Buzz

Apple is reportedly going to use part of its enormous pile of cash to buy an Israeli fabless semiconductor company that specializes in flash storage solutions. Calcalist reports – in Hebrew – that the world’s most valuable company is in talks to buy Herzliya Pituach, Israel-based Anobit for $400 million to $500 million.

If the report checks out, this would mark Apple’s first acquisition in Israel (and the first with Tim Cookat the helm as CEO), and also a rare occasion because the consumer electronics giant doesn’t usually buy non-software companies. The only hardware companies Apple is known to have acquired in the past two decades were Steve Jobs-founded NeXT, Raycer Graphics, Intrinsity and P.A. Semi.

Anobit provides flash storage solutions for enterprise and mobile markets, based on its proprietaryMSP (which stands for ‘Memory Signal Processing’) technology. Its solutions are designed to improve the speed, endurance and performance of flash storage systems while driving down the cost.

Read more about it here.

Seattle billionaire and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is launching a new commercial space travel company that would carry tourists into orbit with the help of Southern California aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan.

The Huntsville, Ala., company, named Stratolaunch Systems, promises to bring “airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions.” The company plans for a first flight within five years.

In a news conference Tuesday, Rutan and former NASA chief Mike Griffin said they joined Stratolaunch as board members. Along with Allen, the trio introduced the company’s novel idea of launching payloads into orbit aboard what would be the largest aircraft ever flown.

Read more about it here.

Driving around Chicago's West Loop, developer Steve Fifield rarely has a chance to keep two hands on the steering wheel as he points out all the residential and office projects he's been involved in during more than 30 years in Chicago development.

At 63, back in Chicago after a seven-year absence and with his wife, Randy, increasingly involved in his business, Fifield Cos., he clearly isn't ready to slow down or call it quits.

Read more here.

The Dayton Development Coalition has been commissioned by the state of Ohio to help develop an industry for unmanned aerial vehicles and their electronic equipment, in addition to devising a strategy to protect and retain jobs at Ohio’s military facilities.

Ohio will be up against competitors in California, New Mexico, Florida, Texas and other states with Air Force bases and aerospace development. See full story here.

Southwestern Ohio is the newest breeding ground for the United States military high-tech defense mechanism--the drone. At the Springfield Air National Guard base, they're working on becoming ground control operations for the MQ-1 Predator after being awarded a new mission from the Department of Defense and Air Force.

Drones, or pilotless jets, are the newest weapon of choice for the U.S. Read more here.

A Central Ohio business is creating a niche market in the world of social media by offering small businesses a chance to connect with each other and then track that interaction. By measuring how a small business interacts with other small businesses, it can create a more powerful connection. Read more here.

A new study by shippers and U.S./Canadian government agencies reveals the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway shipping industry supports 227,000 jobs in U.S. and Canada, including 28,000 jobs in Ohio, reports WTOL.

Those Ohio jobs generate $2 billion in personal income.

Read the full story here.

The Baard Energy project is being resurrected, with natural gas replacing coal as the energy source used to produce synthetic diesel and jet fuel, reports the East Liverpool Review.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups fighting construction of Baard's Ohio River Clean Fuels plant, announced Friday the coal-based project as originally constituted has been scrapped as part of an agreement reached with the groups.

Read the full story here.

Abbott Laboratories will divide the company into two separate business — one for its medical products and another for research-based medicines, including its pharmaceuticals and biologics, reports MedCity News.

Both companies will be publicly traded, and the medical products business will retain the Abbott name, with the research-based company still to be named.

Read the full story here.

One of the key processes in gene therapy involves taking cells from the patient, injecting a therapeutic genetic material into them, then reintroducing them to the patient's body and letting them go to work. Unfortunately, getting that material into the cells can be tricky, reports Gizmag.

Now, however, scientists at Ohio State University are reporting success with a process known as "nanochannel electroporation" in which therapeutic biomolecules are electrically shot into cells.

Read the full story here.

JobsOhio's Mark Kvamme thinks the decision by the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds to move to Ohio will lift the state's profile in the venture capital world.

The Columbus Biz Insider reports that the group will move its offices from Philadelphia to Lorain in northeast Ohio and hold its annual conference in Cleveland next year.

Read the full story here.

The 2011 BioOhio Annual Conference: 2020 Vision will set sights on how to continue the growth of Ohio's biomedical industry, reports MicrOHscope.

Since 2000, Ohio bioscience employers have added 10,222 jobs and etween 2005 and 2010, 236 bioscience companies either expanded operations or announced new facilities in the state. The conference is October 27 at the Embassy Suites in Dublin, Ohio.

Read the full story here.

University Park Alliance has announced the signing of a master services agreement with real estate developer KUD International, LLC, to tackle the redevelopment of a good chunk of Akron, Ohio, reports RE Journals.com.

The UPA redevelopment covers a key area around The University of Akron, and includes urban neighborhoods and business districts.

Read the full story here.

Ohio is losing out on about $200 million a year, thanks to online purchases that avoid sales tax, reports WTAM 1100 in Cleveland.

Online retailers aren't currently required to collect sales tax for each state. Ohio requires online purchases to be claimed as a use tax when filing income tax returns. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that only 1 percent of the income tax returns filed included a use tax, but 60 percent of Ohioans surveyed say they make online purchases.

Read the full story here.

Airborne Maintenance & Engineering Services Inc., an aircraft repair and maintenance company that is the dominant employer at Wilmington Air Park, is to add about 300 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months, reports the Dayton Daily News.

It would be the biggest job announcement at the 1,500-acre airport, near Wilmington, since express shipper DHL donated the property to the Clinton County Port Authority in January 2010 to allow public control of economic redevelopment efforts.

Read the full story here.