News snippets: Phytopharm gets $1.16m from Michael J. Fox Foundation; CSR halves cost of embedded GPS
Phytopharm plc said it has been awarded funding by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research to support the development of Cogane as a treatment for Parkinson's disease. The award will be paid over two years.
In pre-clinical models, Cogane reverses the changes in the area of the brain involved in Parkinson's disease by inducing the body's own production of proteins known as neurotrophic factors.
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Cybit Holdings Plc, an online Telematics service provider, said it has been awarded a further major contract extension for its satellite positioning equipment with one of the world's leading offshore construction services groups. The contract will last until March 2009. The deal, valued at approximately £1.2m, is an extension to the Cybit Positioning Solutions Ltd supply contract with the Group.
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CSR plc said it has halved the cost of embedded GPS solutions through collaboration with Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co.
The resulting products, based on CSR's GPS software and Samsung's module hardware, bring best in class location-based services to mobile phones, media players and personal navigation devices, while taking the guesswork out of GPS RF design and allowing OEMs an exceptionally short route to market, the Cambridge based company said.
According to ABI Research, the market for GPS enabled handsets is set to generate $50bn in revenues in 2008, which is likely to rise to $100bn by 2012. CSR's software approach eliminates the need for a dedicated GPS baseband; reducing the cost of the module to less than half what competitors are able to offer.
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Zeus Technology, a provider of application traffic management software, announced an OEM partnership with AdaptiveMobile, based in Dublin, Ireland.
AdaptiveMobile offers comprehensive, proactive protection from the threat of mobile viruses, malware, inappropriate content, unsolicited communications and spam, as well as content filtering capabilities for corporate and consumer customers. AdaptiveMobile will now offer Zeus’ ZXTM software as part of its technology package for large mobile telecommunications providers, enhancing their ability to protect customers from unwanted or malicious content.
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Entrepreneur William Reeve has joined True Knowledge Ltd as non-executive Chairman. The Internet search technology firm said Mr Reeve is the co-founder of Internet-based Fletcher Research and LOVEFiLM.com, Europe’s largest online DVD rental service. He has over ten years experience in developing successful businesses that exploit the potential of the Internet and sees huge potential in the True Knowledge technology.
See its web site for an explanation of its beta search technology. It is based at St John's Innovation Centre (pictured) on the Cambridge Science Park.
22nd January 2008
