Business Briefly: Mukilteo firm to develop weapons test
Published 10:08 pm Monday, August 4, 2008
Mukilteo’s CombiMatrix Corp. has received a $250,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop technology that could improve the detection of biological and chemical weapons, among other things. CombiMatrix will focus on developing technology that involves the synthesis of molecules known as “aptamers,” which have unique biological properties that help hunt down weapons.
Boeing offers lighter brakes
The Boeing Co. got certification last week from the Federal Aviation Administration for a new carbon brake system designed for the Next-Generation 737. The brakes, supplied by Messier-Bugatti, were installed and delivered in a Next-Generation 737-700 to Delta Air Lines — the first of 10 737-700s the airline will receive over the next several years. Carbon brakes weigh 700 pounds less than high-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-700, -800 and -900ER airplanes; and 550 pounds less than standard-capacity steel brakes for Next-Generation 737-600s and -700s.
Weyerhaeuser sells packing division
Timber and wood products producer Weyerhaeuser Co. said Monday it completed the sale of its containerboard packaging and recycling business to International Paper for $6 billion in cash. Weyerhaeuser said it plans to use a substantial portion of the money to pay down debt. International Paper said it would realize a $1.4 billion tax benefit. International Paper also expects to improve profit by $400 million annually from the acquisition because of cost savings, optimizing product mix and increased efficiency. The company expects to see at least 40 percent of the improvement within a year.
Inflation in June hurts consumers
Consumer spending, after adjusting for inflation, fell in June as shoppers were hit with the second biggest increase in prices in nearly three decades. The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending dipped by 0.2 percent in June, after removing the effects of higher prices, the poorest showing since a similar drop in February. The higher prices reflected a big surge in gasoline costs and helped to drive an inflation gauge tied to consumer spending up by 0.8 percent in June, a monthly increase that has been exceeded only once since 1981. This price gauge jumped by 1 percent in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina shut down oil production in the Gulf.
Cablevision wins movie court fight
In a decision sure to affect millions of cable television subscribers, a federal appeals court Monday gave a green light to Cablevision Systems Corp.’s rollout of a remote-storage digital video recorder system. It overturns a previous ruling in which a lower court judge agreed with a group of Hollywood studios that claimed the device amounted to an unauthorized re-broadcast of their programs. The next- generation technology would let any cable subscriber with a digital cable box store TV shows on computer servers rather than on a hard drive.
From Herald staff and news services
