Palmer casino proposal unveiled

Local officials in Palmer will vote Tuesday on a deal with Mohegan Sun that would pay the town nearly $3 million upfront, followed by at least $15.2 million annually, in exchange for allowing the company to build a $1 billion casino there.

If the Town Council and the management board of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority ratify the pact, the council will schedule a referendum on the deal, which also includes an estimated $23 million for sewer, water and road improvements that would expand the Exit 8 interchange on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

"It's still up in the air as to whether it's something I would want," council President Philip Hebert said. "I intend to ask the council to set aside a certain amount to be applied to the tax base."

Mitchell Etess, CEO of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, said the yearly revenue Palmer would receive would exceed its annual tax revenues and represent the largest per-capita and per-household mitigation of any western Massachusetts gaming proposal.

Iris Cardin of Palmer, co-president of Quaboag Valley Against Casinos, called the agreement a "travesty" that will bring traffic, crime and compulsive gambling.

Mohegan Sun is competing with two other companies for the only resort-casino license in western Massachusetts. Hard Rock International has proposed a West Springfield resort that residents will vote on Sept. 10, and MGM Resorts International has proposed a casino that Springfield residents approved July 16.

In eastern Massachusetts, Everett voters approved a Wynn casino on June 22. East Boston and Revere signed a host community agreement with Suffolk Downs but have yet to schedule a referendum. Milford residents have neither signed an agreement with Crossroads nor scheduled a vote.

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Cream of the crop of hot Boston market

Home prices are still surging, but the pace of the gains has steadied as interest rates continue to rise, according to the most recent S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

Still, there are some eye-popping properties up for sale in Boston — if you're in the market to impress.

Back Bay:

776 Boylston St. 
Unit W12B 
The Mandarin 
$13.5 million

This 5,000-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 21⁄2-bath, front-facing residence on the 12th floor of the Mandarin Oriental has Charles River views from all entertaining rooms in addition to having multiple terraces. The home is exquisitely finished with limestone and walnut hardwood floors, custom wall coverings and professionally designed lighting and is equipped with a state-of-the-art Crestron home automation system as well as a Bang & Olufsen home theater and audio system.

This home is perfect for entertaining with abundant built-in wine storage, a commercial-grade kitchen and a separate butler's pantry. The home comes with two full garage parking spaces and has plenty of storage built into the unit as well as two additional storage spaces within the building.

This home is being marketed by Megan Kopman and Jillian Adler of Campion & Campion Fine Homes Real Estate.

Beacon Hill:

56 Beacon St. 
Single-family

$12.5 million

This 8,682-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 61⁄2-bath, grand Beacon Hill townhouse beams with natural light and overlooks the Boston Common. The open, spacious parlor level includes a kitchen, family room and mudroom that opens to a large, private patio.

The spectacular dining room allows for 14-person dining. The second-floor living room boasts floor-to-ceiling windows as well as a library and office rich in detailed woodwork.

The master bedroom suite encompasses the entire third floor and has an enormous walk-in closet. Four additional guest bedrooms comprise the fourth and fifth levels.

There are two decks on these upper floors, abundant storage and eight fireplaces.

This home is being marketed by JeanneMarie Conley and John Corcoran of Otis and Ahearn Real Estate.

Midtown:

2 Avery St. 
Unit PH1D
The Ritz 
$2,995,000

The dramatic views from this home look directly toward the Charles River from the 38th floor of the Ritz Tower located at 2 Avery St. This 2-bedroom, 21⁄2-bathroom condominium has a bit less in square footage at 1,597, yet the landscape of the Boston Common, the Public Garden, the Back Bay neighborhood and Charles River bring this home to life through the 14-foot floor-to-ceiling windows.

This much coveted "D" unit floor plan includes an expansive living room with separate dining area as well as a chef's kitchen equipped with granite countertops, Viking double wall oven and separate gas cook top.

The private space includes a sumptuous master bedroom with en suite marble bath, as well as a guest bedroom with its own bathroom.

This home includes two valet garage parking spaces and is being marketed by Kathleen Cook and Kaitlyn Attfield of Atlantic Associates Real Estate.

Charlie Abrahams is a licensed real estate agent in Boston who works with buyers and sellers and can be reached for any 
additional information at: Bostonrealestate@
charlieabrahams.com.

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New Housing sales soar

The time to buy your dream home could be now — as long as nobody outbids you on it — according to new housing-sales numbers from the Greater Boston Association of Realtors.

The numbers show from July 2012 to July 2013, new listings in eastern Massachusetts' 54 cities and towns rose 13.9 percent for detached homes and 11.3 percent for condominiums, while closed sales increased 16.1 percent and 18.6 percent, respectively.

The inventory of homes for sale plummeted to 2,615 — a 34.4 percent drop — and the time homes spent on the market until sold also plunged — by 41.8 percent — to just 47 days.

"There's just not enough inventory to meet demand," said Paul Yorkis, president of Patriot Real Estate in Medway and Massachusetts Association of Realtors Greater Boston region vice president. "People are beginning to think about buying because interest rates are going up slightly. My advice? If you're going to do it, do it, because prices are going to go up if inventory stays down."

The association's figures show that's already happening. The median sales price in greater Boston from July 2012 to last month rose 4.5 percent to $533,000 for single-family properties and 4 percent to $402,600 for condominiums, while the housing affordability index was down 9.6 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

In Boston, the median sales price was up 8.2 percent to $440,000; new listings were up by 21.6 percent and closed sales rose by 17.2 percent. The inventory of homes for sale plunged by 39 percent to 904, and the time homes spent on the market until sold also dropped, by 47.3 percent, to a mere 34 days.

"We're still seeing multiple bids on homes that are in good condition and in good locations," said Susan McDonough, sales manager of William Raveis Real Estate in Wellesley and Natick, and president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. "There's strong interest from buyers, who often come away frustrated because they've had to compete."

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HelmetHub set to lift lid with first safety headgear rentals

With two years under its belt and more than one million rides, bike sharing in Boston is taking off, and one local startup has been tapped by the city to make bike safety as popular as bike sharing.

Breanna Berry, co-founder of HelmetHub, says the lack of helmet availability is one of the biggest problems for urban bike share programs. Berry — along with co-founder and fellow MIT grad Chris Mills — has come up with an automated system to make helmets as available as bikes.

Starting in early September, bike helmet vending machines will be installed next to several high-volume Hubway stations, including at Copley Square. For $2, riders can rent a helmet for 24 hours that has been sanitized and inspected for safety. It's no different than renting a ski helmet, Berry said.

Despite the increase in bike sharing programs in cities such as Chicago and New York, there are no automated helmet rental services in the world, Berry said.

With a swipe of a credit card and a couple of button presses, a helmet drops down, ready for use. After the trip, the helmet is returned to a different compartment, so the used helmets don't mix with the ready-to-use headgear.

"We're an autonomous system," said Berry.

"It'll be the first real automated bike helmet vending machine in the world," said Nicole Freedman, Boston's so-called bike czar who heads the city's Boston Bikes program that includes the Hubway. "What we want to do with HelmetHub is make helmets as convenient as renting the bikes."

The program will launch with four stations, and will expand further in the near future.

"I really hope it not just helps the Boston system but really helps bike share across all cities," Freedman said.

If the Boston launch goes well, HelmetHub will look at expanding to other cities with bike share programs, Berry said.

"We're hoping that Boston is the trailblazer and we're what they're using," she said.

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Billerica firm lands DOE grant for fuel cell tech

A Billerica company's clean-energy technology will help refrigerated tractor-trailers run more quietly and emit far less carbon when making fresh- and frozen-food deliveries.

Nuvera Fuel Cells won a $650,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant to adapt its Orion hydrogen fuel cell to power trailers' refrigeration units in place of small diesel engines.

Under the two-year, $1.3 million project, Nuvera will work with Thermo King, a Minneapolis maker of transport temperature control systems, to develop the prototype system for a refrigerated trailer with food-service supplier Sysco Corp. and the H-E-B grocery chain, both based in Texas.

"A fuel cell system is probably two or three times more efficient than a diesel engine, (and) also natural gas is a much cleaner fuel," said Gus Block, Nuvera's director of marketing and government affairs.

Sysco and H-E-B already have equipment in place to generate hydrogen, as both use hydrogen-powered forklifts. H-E-B uses Nuvera's PowerTap system, which uses natural gas and water to make hydrogen. The increasing adoption of fuel cells is bolstering hydrogen's place in other areas of transportation, including the commercialization of hydrogen cars slated for introduction in 2015, Block said.

"We're very excited about this project," he said, "but we put it in a much bigger context, looking to the years ahead when hydrogen becomes more and more used for transportation."

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China arrests British, American investigators

BEIJING — Two corporate investigators, a Briton and an American, have been arrested in Shanghai on charges of illegally selling personal information about Chinese citizens, police announced Tuesday.

The announcement was the Chinese government's first word on Peter Humphrey and Yingzeng Yu, a married couple who operate ChinaWhys Ltd., an investigation firm in Shanghai that serves corporate clients. They were detained in July.

The communist Beijing government operates an extensive surveillance network to track China's public but is tightening controls on access to personal information by companies and individuals.

Communist leaders were embarrassed last year by news reports that disclosed details of the family wealth of Xi Jinping, the new ruling party leader, and retiring Premier Wen Jiabao.

Earlier, several Chinese companies complained about investigations into their operations that led to a fall in their share prices on foreign stock exchanges.

Several dozen reports prepared by Humphrey and Yu contained information that "seriously violated the legitimate rights of citizens," the Shanghai police department said in a statement. It said they were formally arrested on Aug. 16.

That included home addresses and information on family members, real estate and vehicles, the statement said. It said they were sold to clients including manufacturers, law firms and financial institutions.

A report about the case on the state television news showed two people in handcuffs with their faces blurred.

"To obtain this information, I sometimes used illegal means," said the man, a Westerner, speaking in Mandarin. "I want to apologize to the Chinese government."

The British Embassy in Beijing confirmed last week that Humphrey was arrested but gave no details of charges. The embassy said it was providing unspecified consular assistance to his family.

The detentions coincided with the announcement in July of an investigation into possible bribery of doctors by employees of pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. That prompted suggestions their case might be linked to Glaxo, but Tuesday's announcement made no mention of that.

Tuesday's announcement said Shanghai police are investigating 126 people on suspicion of improperly gathering personal information and have detained 35.

ChinaWhys says its services include screening potential employees or business partners.

It is one of a number of such firms in China that serve foreign and local companies that want to protect themselves against fraud, embezzlement or misconduct by employees or business partners.

Humphrey, a former reporter for the Reuters news agency, has worked as an investigator for the past 14 years in Asia, focusing on white-collar crime prevention, fraud investigation and crisis mitigation, according to the ChinaWhys website.

Yu has worked for or advised companies in the United States, Hong Kong and China in technology, medical products and other industries over a 25-year business career, according to the company.

In January, a court in Shanghai sentenced four former executives of a unit of Dun & Bradstreet Corp. to up to two years in prison on charges of illegally buying information about Chinese consumers. The company was fined 1 million yuan ($160,000).

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Three intrigue for next Microsoft CEO

Microsoft — the largest software maker in the world and a critical Kendall Square anchor — needs a new grand marshal following longtime CEO Steve Ballmer's sudden announcement that he is retiring within a year.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company needs a leader who doesn't want every product to be centered around Windows and Microsoft Office. Both have excellent brand recognition, but the problem is what people are actually recognizing — something old and stodgy. If Microsoft wants to excel as a consumer electronics company — an ecosystem of laptops, mobile technology and home entertainment via the Xbox — it needs to promote one of the following three people to the top job:

Vice President for Windows Phone Program Management Joe Belfiore: He's created the best smartphone interface on the market — and also the most under-appreciated, due to incompetent branding. But branding is something Belfiore understands. That's what is behind his recent hipster makeover, which has been striking for the few of us who watch Microsoft Windows Phone presentations. In fact, he kind of looks like a young Apple fan, with his greasy long hair and blazer. He's the perfect face for a company that needs to be cooler and hipper. He knows how to give a great presentation just like the late Steve Jobs. And it's an added bonus, at least for me, that Wall Street would absolutely freak.

Stefan Weitz, director of Bing: Imagine breaking into the search engine market and having to take on the absolute domination of Google? Weitz did just that and he did it well. Bing has clawed its way to just below 20 percent of search-engine market share, which is no small accomplishment given the barriers. But Weitz's vision goes beyond search. With Bing, he's building a knowledge base for a future mobile personal assistant that aims to leapfrog Siri and Google Now. In fact, he said in a recent interview that he wants to "recreate the physical planet inside of Bing." He's a sagacious thinker and would cause a similar stir on Wall Street, while simultaneously drawing the right buzz and attention to a consumer products segment that desperately needs it.

Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division: Also under 40 and an incredible technical leader, Guthrie isn't afraid to go open source — meaning that he's led the quest to allow developers to build applications using any language, tool or framework and publish them on the Internet. His developer tools have been a huge boon to the startup community. If he could bring his entrepreneurial mindset to the upper echelons of Microsoft, the company could be really fun to watch.

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Economists: future deficits top US fiscal problem

NEW YORK — The biggest fiscal challenge facing the U.S. is the size of projected deficits in the 2020s and 2030s, according to a survey of business economists.

The National Association for Business Economics surveyed 220 of its members in July and August. The survey found that members were more concerned about the size of deficits in the next two decades than current deficits or deficits over the next 10 years: 43 percent of the economists named budget gaps in the 2020s and 2030s as the top fiscal challenge, compared with 37 percent who chose projected deficits over the next 10 years.

The policy survey found that no consensus on the best way to address those deficits.

The NABE said 39 percent of those surveyed felt the best way to address the deficit-to-gross domestic product ratio in the next few decades is a mix of spending restraint and increased revenue. It said 32 percent believe the best single tool would be greater spending restraint, and 20 percent said enacting policies designed to encourage economic growth would be the best tactic.

Ballooning costs for Social Security and Medicare as the U.S. population ages are expected to result in growing long-term budget deficits.

The NABE said there is broader agreement about monetary policy, as a majority of panelists think the Federal Reserve's current policy is "about right." But the respondents widely diverged on when they think the Fed will stop its policy of buying bonds to prop up the economy.

The Fed's bond buying has helped keep U.S. interest rates near record lows. But speculation about when the Fed will slow or stop the program has fed volatility in the financial markets.

About 39 percent of survey respondents think the Fed will begin slowing the program in the fourth quarter of this year. Some, about 7 percent, think it won't happen until 2015 or later. About 39 percent think the Fed will wait until 2015 or later to begin raising its interest rate targets, its traditional tool for balancing economic growth with keeping inflation in check.

Majorities also said that a path to citizenship or other legal status for people who entered the country illegally will strengthen economic growth, and that the 2010 Affordable Care Act will increase federal spending on health care.

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Patent sought for infant-saving AIR

A pioneering MIT researcher is tackling the huge problem of infant deaths with a simple device he put together on the night he learned that nearly 2 million children die on the day they are born.

"I had a few sensors literally lying in the trash in my lab, so we built it and it works," said Kevin 
Cedrone, whose Augmented Infant Resuscitator might just become the next international lifesaver. "When you want to save a life, you really don't want to have to wait until a baby dies to find out you're doing it wrong."

The so-called AIR — 
designed to attach to existing infant ventilation equipment — relies on tiny sensors to measure the rate and pressure of air entering a newborn's lungs.

This way, doctors and nurses can immediately tell if they need to speed up or slow down the air flow, or just readjust the ventilation mask covering the baby's nose and mouth.

After putting together the makeshift model, Cedrone met with a team of doctors and engineers to tweak it. The team includes Santorino Data, a pediatrician who specializes in neonatal resuscitation; Craig Mielcarz, an electrical engineer who has produced low-cost, battery-operated medical devices; and Dr. Kristian Olson of Massachusetts General Hospital's Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies.

They're seeking a patent for their product, and hope to sell it someday for as little as $3 each.

Meanwhile, AIR has won top prizes in a variety of competitions, including MIT's IDEAS Global Challenge, Dow's Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge program, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Saving Lives at Birth partnership.

"It has great potential to change something that has a huge impact on the quality of life of infants all around the world," said Kate Mytty, who used to run the MIT IDEAS challenge. "People are trained on infant resuscitators all over the world, but they're still not working well. This makes it possible to understand why these resuscitators aren't working."

Money from those awards will pay to create more models and conduct a clinical trial in Uganda, 
Cedrone said.

As for Cedrone, who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering last year, there's no telling what's next.

"I don't know what the future holds," he said. "Less than a year ago, everything I was doing was aimed at energy. This just kind of came across my radar."

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3-D Pancam's big potential

Video cameras can do a lot today, but picture one that has such varied uses as entertainment, surveillance, facial recognition — even interior design — and you've pretty much got the Pancam — or Eric Prechtl's vision of it, anyway.

With enough seed investment, the founder and president of Axis Engineering Technologies says, he's six months away from producing a polished, three-dimensional, panoramic camera that can send video to a 3-D television. And with the right analytics partners, AET could develop later models with each of those other capabilities.

At MassChallenge, the startup accelerator and competition that's named his company a finalist, "We're analyzing different markets and trying to figure out what is the best one to go after first," he said.

As unlikely as it might seem, the 43-year-old Prechtl's quest to build a smarter camera actually grew out of his efforts more than a decade ago to build a smarter helicopter.

While he was working on his doctorate in aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he developed an actuator to reduce the amount of vibration in a helicopter, helping it to fly more smoothly and quietly.

"A similar thought process led us to figure out a way to make cameras smarter, including to make them see in 3-D instead of 2-D," Prechtl said.

He describes his working prototype as a "gnarly laboratory device," 24 inches in diameter, with six spokes, each with two cameras at the end.

Each camera, in turn, is capable of capturing 20 frames per second, "creating a panorama very fast."

Because human eyes are spaced only about 2.5 inches apart, the next-generation Pancam will be only 4 inches in diameter.

To adapt it for interior design and renovations, the next step would be to add software to map a still image of a room, Prechtl said.

The same camera could be used for surveillance to track suspicious movements, raising an alert should someone try to access a restricted area, he said.

And because the camera can see in three dimensions, it could be used by police, the FBI and the military for facial recognition because it could distinguish a person's features better than a traditional two-dimensional camera.

All of this technology doesn't come cheaply. Prechtl estimates the finished product, if it's sold commercially, would likely cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

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