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Friday, December 19, 2008
Cache & Packets
Innovations in aquaculture cages, IP video and iPhone apps
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
MHT managing editor Rodney Brown on NECN: 22 tech companies give back to community
NECN: Scvngr tours explore cities, campuses by cell phone
This time of year, technology watchers usually begin to see more of the human side of technology. Sure, much of the year is spent tracking down research on some of the most cutting-edge innovations that, someday, could change the lives of everyday citizens.
Around the holidays is when you start to see the cutting-edge technology of the past year come into the limelight, as companies want to show off just how their advanced products are making life better, rather than what their profit and loss sheet will look like in the next year.
Grandstream Networks Inc. of Brookline, a maker of Internet protocol communications equipment, is just one example of how the holidays can bring out the best in a technology. Grandstream has been making private-label videoconferencing tech since its inception in 2002, when long-distance visual communication always seemed to be just out of reach for everyone except large, tech-savvy businesses.
But to close this year, the 250-person company has launched a unique application — connecting residents of Hilea Assisted Living Facility in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with family members all over the globe. The current application includes a single station in a common area, available for use by any of the 120 residents of the facility. But in 2009, Hilea hopes to roll the system out to each room in the residence.
While officials at Grandstream said the firm has previously used its IP-video application for elder care when connecting doctors to patients in remote areas, such as the Australian outback, this is the first time the firm has used the equipment to connect the elderly with their families.
Just in time for the holidays.
Ocean Farm grows funding
Ocean Farm Technologies Inc., a maker of giant, moveable aquaculture cages we originally profiled in August, did its first tests in Puerto Rico, but is getting some help to develop new units in its home state of Maine.
Its development partner, the University of Maine’s Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research (CCAR), has landed a $2.6 million grant from the Maine Technology Fund, aimed at building a new facility for holding marine fish and testing new equipment.
One of the projects expected to be supported by the new facility is the testing of Ocean Farm Technologies’ 62-foot diameter pen, which is aimed at being a “mobile home” for raising fish, such as Atlantic cod. Testing at the new facility would include the stationary systems for Ocean Farm Technologies’ pens, such as feeding, fish handling, grading and harvesting.
Funding for the new facility at the CCAR comes from Maine’s $50 million research and development bond fund, which was approved by the voters of Maine in November 2007 and represents the state’s largest such fund to date (see related article on page 21). The fund is aimed at supporting local technologies that have the chance of near-term commercialization.
At the time of the approval, officials said they wanted the fund to focus on bridging the link between Maine’s traditional industries, such as aquaculture, and the technology industry.
The new CCAR funding will also be used to establish a dedicated broodstock facility for cod, operating in conjunction with the region’s cod farmers. The facility is being modeled after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture center in Mississippi, which provides research and breeding programs for the nation’s $600 million catfish farming industry.
Snow patrol
For someone who routinely amasses more than his fair share of the 1.5 million parking tickets the city of Boston issues per year, The Sweeper Inc. represents a truly utilitarian application for the iPhone.
The application, which currently covers 13 Boston neighborhoods, including the Back Bay, the North End and Allston/Brighton, provides residents and visitors with up to date schedules of street sweeping and snow emergency rules. Don’t know if sweeping is scheduled for the odd side of Hanover Street in the North End on the evening of your company’s holiday party? Look it up or suffer the consequences.
The application could save users hundreds in fines, but more importantly, the horror of returning from a date to an empty parking spot.
According to Chris DeOrio, one of the founders of the company, The Sweeper Inc. hopes to port the application to other cities in the future, including San Francisco and Chicago, in the coming months.
Now, if they could just get an up-to-the-minute schedule of the local meter maids, I might never get a ticket again.
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