News snippets: Meldex rejects takeover approach: new CEO for EEDA
Meldex International plc, the Cambridge-HQed speciality pharma formerly known as BioProgress, has rejected a conditional takeover proposal (previously reported) because it significantly undervalues the Company, in the opinion of a committee the Board of DIrectors.
The Company, which is being advised by Houlihan Lokey, has received a number of approaches, and continues to explore and evaluate all strategic options, which may or may not lead to an offer, it said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
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Deborah Cadman (pictured) has been appointed as the new CEO of the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). She is currently chief executive of St Edmundsbury Borough Council and interim chief executive of Waveney District Council, both in Suffolk. Ms Cadman takes over from David Marlow, EEDA’s CEO since 2003, who will be developing his career in economic development and public policy consultancy, advice, research and problem-solving.
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e-stack, the innovative low energy ventilation system company, took two awards at the East of England Energy Group Energy Innovation Awards 2008 held in Norwich last month. The clean tech spinout from the BP Institute at the University of Cambridge received the top accolade and also became the first winner of the new Low Carbon Trophy, launched this year.
e-stack emerged from a project established by the Cambridge-MIT Institute and backed by a development grant from BP in 2001. The project’s objective was to design buildings that use natural ventilation and thereby consume less energy. In order to commercialise the technology invented, e-stack incorporated as a company in 2006.
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SWR has selected The Technology Partnership (TTP) to join the ‘Future Radio’ project which will trial innovative visual interactive radio services in Germany. The ‘Future Radio’ project will start its first trial in Stuttgart this summer.
SWR and TTP will work to define an open service delivery specification that enables new visual, interactive and download services on any digital radio receiver. These services will enable mobile phone users to listen to digital radio and to view, navigate and store visual content, such as images, slides, weather information, music tracks and podcasts that are broadcast in association with radio stations.
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In March, Raymond Gubbay’s production of Tosca will be performed in-the-round at London’s Royal Albert Hall featuring a ground-breaking sound automation technique which combines Out Board’s TiMax Audio Imaging delay matrix with the Ubisense ultra-wideband (UWB) RTLS solution. The combined product will also be made available by Out Board as the TiMax Talent Tracker system. By tracking the position of individual actors and processing the audio feed from their radio microphones in real time the sound image is steered to give each audience member the impression of localised audio.
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CSR launched BlueVox DSP, a low cost $6 eBOM Bluetooth mono headset design with enhanced DSP based Clear Voice Capture echo and noise cancellation technology. BlueVox DSP is the world’s first ROM-based solution with an integrated DSP coprocessor and features AuriStream, CSR’s low power voice CODEC for superior quality voice calls.
CSR said it has designed BlueVox DSP with the richest feature set including single and dual microphone noise suppression and support for simultaneous connection to two devices.
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ASUS and DisplayLink announced worldwide availability of a new 22-inch LCD monitor with integrated DisplayLink technology. The VW223B, which is compatible with Windows Vista Aero and enables up to six monitors to be daisy chained over one standard USB 2.0 cable, was unveiled at CeBIT in Hanover.
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CMR Fuel Cells plc, specialist developer of high power density fuel cell stacks for portable electronics applications, entered into a joint collaboration agreement with Acta SpA to accelerate development of platinum-free, alkaline membrane fuel cells.
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Autonomy Corporation plc, specialists in infrastructure software for the enterprise, said that The Swedish Research Council, Vetenskapsradet, has selected its Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) platform as part of The Swedish government's initiative to promote research, e-learning and collaboration within Sweden's education system. Autonomy's Meaning-based Computing technologies will enable the Research Council to consolidate all of the country's academic information into one single web portal, Forsking.se.
5 March 2008
