's Jeff Pesek emphasizes that "Minnedemo is now on a whole new level," growing from a below-the-radar coffee shop meet-up a few years ago to a "top-notch" venue in the University of St. Thomas business school auditorium.

"If the raw energy, massive attendance (300+) and multitude of new faces means anything, then Minnedemo's awareness has alone has reached a new level, but I think there's more to it than that…"

More at TECHdotMN.

MOJO/Minnesota agitator Ernest Grumbles III has compiled a look back at the year in startup/innovation news in Minnesota. They include the debut of the state's angel investor tax credit, the creation of the Minnesota Science and Technology Authority, as well as the launch/growth of new media sources covering the state's startup/innovation scene (including us!). Read Ernest's full rundown and summaries on his Star Tribune YourVoices blog.

A couple of products from Twin Cities companies showed up on Advertising Age's lost of 2010's top 10 "Best Marketing Apps."

Alvenda, a social e-commerce company that we wrote about in August, earned an inclusion for its Delta Air Lines ticket window app for Facebook. It allows users to search and book flights without ever leaving Facebook.

Best Buy is mentioned for a mobile app meant to be used in theaters during the movie "Despicable Me." The app dims and silences the phone during the movie, until the credits at the end, when it translates the cartoon characters' language.

See the rest of the list over at AdAge.com.

While plenty of U.S. cities have touted plans for citywide wi-fi, Minneapolis may be one of the only ones to deliver, according to CivSource.

Minneapolis's 59-square-mile network, which is offered to residents for as low as $15 monthly, it states, is making money. In contrast, in many other cities, similar efforts have flopped.

US Internet has a $12.5 million, 10-year contract with Minneapolis "which helps ensure network profitability," the article states.  

Only six percent of its network capacity will be reached this year, but that figure is likely to rise in 2011, while US Internet is poised to reach its goal for 2012 of 30,000 citizen subscribers.

Minneapolis builds a good case for the model, says CitySource, adding that "despite the cost, it doesn't appear that the contract will be on the chopping block any time soon."

An Edina startup's throwable robot technology landed in last Sunday's New York Times.

Recon Robotics, founded in 2006, is commercializing robotics technology that was originally developed at the University of Minnesota's Distributed Robotics Laboratory.

The company's "throwbot" technology appeared in an infographic alongside a New York Times article on the military's use of robotics. The Recon Scout is a crawling, video-surveillance robot that can be thrown into an area and controlled by remote.

The Wall Street Journal gave the company's technology more than a passing mention in October, spotlighting how Swat teams are using Recon Robotics' throwbots.

Recon Robotics is among a couple dozen early-stage companies that are part of the University of St. Thomas' William C. Norris Institute investment fund.

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reporter Katharine Grayson writes that no Minnesota technology startup raised venture capital in the third quarter. That sounds very bad, but Grayson notes that it's not surprising and, depending on who you ask, not all that important. The cost of building tech startups has fallen so much in recent years that some argue venture firms aren't needed in the equation any more.

But Michael Gorman, a partner at of Split Rock Partners, argued at a recent venture finance conference that tech startups still need venture funding in order to scale. He pointed to Chicago-based Groupon as an example. The privately held company has thousands of employees and projected revenue that could top $500 million this year. Is that type of success do-able without venture capital? Discuss over at Grayson's In Private blog.

Medical devices and diagnostics companies have historically been "the Rodney Dangerfields" of the life science industry, never getting the same respect and buzz as their biotech and pharmaceutical cousins, niche pub Life Science Leader writes in its November issue.

New innovations in software and nanotechnology may be changing that perception, though, according to Medtronic's senior vice president for medicine and technology, Stephen Oesterle. In a Q&A with the magazine, Oesterle explains the shift in thinking he's observing:

"I believe many people previously viewed medical devices as appliances, not innovative medical products. I think the notion that devices are not innovative is beginning to change. This is because devices offer a unique opportunity to incorporate nanotechnology, information technology, biotechnology, or the controlled delivery of drugs and biologics into a single product. People are beginning to realize this, and that is why interest in devices has exploded in recent years. Good examples of innovation taking place in the devices industry include targeted, controlled delivery of monoclonal antibodies and stem cells, MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) implants, and drug-coated stents."

Read the full Q&A over at Life Science Leader.

Tech.mn reports that Minnesota won both the Internet and software categories at a Midwest startup competition last weekend.

The companies, Adaptiveportal and Gimigo, won five minutes of pitch time at the the TiEcon 2010 Midwest event in Detroit. Adaptiveportal is a web-application platform and Gimigo is a service for managing personal information.

TECH.mn's Lauren Melcher spoke with the Minnesota High Tech Association's incoming president and CEO, Margaret Anderson Kelliher. The onetime candidate for governor will finish her term as Speaker of the House in December and officially begin her job with the association in January.

"We have a great history of innovation in this state, as well as the ability to sell that creative environment," Kelliher tells Tech.mn. "We also have quite strong link to the beginning of the computer industry, and we have the opportunity to both build off of that and go farther than we have in the past."

Other topics covered in the Q&A interview: startups, the digital divide, STEM education, and the gender imbalance in those career fields.

City Pages has the story of how the proprietors of a local music studio saw the writing on the wall and decided to embrace new technology rather than hope it went away.

Or in their words:

"We just put our big-boy pants on and moved on to something else, instead of sitting in the corner muttering under our breaths about these youngsters with their flying machines."

Matthew Foust and Evan Olcott co-founded Integral Studio in 2000. Soon after that they started developing recording and other music-related software and founded Audiofile Engineering.

Those development skills have since become in demand, as City Pages explains.

The Twin Cities earned only a middling rank in a recent survey of the most active metros on Twitter. But there is a growing community of businesses reaching out to customers via social media, as highlighted by About.com:

"A recent report from NetProspex ranks Minneapolis/St. Paul as the country's 21th most active city for Twitter for professionals, and 23th for businesses.

"With free messages delivered instantly to customers, it's natural that independent businesses in Minneapolis have got behind Twitter in a big way.  And there's advantages to following your favorite businesses--be first to know of events, enter competitions, and get special offers and freebies, just for Twitter followers. ...

"Wondering what time to show up for the show? First Avenue tweets set times, and just before the show starts, win a free upgrade to a VIP table--if you are in the building and following their Twitter feed. The Varsity Theater announces shows and gives away tickets, and when Lady Gaga dropped into the Turf Club after her show here last month, the only way you'd have known about it was from Twitter."

Read the entire article here.

"Spiritual leader of 25,000 geeks." "Marketing genius." Now add CTO to those titles.

Tech blogger/consultant Graeme Thickens met up with Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens to talk about his new role as Best Buy's chief technology officer.

There wasn't any press release about the promotion. Stephens said he's rather have recognition when he has some results to talk about.

Find the 21-minute audio recording over at Thickens' blog.

Tech.mn has a round-up of Minnesota technology companies that made this year's Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing U.S. privately held companies. They count 20 product-based companies and another 15 in the "IT Services/Consulting" category.

Jobs2Web tops the list at No. 226. The Minnetonka company makes an online tool to help companies recruit employees. Others include Quantum Retail of Minneapolis, Lakeville-based ImageTrend, and EAC Product Development Solutions in Burnsville.

MedCityNews' Thomas Lee concludes that Minnesota's angel investor tax credit is performing "exceedingly well" through its first month. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development awarded $573,000 in the past month. That puts the state on pace to award about $6 million over 12 months--less than the $11 million allocated for the credit this year but encouraging considering the climate.

Minneapolis-based DoApp is included in a Mashable list of startups by former Google employees. Joe Sriver was Google's first user interface designer before he founded DoApp, which, as the blog notes, is the creator of the Whoopie Cushion App, among others. The company has also developed a product to help news organizations create custom mobile apps.

A Minneapolis startup was spotlighted this week as one of the most promising solar-biofuels projects.

BioCee, a University of Minnesota spin-off we reported on earlier this month, was included this week on a list of the Top Ten Solar Biofuels Projects by Biofuels Digest, a website and newsletter.

The company is developing a method for converting sunlight, water and CO  into liquid transportation fuels. Its technology is a thin latex coating that contains living microorganisms that serve as biocatalysts.

"It is a fascinating technology, which immobilizes living, biologically active microorganisms in thin latex coatings, represent[ing] a paradigm shift in how living microorganisms are used as biocatalyst," local cleantech attorney Todd Taylor tells the publication.

Biofuels Digest says the use of solar to create biofuels is one of the most overlooked stories of the year.

Jeff Pesek at Tech.mn checked in with Shane Reiser, who is organizing Startup Weekend in the Twin Cities Sept. 17-19. The event challenges up to 100 participants to build a startup in 54 hours.

Speakers confirmed so far include Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens, Jon Dahl, co-founder of Zencoder, and MixMobi co-founder Lisa Foote (whom we checked in with a few weeks ago.)

Reiser tells Tech.mn that he's seeing more early interest in Startup Weekend in the Twin Cities than any other city where he's organized the events, including New York City.

More details over at Tech.mn.

On the third anniversary of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, CNN takes a look at its high-tech replacement:

"The new bridge, completed in September 2008, is expected to stand for 100 years.

"Three-hundred-twenty-three high-technology sensors dot the structure, spitting out a constant stream of data regularly analyzed by engineers at nearby University of Minnesota.

"At a total cost of about $1 million including wire connections and power sources, the sensors don't eliminate the need for visual inspections, but they do provide an extra layer of maintenance security.

"The sensors monitor corrosion, stress and the movement of the bridge from the constant traffic.

"'The fiber-optic strain gauge technology is fairly cutting edge,' said Phipps. 'A tiny beam of light is used to measure very small differences in the movement of the bridge when vehicles pass over.'"

Read the full article here.

The University of Minnesota's solar car team, which recently placed second in the American Solar Challenge race, got a mention on a White House blog last week.

The Office of Science & Tech Policy Blog notes a recent President Obama speech about the importance of getting students excited about education, particularly in science and mathematics:

"Well, there is no better example of how to generate that kind of enthusiasm--all the while helping to make renewable-energy vehicles more practical--than the recently completed American Solar Challenge," it continues. The post includes a photo of the Minnesota team's vehicle.

Read the entire White House blog post here.

Tech.mn has an announcement about an event called Startup Weekend, which is coming to the Twin Cities on Sept. 17-19.

The event will be held at CoCo and is open to 100 participants. The goal is to "vet, pitch, build, and demo new products over a single weekend."

Read the entire announcement at Tech.mn.

Minnesota companies attracted $45.4 million in venture capital investments in the second quarter, more than double the previous quarter's amount, the Star Tribune reports.

However, that amount still leaves the state on pace for the lowest annual total of venture capital investments since PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association started tracking the figures.

"If we finish out the year at this pace, we're well below the lows of 1995 when the survey started," Jay Hare, a partner at the Minneapolis office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, told the newspaper. "We are still so heavily concentrated in one industry [medical devices] that it's hurting us when we're seeing the national [venture capital numbers] rebound."

Read the entire Star Tribune article here.

An unusually candid debate has been playing out on the pages of MedCityNews in recent days about the future of technology transfer at the University of Minnesota. Technology transfer refers to the process of turning basic university research into commercial products.

Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-St. Paul, started the skirmish by telling MedCityNews that if the university doesn't reform its technology transfer office, he'll introduce a bill at the Legislature that will force reform, including possibly privatizing the tech transfer office.

The University of Minnesota's top research official, Tim Mulcahy, then fired back, characterizing Mahoney's criticisms as naive and reckless.

MedCityNews journalist Thomas Lee writes that the feud is actually a sign of progress:

"Yet, believe it or not, the dispute itself reflects real progress. That two fairly important guys would openly argue about something as arcane as technology transfer shows how far we've come... Mahoney has been in the legislature a long time, so why call out the university now? You don't complain about something unless you think someone actually cares about it."

Read the entire MedCityNews summary here.

As expected, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development posted online Monday details and documents related to the state's new angel investor tax credit.

The 25 percent income tax credit is designed to spur investments in technology-based Minnesota startup companies. The program is funded with $11 million this year, and $12 million per year between 2011 and 2014.

The credit will be awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. Before investors can apply, they and the companies they are investing in must apply for certification to verify that they qualify for the program.

View details and applications for the angel tax credit here.

A key architect of the state's new angel tax credit may tackle tech-transfer legislation next.

Rep. Tim Mahoney (DFL-St. Paul) tells MedCityNews that he's frustrated with the University of Minnesota's efforts to turn basic research into commercial products.

"So unless the university makes significant progress by the end of the year, Mahoney will introduce a bill that either privatizes tech transfer or calls for the university to hire a 'strong entrepreneurial' president that will 'really shake up' the Office for Technology Commercialization (OTC)," MedCity News writes.

Mahoney goes on to say the university's practice of spinning off just a few high-potential companies per year amounts to "screening companies to death."

Read the full MedCityNews report here.

Twin Cities Daily Planet reporter Sheila Regan gave the new network of free wi-fi hotspots in Minneapolis a test drive and in doing so noticed one shortcoming at several locations: no place to sit. Once she got seated and connected, however, she liked using the service:

"... I quite enjoyed checking my email in the sun, despite the funny looks I got from people as they walked by me.

"I spoke to City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden about the free hotspots and she said they were still a work in progress. 'We're still working out the kinks,' she said.

"Glidden said she had reservations about the rule that people have to have a credit card to log into the network. The reason for that rule, she said, is because of Homeland Security regulations.  Still, she and other lawmakers are trying to make the system 'fair and equitable.'  She also said one of the goals is to provide a 'fun service' where people can get online while enjoying the outdoors."

Read the full article here.

Medgadget editor Dan Buckland recently paid a visit to Medtronic headquarters, where he met with the company's VP of Medicine and Technology, Dr. Stephen Oesterle, for a talk about where the company and industry is heading.

The company spends about $1.7 billion a year on research and development. As a result, it's planning to release 60 new products next year. It also invests in several smaller companies that are working on products that are interesting or complimentary to its portfolio.

"In interviewing Dr. Oesterle about the future of medical devices, two main themes emerged. He believes that minimally invasive is the future for most surgeries and that everything in the body is electrically active, and hence able to be modulated. He also sees Medtronic as a company that specializes in delivery and implantation. Delivery refers to delivery of both drugs and electricity."

Read the entire post here.

Silent Power is getting press for its role in a Sacramento-area smart-grid project.

Earth2Tech reports that Silent Power's OnDemand system will be installed at about 15 houses in suburban Sacramento as part of a stimulus-funded smart-grid pilot project.

The Baxter, MN company, which we recently wrote about, makes technology that helps maximize the value of solar electricity panels by storing power until it's needed.

"This is a very consumer-friendly-type solution," CEO Todd Headlee tells the blog, explaining that the system can also serve as a backup during power outages.

Read the Earth2Tech blog post here and our previous report on Silent Power here.

The Atlantic magazine's website interviews Lynn Willenbring, CIO at the City of Minneapolis, about USI Wireless' experience working in Minneapolis.

"Today, Minneapolis is one of few American cities whose WiFi plans are actually succeeding. Minneapolis studied the missteps of other urban networks before signing a 10-year contract with Minnesota-based USI Wireless. The private company manages and profits from the 59-square-mile Wireless Minneapolis network, while the city leverages it to deliver government services and build digital inclusion.

"Minneapolis CIO Lynn Willenbring told The Atlantic how her city's wireless network helped Minneapolis through a disaster even before it was built. She also talked to us about bridging the digital divide and letting for-profit companies do what they do best."

Read the full story here.

Wisconsinites are worried they'll have to power up because of Minnesota's new angel investor tax credit.
 
About half a dozen Minnesota biotech companies have jumped the border to Wisconsin in recent months, lured by the state's angel investor tax credits, according to the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota.
 
Now that Minnesota has created its own angel investor tax credit, Wisconsin officials tell Milwaukee Magazine that the state might have to do more to attract companies.
 
 "It's going to make us more competitive," Bryan Renk, director of Wisconsin BioForward, tells the magazine.
 
Then, the fightin' words: Milwaukee Magazine writes that, according to Renk, Minnesota may have more biotech jobs, but "Wisconsin has greater research prowess and a more educated workforce."
 
Read the entire article here.