Seattle’s Alaska Airlines has begun reinforcing cockpit doors with a tough locking mechanism and bullet-resistant Kevlar, a fabric widely used in protective police vests, officials said. Raisbeck Engineering of Seattle is working with Alaska Air to complete the changes on the carrier’s 70 Boeing 737s by Nov. 15, and will then turn to the 32 MD-80-series planes, president William Ayer said.
Finland roared from sixth place last year to become the world’s most competitive nation, knocking the United States out of the top spot to No. 2, according to a survey released today. “This country’s remarkable turnaround over the past decade serves as evidence of how quickly an economy’s prospects can be transformed by strong political institutions, a focus on technology and sound macroeconomic management,” said the Global Competitiveness Report 2001.
Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. agreed Wednesday to develop and market consumer personal computers and other digital electronic home products. Under the agreement, the companies will combine Microsoft’s software with Samsung’s hardware to develop and market PCs, digital devices and home appliances that will provide easy home networking, a joint news release said. No further details were disclosed.
The inventor of the world’s first rotary telephone speed dialer is finally getting some recognition, 40 years after history pulled the plug on his innovation. Vincent Iannucci of Reading, Pa., spent two years designing the rotary dialer, only to be thwarted by the invention of touch-tone service just as the device was about to hit the market. Now, the lone prototype of the invention is being added to a collection in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
About 10,000 job-seekers flocked to a city-sponsored employment fair Wednesday for the multitudes of people thrown out of work by the World Trade Center disaster. Thousands were turned away, prompting the city to make plans for a second event. “It’s crazy – it makes you realize how many people are unemployed out there,” said Stephanie Sulaimen, a former recruiter for Merrill Lynch who joined a line that snaked around Madison Square Garden for the Twin Towers Job Expo.
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