Clammers see red over ban

The state's decision to close shellfish beds on the North Shore due to the worst red tide bloom there in three years has dealt a devastating blow to the industry at its peak time of year and could jack up prices as worried restaurateurs go elsewhere to buy clams.

State officials have not ruled out the possibility that the microscopic algae, which contain red pigments and harmful neurotoxins, could spread farther south.

"We're hoping not," said Jeff Kennedy, regional shellfish supervisor at the Division of Marine Fisheries. "It's not typical, but it has happened before."

The division has prohibited shellfishing along the Massachusetts coast from the New Hampshire state line to the south side of Cape Ann since Wednesday, when red tide turned up in shellfish there.

The prohibition will likely remain in effect for at least three weeks, Kennedy said, because the division samples shellfish weekly throughout the season and needs three descending counts of the marine biotoxin before it reopens an area to shellfishing.

Until it does, full-time clammers like Brenda and Steve Turner of Ipswich have no income.

"How would no paycheck affect you, especially when you don't know for how long?" she said. "I appreciate what the state is doing to protect people. But we have felt robbed."

Like Ipswich, Essex is one of the state's largest producers of soft-shell clams and was closed to shellfishing as a precaution.

"I understand (officials) don't want to let clams on the market and then have to recall them," said Edward Lane, who has been a clammer there for 30 years. "But financially, it hurts. Once people hear 'red tide,' they stop buying everything."

That's why Marina "Chickie" Aggelakis posted signs yesterday at the Clam Box, reassuring customers that all of the seafood at the Ipswich restaurant she has owned for 28 years is harvested from state and federally approved areas.

"The quantity and the quality aren't affected because we're getting our clams from upper Maine, although I'd prefer to get them from Ipswich," Aggelakis said. "But I pay the top price. Every day, it creeps up."

And it's passed on to customers, who now pay from 6 percent to 8 percent more for shellfish at the eatery, she said.

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Boost in job creation wipes out recession losses

The economy continued to add jobs last month, finally regaining the positions lost in the Great Recession — but with the population growing, experts say more growth will be needed in the years to come.

Employers added 217,000 jobs in May, the latest sign the economy is continuing to slowly and steadily improve.

"Job creation continues to impress, boosting expectations of a near-term recovery in the labor market," said Sterne Agee chief economist Lindsey Piegza.

Those jobs pushed the economy back over the pre-recession peak, five years after the recession ended. Still, that is a largely symbolic benchmark. The U.S. population has grown 7 percent in the past five years, and the Economic Policy Institute has estimated that 7 million more jobs are needed to keep pace with population growth.

"It was a milestone we needed to hit, but our objective has to be a lot higher than that," said Nigel Gault, co-chief economist with the Parthenon Group. "It's nice, but it doesn't mean a lot and it's not really something to celebrate."

Over the past three months, monthly job growth has averaged 234,000 jobs, sharply higher than the 150,000 averaged over the previous three months. The unemployment rate stayed at 6.3 percent last month, the lowest rate in more than five years. Experts said they expect the steady growth in jobs to continue.

"We see the current trend of employment growth continuing for at least the remainder of the year, neither accelerating nor decelerating," said Doug Handler, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight.

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Janitors balk at being broomed by MBTA

The union representing MBTA janitors yesterday called on lawmakers to oppose plans to cut cleaning staff by one-third and reduce the hours of those still on the job by Sept. 1 — steps they said will lead to dirtier stations as employees bear heavier work loads compounded by the T's recent expansion of late-night service.

"We're asking legislators to send a loud and clear message that this is unacceptable," said Roxana Rivera, district leader of 32BJ Service Employees International Union. "These cuts will put almost 100 janitors out of work ... And the remaining workers will face unsustainable work loads. There's no way they're going to be able to keep up."

State Sen. Anthony W. Petruccelli (D-East Boston) said he wants the T to look elsewhere for savings.

"We're very concerned about the quality-of-life effect ... and the burden this would place on displaced workers," Petruccelli said.

Last September, the MBTA awarded two 5-year cleaning contracts totaling $61.8 million that enable the companies to reduce staff after the first year, "provided the changes do not adversely impact quality and performance," T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in an email.

The T will conduct regular quality inspections, on its own and with auditors, at frequencies adjusted to reflect property type and passenger volumes, Pesaturo said. Over the past 10 weekends, for example, the T has had 215,380 late-night riders since extending service, he said.

The contractor's performance can result in penalties or incentive payments, Pesaturo said. The contractor is required to share at least 50 percent of the latter with the employees, he said.

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Emotional robot set for sale in Japan next year

TOKYO — A cooing, gesturing humanoid on wheels that can decipher emotions has been unveiled in Japan by billionaire Masayoshi Son who says robots should be tender and make people smile.

Son's mobile phone company Softbank said Thursday that the robot it has dubbed Pepper will go on sale in Japan in February for 198,000 yen ($1,900). Overseas sales plans are under consideration but undecided.

The machine, which has no legs, but has gently gesticulating hands appeared on a stage in a Tokyo suburb, cooing and humming. It dramatically touched hands with Son in a Genesis or "E.T." moment.

Son, who told the crowd that his longtime dream was to go into the personal robot business, said Pepper has been programmed to read the emotions of people around it by recognizing expressions and voice tones.

"Our aim is to develop affectionate robots that can make people smile," he said.

The 121 centimeter (48 inch) tall, 28 kilogram (62 pound) white Pepper, which has no hair but two large doll-like eyes and a flat-panel display stuck on its chest, was developed jointly with Aldebaran Robotics, which produces autonomous humanoid robots.

Besides featuring the latest voice recognition, Pepper is loaded with more than a dozen sensors, including two touch sensors in its hands, three touch sensors on its head, and six laser sensors and three bumper sensors in its base.

It also has two cameras and four microphones on its head and has Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking capabilities. Up close, it bears a resemblance to C-3PO in "Star Wars," especially in its clueless look.

But a demonstration Friday at a Softbank retailer in Tokyo highlighted the robot's shortcomings as much as its charm.

Voice recognition takes a while to kick in, when its eyes light up in a listening mode after the robot stops talking, making for less than spontaneous dialogue, similar to the frustration one experiences talking with iPhone's Siri.

Pepper was more fluid with its own chatter, such as asking "Do you do Twitter?" or "Is this the first time you ever spoke to a robot?" But it wouldn't really wait for an answer, rattling on to the next topic.

Sometimes the robot failed to catch a speaker's words and would say: "I could not hear you. Could you say that again?"

When a person shouted in a big voice to test out how well it read emotions, it didn't do much except to say: "You look like an honest person."

In Thursday's demonstration, Pepper sang, "I want to be loved," and it did more singing and gesturing with its hands Friday.

But all its song-and-dance acts seemed to prove was that the machine needs to learn a lot more tricks to impress robot-savvy Japanese. The Softbank shop barely drew a crowd besides a pack of reporters with their cameras.

Cuddly robots are not new in Japan, a nation dominated by "kawaii," or cute culture, but no companion robot has emerged as a major market success yet.

Sony Corp. discontinued the Aibo pet-dog robot in 2006, despite an outcry from its fans. Honda Motor Co. has developed the walking, talking Asimo robot, which appears in Honda showrooms and gala events.

Many other Japanese companies, including Hitachi Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp., have developed various robots. There is little emphasis on delivering on practical work, in contrast to industrial robots at factories and military robots for war.

But the potential is great for intelligent machines as the number of elderly requiring care is expected to soar in rapidly-aging Japan. Robotic technology is already used to check on the elderly and robots might also play a role in reducing feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Softbank, which owns Sprint of the U.S., boasts more than 100 million subscribers globally. Aldebaran Robotics, which has offices in France, China, Japan and the U.S., is 78.5 percent owned by Softbank.

"I've believed that the most important role of robots will be as kind and emotional companions to enhance our daily lives, to bring happiness, constantly surprise us and make people grow," said Bruno Maisonnier, founder and chief executive of Aldebaran, who appeared on the stage with Son.

Pepper can get information from cloud-based databases and comes with safety features to avoid crashes and falls, and its capabilities can grow by installing more robot applications, according to Softbank.

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Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osD6O4LAcpo

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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at twitter.com/yurikageyama

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Contest nets new faces for public spaces

Some of the Hub's public spaces will be getting a new look — with everything from a portable reading room to traffic light control boxes turned into benches — thanks to an innovative design contest.

"We were blown away by the talent and the creativity and the sheer number of ideas," said Kris Carter of the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics.

The winning designs in the city's first Public Space Invitational were unveiled last night. Nine winners and five honorable mentions were selected from more than 70 proposals.

"This competition is a celebration of the city's immense talent, and the creative community's interest in improving our city," Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a statement.

The winners range from the practical to what the city called "Random Awesome Designs," including:

• Making benches out of traffic light control boxes by flipping them on their sides.

• Partially submerging musical pipes into the Fort Point Channel to make different sounds depending on the tide.

• Creating a permanent video link to another city by projecting live views between the two cities.

The contest also solicited proposals for redesigning parts of City Hall, including a 55-foot photograph of the sky on the lobby ceiling, as well as rainbow-colored "stairs of fabulousness."

The winners, whose designs had to cost less than $4,500, will now work with the city to finalize their proposals.

"We'll sit down with the winning teams and hash out the project a little more," Carter said. "You'll start seeing some of these out on the street as soon as the summer."

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Survey: RN staffing critical

One in four Bay State nurses says that patient deaths are "directly attributable" to having too many people in their care at one time, according to a new survey.

The survey, commissioned by the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United, also found 46 percent of nurses said understaffing has resulted in injury to patients, 51 percent said it has led to longer hospital stays, and 57 percent said it has led to medication errors. Research firm Anderson Robbins did the survey of randomly selected nurses.

"It is unacceptable that erratic staffing decisions lead to medical errors, complications, readmissions and death," said state Rep. Denise Garlick (D-Needham), who is also a nurse.

Garlick is a co-sponsor of the Patient Safety Act, which would allow the state Department of Public Health to limit the number of patients a nurse could have. A proposed ballot initiative would limit the number to four.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association called the survey "not credible" and said it was "troubling that the union, to advance its political agenda, would issue such unsubstantiated safety claims that run counter to the publicly available data and evidence."

Joshua Archambault, director of health care policy at the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank, said: "Without question patient safety remains an issue for the medical industry to wrestle with, as the survey finds. However, efforts to mandate nurse staffing ratios are misguided and packed with unintended consequences. They reduce flexibility at a health system and send ripple effects far outside a patients' room."

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Charlie Baker urges state pols to demand full Obamacare costs

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Baker urged Beacon Hill budget-makers to find out how much taxpayers have shelled out so far trying to implement Obamacare — a colossal failure he could inherit if he wins the Corner Office next year.

"The people deserve to know how much it's going to cost them to pay for this disastrous rollout, both this year and next year," Baker told the Herald.

A proposal by House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R-North Reading) for a full Obamacare accounting passed as a House budget amendment last month, but was not in the Senate version. Baker sent a letter to the six members of a budget conference committee.

"Rather than being transparent with the public about the cost of their failures, the administration has refused to provide a full accounting of the cost of implementing the ACA," Baker wrote to the conference committee. "And thus far, many in the Legislature have resisted efforts to demand such an accounting from the administration. You now have an opportunity to remedy this, and I urge you to do so."

The Herald reported last month the cost to implement Obamacare in Massachusetts has surpassed a half-billion dollars.

The budget conference committee, which meets behind closed doors, gathered for the first time yesterday to iron out differences in the House and Senate budgets.

A spokeswoman for Senate Chairman Stephen Brewer (D-Barre) said he couldn't talk about Baker's letter, citing the confidential nature of the committee. An Administration & Finance spokeswoman said the state gave lawmakers detailed costs in April and will provide updates before the end of the fiscal year.

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Students learn with ‘Bee-Bots’

Wide-eyed, smiling robots have rolled into Boston's kindergarten classes to serve as high-tech instructors preparing the kids for the brave new world that awaits them.

Don't be alarmed. They are just 5-inch-tall "Bee-Bots," simple robots that the kids can program to go forward, backward and turn.

"For a good technology future, you need to bring the technology down to the younger kids," said Ann-Marie Cunniff, a kindergarten teacher at the Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown.

The Bee-Bots require the students to plan out a route, "write a program," and then run their basic code. The most valuable learning, Cunniff said, comes from having to plan out each step the robot will take.

"You're going to take things from the concrete to the abstract," she said. "(The Bee-Bot is) a tool that is going to let you do so many things for a developing brain."

"It is a core mission to integrate technology into our core curriculum," said Mark Racine, BPS chief information officer.

"We want to start very early on and give all of our students an opportunity to see what computer programming is."

Plans for technology education in the schools include:

•   A Robotics Olympics at the Wentworth Institute of Technology Saturday.

• Robotics programs in the upper grades.

•    Adding 10,000 Google Chromebooks to classrooms.

• Boosting WiFi in every classroom.

"This is all building towards something, we're going to become a digital district," said BPS spokesman Lee McGuire. "Everything we do is involving technology in some way, because it enhances learning."

Bill Glass, president of Terrapin, the Cambridge-based U.S. distributor of Bee-Bots, said they help young students learn advanced concepts just by playing.

"They'll learn as they go and develop creative thinking skills, problem solving, estimation, counting," Glass said.

Some of Cunniff's students will take part in Saturday's Robotics Olympics.

In her class yesterday, students were navigating custom maps of the MBTA and using Bee-Bots to visualize addition and subtraction. For 6-year-old Hudson Danilla, that meant telling the Bee-Bot to follow the route of the Green Line, his favorite.

"It is so awesome," he said.

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Apple hopes for home run

We'll find out soon whether the rumors are true and Apple wants to turn the iPhone into a smart home controller.

But this latest innovation, expected to be unveiled during the kickoff of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference today, needs to be more than just Siri turning the lights on. It also needs to be more than using your Apple TV as a security camera.

For shareholders and consumers to buy into this new product lineup, it's going to have to provide real utility in uncharted territory — such as comprehensive home security or surveillance that turns all the old Apple products lying around the house into security cameras and sensors.

Because while it may sound cool to have my iPhone trigger the lights in my home when I arrive, the concept poses the same dilemma as a smartwatch: it's a solution for a problem I 
don't have.

The same goes for another alleged connected home breakthrough, Samsung's $3,500 smart refrigerator. If I wanted my fridge to contain mobile apps, I'd rather have one that simply has a place to dock my iPad. But at the moment, I think most consumers are interested in having a fridge that keeps food fresh.

So too with the lights in my home. There's not a lot wrong with the old low-tech on/off switch. And this is why for all the talk of a connected home revolution, it hasn't quite materialized.

Interestingly, the same isn't true for all home appliances. Take thermostats and smoke detectors. Nobody ever quite figured out how to make these devices anything more than a domestic disturbance. That is, until Nest Labs came along — ironically founded by two Apple alums, including the so-called "Father of the iPod." Because of that connection to Cupertino, many Apple observers had assumed the company would pull out all the stops to purchase Nest and its sleekly reimagined thermostats and smoke detectors. But for some reason, that didn't happen. Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion, setting the stage for its own big foray into home automation — and putting Apple at a severe disadvantage in this space.

What's more, Apple already hawks many of the home automation products it may seek to compete with starting today. The Apple store sells all manner of smart lightbulbs and apps-connected baby monitors. So many companies — even Microsoft with its Xbox One — have gotten a jump on Apple in the smart home arena that it's hard to imagine Apple CEO Tim Cook pulling out a showstopper today.

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Startup to deliver encrypted email

A new email service being developed by a group from MIT and European research center CERN promises to bring secure, encrypted email to the masses and keep sensitive information away from prying eyes.

"We guarantee only the sender and receiver can read the messages," said Andy Yen, a co-founder of ProtonMail. "We have zero access to user data."

ProtonMail's approach is to appeal to average consumers who may not know much — if anything — about encryption or digital security, but still want more online privacy. Many secure and encrypted email systems require long password keys, and do not put emphasis on user experience.

"The whole point of ProtonMail is we want to make encryption and security available to the mainstream," Yen said. ProtonMail has many features in common with popular email clients that many are used to, including contacts and the ability to "star" important messages.

Nicco Mele, a digital privacy expert and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said tools that offer more privacy are important, but the public hasn't caught on yet.

"Since the NSA and (Edward) Snowden revelations, the broad public's interest in greater security and privacy has risen," Mele said. "There's also a gap between what they believe and what they do."

Mele said ProtonMail, which he had not yet used, could be part of a wave of startups trying to make security accessible.

"There has generally been a trade-off between security and ease of use," Mele said. "That trade-off for the most part has been slowly closing."

Yen and his co-founders developed ProtonMail while at CERN shortly after the Snowden leaks began.

"It seems like the right place and right time to do something like this," Yen said.

The servers are in Switzerland, which means any government trying to get access to the little data ProtonMail says it collects would have to work through Swiss digital privacy laws, some of the toughest in the world.

Yen said the second-most popular country for ProtonMail is Russia, where users are trying to avoid a snooping government.

"Users control their information," Yen said.

Users also control their accounts, Yen said, and do not have to worry about pressure from investors or parent companies. Yen vowed to keep ProtonMail independent, so the company is not accepting investors, and Yen said they have already turned away some who were interested in acquiring the company.

Instead, ProtonMail will run off of premium accounts, which add extra features like additional storage to the standard, free accounts.

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Suburban owner wonders why sunroof won’t close

The sunroof on my 2005 Suburban will not close. I turned on the ignition switch to lower the windows and open the sunroof to air out the interior a couple of weekends ago. I left the key on after opening the windows and discharged the battery to the point where the windows and sunroof would not close. I charged the battery and the windows closed, but the sunroof moved about an inch and stopped. To reprogram the sunroof, the manual states to push the switch to the vent position to start the programming process. However, the window is open and will not close to start the process. A Chevy dealership and a business that specializes in interiors and sunroofs did not have an answer or a possible solution without bringing it in.

According to the GM reprogramming instructions in my Alldata automotive database, even if the sunroof won't close when you push the switch to the vent position, hold the switch in this position for at least 30 seconds until you hear a slight clicking noise from the front of the sunroof — this should confirm the reprogramming was successful.

If this doesn't work, the sunroof assembly must be removed so that the motor can be removed and the guide pins pushed all the way forward to the stops. Good luck.

Several months ago my '05 Hyundai XG350 displayed an "air bag" message in my dashboard. I had my dealer perform a diagnostic test that informed me I had a "bad air bag" located in the driver's seat. The cost to repair: $1,500 for the part, plus labor. I declined. My brother has a mechanic friend who suggested I "turn on your cruise control." Within five minutes the airbag light went out. To this day, several months later, the airbag light has NOT come on. I have called several dealers and shops asking if another diagnostic test can be performed without the light on and they all replied they cannot do another test. I truly believe the "sensor" was the cause of this air bag message and that I do not have a bad air bag. Do you have any other suggestions?

Wow! Who ever said that automobiles cannot be "self-healing"? I have absolutely no idea how or why the operation of the cruise control would have any influence on a restraint system fault code, but I can tell you that if the air bag warning light flashes during its initial self-test when you first turn on the ignition, then goes out for the duration of your drive, there is no current fault with the system.

With that said, most 
"B-series" body codes will stay in memory until cleared by a scan tool. So it would seem the original DTC code for the airbag light should still be in the computer memory. You should have the dealer scan the body control module for any stored restraint system fault codes.

I have a 2005 Chevy Silverado 1500 with 115,000 miles on it. Just recently my gas gauge needle went from 3/4 to way over full and stayed there for several days and is now working fine. Yesterday my oil pressure gauge needle went from normal to off the gauge on the high end. I checked my oil level and it is in the normal range. What do you suggest?

GM issued several bulletins on this type of instrument cluster issue for your year truck and ultimately extended the warranty on these components out to several years/70,000 miles for parts and labor, and an additional 10,000 miles — a total of 80,000 miles — for parts only.

I wouldn't hesitate to ask the dealer to ask GM for some type of "customer goodwill" adjustment to help with the cost of the repair. If no help is available — your vehicle is significantly past the extended warranty — you'll have to choose whether to have it repaired or live with the condition.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paulbrandstartribune.com. Please explain the problem in detail and include a daytime phone number. Because of the volume of mail, we cannot provide personal replies.

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Cape Cod apartments for those with limited vision

YARMOUTH, Mass. — Life with limited vision can be challenging, but a partnership between a local nonprofit organization and a Cape Cod assisted living facility could make it a little brighter.

The Cove at Thirwood Place, located on Flax Pond in South Yarmouth, is now marketing a new low-vision support services program complete with apartments outfitted with technology to help residents read, cook and better manage their environment.

"We're equipping these apartments to make life easier for folks with low or impaired vision," said Larry Lyford, director of sales and marketing at Thirwood Place, during a recent tour of a prototype unit.

Lyford and a small army of other officials, including Cynthia Stead, who is executive director of Sight Loss Services Inc. Cape Cod and Islands and a Times columnist, showed off a device that warns a user before his or her cup literally runs over and a computer mouse that reads and digitizes text, enlarging it on a flat television screen.

"I always like to demonstrate them on telephone books," Stead said about the reader's ability to boost the size of small print.

The apartments also come equipped with an iPad loaded with applications to scan bar codes, read money (Lyford showed how it could discern a $5 bill in his hand) and read aloud the resident's calendar, news, weather and notes.

In the kitchen, adjustments ranged from the high tech (a talking microwave) to the simple (a cutting board colored black on one side and white on the other for contrast). The apartment also included a talking thermostat, thermometer and bathroom scale.

Stead and Thirwood officials said they expect the number of people with impaired vision on Cape Cod to continue to rise.

Last year, Sight Loss worked with 2,048 clients, including both individuals and institutions, Stead said. At least 1,500 of those are people with sight loss, she said. Barnstable County puts the number of legally blind residents at 1,900, she said.

"It's probably closer to 7,000," she said about the region's population with low or impaired vision. That could easily double in the next 10 years, she said.

The Cove low-vision apartments — which can be equipped to order — also come with dimmers on all the lights and a high-intensity task lamp, said Beth Patkoske, spokeswoman for the Davenport Cos., which owns Thirwood.

The company is working with other partners to provide even more services and to train its employees to be better-prepared for clients with limited vision, said Lyford and Paul Rumul, chief operating officer for Davenport.

"The thing that's going to make the difference is the staff, the care and compassionate follow-up," Rumul said.

The technology and services are available for a one-time added cost of $2,000, which pays for equipping the apartment, he said.

Because help at the Cove is available 24 hours a day, residents can be taught how to use the technology as often as necessary, Patkoske said.

Thirwood, which has 212 units on 45 acres, is also collaborating with Cape Cod Healthcare and a doctor who works specifically with individuals who have low vision, she said.

Thirwood also offers scribe services to read residents mail or write out cards for them, Rumul said.

This is important because, while the reader technology can read printed material, it still has trouble with most handwriting, Stead said.

"This isn't just new to the Cape," Stead said about the suite of services. "This is new to New England."

Despite research and progress at a significant cost, sight loss diseases are largely incurable, she said.

"It's a matter of managing a condition as long as you can," she said.

Rumul admits offering the low-vision services makes sense in other ways as well.

"This is just good business," he said.

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