Flir to gain controlling interest in Cedip
Flir Systems (Wilsonville, OR) has entered into an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in Cedip Infrared Systems (Croissy-Beaubourg, France), a leading provider of infrared cameras and stabilized gimbaled systems. In the science camera market, the acquisition improves Flir’s international distribution network and brings new products and technology, including cooled mid-wave infrared cameras, while also providing an important manufacturing and technology base in Europe.
Dalsa cuts jobs to improve performance
Dalsa (Waterloo, ON, Canada) announced plans to increase the profitability of its core operations through several initiatives to facilitate net earnings of greater than 10% in its Digital Imaging and Semiconductor businesses. Within Digital Imaging, Dalsa will begin to divest its operations in Colorado Springs. It will immediately explore strategic alternatives for the x-ray imaging-business activities that currently take place at the Colorado Springs location. In addition, the company will transfer production and R&D related to industrial products to its other facilities. One of the impacts of these changes will be the reduction of the workforce in its Digital Imaging and Semiconductor businesses by approximately 8% to 9% compared to that in place at the end of the second quarter of this year.
ART to collaborate with Canadian research group
Advanced Research Technologies (ART; Montreal, QC, Canada), a medical device company and a provider of optical molecular-imaging products, signed a collaboration agreement with the National Research Council of Canada’s Institute for Biological Sciences (NRC-IBS) for the development of client-oriented diagnostic applications using ART’s proprietary time-domain technology. “The NRC-IBS is very pleased to collaborate with ART for the development of better diagnostics using molecular imaging, which can help identify and characterize brain-specific targets, and develop improved therapies for neurodegenerative diseases affecting the aging population. Optical-imaging-based approaches also promise to accelerate drug evaluation and shorten the time to their clinical application,” said Abedelnasser Abulrob, research officer at the NRC-IBS.
Nanosolar gets Solar America Initiative grant
Nanosolar (Palo Alto, CA) was awarded a cost-shared, three-year cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Solar America Initiative (SAI) in addition to receiving DOE SBIR Phase II and DOE NREL grants. Nanosolar will use the funds to deliver solar-power product and system innovations. “The Solar America Initiative provides support for Nanosolar’s objective of realizing grid-parity solar electricity in the near term,” said Brian Sager, Nanosolar’s SAI principal investigator. Nanosolar will receive $9.5 million (excluding partner allocations) through October 2008 with this award, bringing total DOE funding for Nanosolar to approximately $20 million (excluding partner allocations), subject to availability of funds appropriated by the U.S. Congress.
Center for Atom Probe Tomography established
The University of Alabama (UA; Tuscaloosa, AL) and Imago Scientific Instruments (Madison, WI) announced plans to establish a new research facility for atom-probe tomography. LEAP microscopy, also known as local-electrode atom-probe tomography, provides very high spatial resolution combined with compositional analysis and high sensitivity, allowing materials-research scientists to visualize specimens in three dimensions with atomic resolution, offering key insights into how a material’s atomic structure affects its mechanical and electrical properties. Acquired recently from Imago, LEAP will permit UA researchers to determine the position and type of atoms in various materials and view the structure in three dimensions.
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Also in the news . . .
ITT Visual Information Solutions (Boulder, CO), a wholly owned subsidiary of ITT, announced a recent donation of licenses of its ENVI and IDL software packages to the Rochester Institute of Technology’s (Rochester, NY) Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science in support of the center’s new cluster computing environment. . . . Judson Technologies (Montgomeryville, PA), a privately held infrared-detector supplier, received Raytheon Missile Systems’ 2007 Supplier Excellence Four-Star Award for outstanding quality and delivery performance during the past 12 months. . . . ATS Automation Tooling Systems of Canada announced that its Photowatt France subsidiary has entered into a multiyear agreement to purchase high-purity polysilicon from Wacker Chemie to support approximately 14 MW of photowatt solar production per annum. . . . Camera maker Eastman Kodak Company (Rochester, NY) has selected electronic viewfinders for its Easyshare digital camera from Kopin (Taunton, MA), a provider of microdisplays for mobile consumer electronics.