New Microsoft center to be window on Mass. innovation

Microsoft New England is launching a technology policy center in Cambridge to increase the computing giant's involvement with industry and government in Massachusetts, the company said.

The Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center in Kendall Square will be announced at an event today, and will focus on moving innovation from research to real world use as well as influencing government policies to help innovation thrive in New England.

"We want to bring together the region's key stakeholders from the technology, broader business, academic and government communities to respond to important issues that are byproducts or unintended consequences of technological advancements," Annmarie Levins, associate general counsel for Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. Levins will lead the center.

An uproar in the state's technology industry recently helped force the Legislature to revisit a controversial tech tax, and the tech community has begun organizing in the wake of the episode. Microsoft officials were not available to discuss the tech tax issue yesterday.

Similar Microsoft policy centers exist in places including Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley.

Microsoft will also award a three-year, $350,000 grant to the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's Education Foundation to help with its mission of increasing computer science in schools.

"This is going to really help us to start mobilizing industry even more," said MassTLC Education Foundation executive director Heather Carey. "I can't even tell you what this means to the education foundation."

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Liz channels Ted on NIH $$

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a step into the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's shoes yesterday, calling for a "nonpartisan" effort to double the funding of the National Institute of Health that could pay huge dividends for Massachusetts.

"I'm calling to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health and to give them more assurance long-term in their funding so they don't get caught up in this crazy budget process," the Bay State's senior senator said at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

"Research creates economic growth. It reduces health care costs. It creates a better life for our people," she said in her speech to Boston business leaders. "Refusing to invest in the NIH is the budgetary equivalent of cutting off your feet to save money on shoes. We are the world leader in this work only so long as we are willing to commit the resources."

In 2011 and 2012, NIH funding nationwide dropped two years in a row for the first time since at least 2000.

Robert K. Coughlin of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council said increased NIH funding will add jobs and other economic benefits here.

"There's a huge local economy benefit," Coughlin said. Of Kennedy, he said, "His leadership many decades ago has led to this industry that exists in Massachusetts today. The members of Congress are trying to continue to build off of that."

Harry Orf, senior vice president for research at Massachusetts General Hospital — which receives the most NIH funding in the country — said bioscience innovation is crucial.

"Whatever nation is at the forefront of that will be leading innovation and will be the leading economy," Orf said. "It's a worthwhile endeavor."

Massachusetts receives the most NIH funding per capita by a wide margin, and of the six hospitals and organizations with the more NIH funding, five are in Massachusetts. In fiscal year 2012, Massachusetts received $2.56 billion in NIH funds.

Sue Windham-Bannister of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center said "NIH funding has a tremendous impact here."

While Warren billed the NIH funding effort as something both sides of the aisle could get behind, that may not be the case.

"It has to be part of a larger discussion about the priorities of spending in our country at large," said Joshua Archembault, director of health care policy at the Pioneer Institute. "I don't think you can get bi-partisan agreement for anything unless you talk about financing."

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Kindle’s Fire HDX a strong iPad alternative

Kindle Fire HDX (starting at $229, Amazon.com)

Amazon's 7-inch powerhouse tablet features a powerful quad-core processor, up to 11 hours of battery life, a front-facing camera, tons of videos and apps, and a "mayday" button that connects you to a tech support specialist via video chat. Those specialists gain remote access to your tablet to help you with any features.

The good: This user-friendly device is an excellent value for Amazon Prime members. The interface is set apart by a smoothness that extends to the Kindle web browser, Silk. And the mayday button makes this an excellent option for tablet newbies.

The bad: The app ecosystem is still a far cry from what you'll find with iOS. Yet the new Kindle is superior to the iPad Mini, and happens to cost $60 less.

The verdict: This is an excellent tablet for leisure travelers and anyone looking for a budget alternative to the iPad. But if you're willing to pony up for a top-of-the line tablet, you might want to wait until the reviews are in for the upcoming iPad Air, which debuts Friday.

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Apple sweetens suite of apps

Apple's newly upgraded suite of productivity and lifestyle apps makes the iPad feel much more like a full-fledged computer. Many consumers can now grab one of those keyboard accessories for the iPad and forget about their laptop.

Simply put: It's a game-changer.

Last week Apple released upgraded versions of its six lifestyle and productivity apps — iMovie, iPhoto, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages and Numbers. Apple's photo and movie editing apps have long given it a leg up on Microsoft, Google and Amazon, but now they're even better, and the productivity apps are a serious blow to the competition.

Two of the lifestyle apps, iMovie and iPhoto, are $4.99 for iOS 7 users and free with a new device. The third, GarageBand — which lets you compose music and plunk around on a virtual keyboard, set of drums or guitar — is now totally free. My favorite is iMovie. It doesn't require the remotest bit of creativity or artistic prowess to make a respectable film. Particularly fun are the templates for trailers. Just pick one of the pre-made templates and add your own video clips and text. It took me 20 minutes to make a funny and poignant trailer documenting my son's first six months.

Each of Apple's productivity apps — Pages (a word processor), Numbers (a spreadsheet) and Keynote (for presentations) — follows a similar formula, with Apple having done much of the work for you. Pre-designed themes and templates abound, each one sleeker than the next. Buttons are unobtrusive and features are intuitive. Basically, it's simpler than ever to make things prettier than ever. Each is $9.99 for existing iOS 7 users, and free for those who purchase a new iPad, iPhone or fifth-generation iPad touch.

The move to make these apps free with the purchase of a new Apple device was a clear assault on Google and Microsoft, who have been luring consumers with free stuff, whether it's free music through the Xbox mobile app, free storage with SkyDrive or Google Docs.

For consumers considering the Apple ecosystem, these newly updated apps may be reason enough to take the plunge. Though the productivity apps aren't going to replace Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint for heavy users, they're just fine for a small business owner or someone who sends out a weekly newsletter or writes the occasional resume, note or essay.

For that reason, the upcoming iPad Air, which hits stores Friday, could be the hottest selling device this holiday season.

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Accelerating growth

MassChallenge, the Bay State's groundbreaking global startup accelerator and competition, is planning an extensive expansion that will include manufacturing facilities and outposts in Israel as well as potentially Europe, Asia and South America, according to its executives.

"We might launch a new office in London or Bogota toward the end of next year," said John Harthorne, MassChallenge's founder and CEO, "and it would launch its first competition in 2015."

The 4-year-old organization offers free incubator space, mentors and grants to innovative startups.

When it moves to the Innovation District's Boston Design Center next summer, its new digs will include for the first time space for manufacturing materials that its startups will be able to use to build prototypes, said Harthorne.

"One of our goals will be to add lots of equipment and tools," he said.

Lightspeed MFG President Richard Breault, who already has helped several startups build prototypes for free, will be donating the materials and expertise, Harthorne said.

MassChallenge, which saw more than 1,200 applicants this year, also will continue its international expansion by hiring a full-time executive director to head up the program it launched in Israel this year with the support of The Kraft Group and EMC Corp., he said.

It also will look to identify locations for new offices internationally and possibly in the U.S., Harthorne said.

Some options abroad include the United Kingdom, Colombia, Taiwan, Korea and Germany.

The organization, which will give its 2013 awards on Wednesday, is building on a startlingly successful track record.

The 361 finalists who completed its annual, four-month accelerator program from 2010 to 2012 raised a total of $362.5 million in funding, created 2,912 jobs and generated $96.1 million in revenue. Of those 361 finalists, 88 percent are still active, 3 percent were acquired, and 265 are based in Massachusetts.

The 78 winners raised a total of about $157 million, created 850 jobs and generated $35 million in revenue. Ninety-four percent of them are still active, 5 percent were acquired, and 59 are headquartered in Massachusetts.

Harthorne attributes these results partly to the expertise of MassChallenge's army of more than 300 mentors and judges, who include entrepreneurs, lawyers, investors, marketers, finance professionals and other executives.

"What we look for is how big is the idea and its impact on humanity, and how likely are you to achieve that," Harthorne said.

Jordan Fliegel won $50,000 in last year's competition for CoachUp, an online marketplace connecting young athletes with private coaches.

Today, the Boston company has nearly 20 employees, recently launched native IOS and Android apps, and has registered more than 12,000 coaches and 40,000 athletes.

"MassChallenge was super helpful for us," Fliegel said. "It really helped us raise money, develop our connections in Boston and in the great local startup ecosystem, and get us to where we are today."

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GOP hopes 'Obamacare' woes have staying power

WASHINGTON — For nearly five years, Republicans have struggled to make a scandal stick to President Barack Obama's White House. One by one, the controversies — with shorthand names such as Solyndra, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious — hit a fever pitch, then faded away.

But some Republicans see the disastrous rollout of Obama's health law as a problem with the kind of staying power they have sought.

The health care failures are tangible for millions of Americans and can be experienced by anyone with Internet access. The law itself is more closely associated with Obama personally and long has been unpopular with the majority of the American people.

The longer the technical problems persist, the more likely they are to affect the delicate balance of enrollees needed in the insurance marketplace in order to keep costs down.

"There's no question the issue has legs, in part because it affects so many Americans very directly and in part because the glitches with the website are simply one of many fundamental problems with this law," GOP pollster Whit Ayres said.

The cascade of computer problems began Oct. 1, when sign-ups opened for the marketplaces at the center of the law. Administration officials blamed the problems on high volume, but have since acknowledged more systemic issues with HealthCare.gov.

White House officials contend the website is just one piece of the broader law offering an array of benefits. They say that when the online issues are fixed — the latest estimate is the site will be working normally for most users by the end of November — few people will remember the problems that have marred the opening weeks of the six-month enrollment window.

"It says a lot about Republicans that their focus here is not on helping Americans get insured, but on making political hay of this mess," said Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's senior adviser.

There's another mess the White House is dealing with that could have long-lasting implications, too: U.S. government spying on foreign leaders. The scope of the surveillance programs was first made public in June and the revelations keep coming. The latest concern the alleged monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone communications.

But unlike with the health law, many Republicans support the government surveillance policies, making it more difficult for the party to create a political furor over the revelations.

For GOP lawmakers, the White House's stumbles on the Affordable Care Act have come at an optimal time, just one week after their strategy to shut down the government in exchange for concessions on health care imploded.

The health care debacle has overshadowed some of the Republican missteps and the GOP appears more than happy to keep the spotlight where it is.

Republicans have scheduled a series of congressional hearings on the program's shortcomings, and have called for officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, to be fired. She is set to testify this coming week before a House committee.

Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist, said Republicans should be wary of overreach, and he urged the party to "focus on the basics" in the hearings. If they do, he said, "they can really align themselves with a lot of public anxiety about what's wrong with Washington."

Anxiety about the website's problems also appears to be on the rise among members of the president's own party, a worrisome sign for the White House.

Ten Democratic senators urged Sebelius in a letter to extend the insurance enrollment window beyond the March 31 deadline; White House officials say they don't believe that will be necessary. Also, Democratic leaders have been critical about the seeming lack of preparedness for the sign-up rollout.

"As far as I'm concerned there is no excuse for that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Las Vegas radio station KNPR. "I think the administration should have known how difficult it was going to be to have 35 million or 40 million people to suddenly hook up to a place to go on the Internet."

The health care law has been unpopular with large swaths of the American public ever since Obama signed it into law in 2010. A CBS News survey taken last week found that 43 percent of Americans approve of the law, compared with 35 percent in May.

Crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall said that if the White House wants to prevent the current troubles from being a long-term problem, it will have to do some basic damage control.

"There has to be a component of hand-holding, clarity and bedside manner with the early stages of Obamacare," he said.

The White House appeared to start taking a page from that playbook this past week.

On Thursday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began holding daily briefings to address technical problems with the website, though the many of the issues still remain shrouded from the public.

Republicans are turning to a familiar tactic, congressional hearings. It's the same tactic they took as they looked to connect Obama to wrongdoing in the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the bankruptcy of the solar energy company Solyndra, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' failed gun-smuggling sting operation known as "Fast and Furious," and a number of other problems that have arisen since the president took office.

"This is more than a website problem. We are also concerned about what happens next," GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, chairman of the House committee that will hear from Sebelius on Wednesday, said in the Republicans' weekly radio and Internet address.

Dezenhall said that while investigations may help Republicans do some damage to the health care law, "there's a difference between roughing up your enemy and defeating them."

"They can certainly put some points on the board but I don't see a great Republican coup anytime soon," he said.

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AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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Online:

Health care site: https://www.healthcare.gov

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Nancy Benac at http://twitter.com/nbenac

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Still king of the road

Since fat and happy is not a good way to go through life, engineers of the once-massive Range Rover put it on a diet, trimming 900 pounds. Still, the mighty 2013 Range Rover — with aluminum frame components and lighter-weight body steel — remains the royalty of SUV elegance.

The classically styled luxury SUV still tips the scales at a kingly 5,542 pounds, and it will never top the charts in fuel economy, managing only 13 in the city and 19 on the highway. I squeezed out a couple of miles per gallon more on the highway but one does not buy this vehicle for fuel cost savings.

The Range Rover channels its long lineage and strikes a bold, angular profile with Space Age-style grill and LED lighting display. Don't let the traditional truck-like look fake you out — this is a technically refined auto.

Powerfully built, this machine easily holds its own in performance to match up to muscle cars such as the Ford Mustang and super sport sedans such as the BMWs and Mercedes in instant acceleration. The 510-horsepower, 5.0-liter supercharged V-8 mated to an eight-speed transmission will spin the tires with a punch of the gas and jolt you back into the seat while rocketing to 60 mph in just under five seconds.

And take a $112,000 Range Rover off-road? Of course. Use the branded Terrain Response 2 computer-aided auto-adjust system to propel the truck confidently down dusty trails, through 36 inches of water or glide smoothly over highways. The SUV senses the type of surface you're on and adjusts the power output to the all-wheel-drive to match.

The Supercharged Edition includes a long list of niceties such as a panoramic sunroof, 21-inch wheels and four-zone climate control. The spartan interior is well made and fitted with 
high-quality leather, wood and plastics. The dash and interior is so reserved that even the ghostly electronic gauges seem an afterthought. However, the Meridian-based infotainment center rocks, and the plethora of information about the car seems endless, right down to the display for the power output to each wheel.

Although the seats look fantastic donned in oxford leather, I found the driver's chair lacking lateral support and actually very firm as compared to the seats in the smaller LR2 I tested last spring. I thought those may have been some of the best I've ridden in.

The sight lines are excellent through plenty of acoustic buffered glass and from the tall driving position. The high vantage spot gave me excellent vision from the helm of the full-sized machine. The rear seat is huge and with a push of a button folds down, creating a massive cargo area. I really liked the electronically controlled split tailgate for getting my gear in and out.

Safety concerns are packed into every exterior corner where sensors for the backup alerts, blindspot monitors and forward collision sensors are mounted. The Surround Camera System displays all your viewpoints on the dash, even while you're driving.

The starting price is $99,995 for a vehicle that was born on the farm, can still be driven in your Wellingtons and chase livestock — it also is meant to be piloted wearing your oxfords to the company's front row parking.

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Investors atwitter over Boston visit

Twitter's top executives are expected to meet with prospective investors in Boston Thursday as part of a multi-city roadshow to promote what could end up being one of the largest Wall Street initial public offerings in history.

San Francisco-based Twitter, which is expected to start trading on Nov. 7 under the ticker symbol "TWTR," plans to sell 
70 million shares at $17 to $20 each to raise as much as $1.4 billion, according to a regulatory filing. If all the shares are sold, the underwriters will have the option to buy another 10.5 million shares.

Twitter's conservative valuation and its decision to trade on the New York Stock Exchange are both attempts to avoid a repeat of Facebook's May 2012 IPO, which set expectations too high and was marred by technical glitches for which the Nasdaq was later fined.

"They don't want to make the same mistakes Facebook did," said Todd Van Hoosear, vice president of public relations and stakeholder engagement at HB Agency in Newton.

Max Wolff, chief economist and strategist for ZT Wealth in New York, said he wants to know Twitter's time frame to break even. Last week, the seven-year-old company disclosed that it lost $65 million in the third quarter, three times as much as in the same period a year earlier. It was Twitter's biggest quarterly loss since 2010.

The company, headed by 
CEO Dick Costolo, also needs to demonstrate how it's going to monetize its international users, Wolff said. Right now, 75 percent of its revenue comes from this country, but 75 percent of its users live outside the United States.

In addition, Twitter needs a "discovery plan" that will make it as easy to find people to follow as it is on Facebook and Google, he said.

"In order to be the true powerhouse Twitter could and should be, it needs to solve that problem," Wolff said.

The company also needs a plan to monetize Vine, the popular mobile service it bought earlier this year that lets users capture and share short, looping videos, he said, and Twitter needs a self-serve ad platform to attract small and regional advertisers.

"There's a huge opportunity for Twitter as a second screen for television, especially for events like premieres, the Grammys and the Super Bowl, when everyone's tweeting," said David Gerzof Richard, Emerson College professor of social media and marketing.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

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John Henry takes reins at Boston Globe

Red Sox owner John Henry officially took over The Boston Globe yesterday, right after a Worcester judge lifted a temporary restraining order that had blocked the $70 million cash deal since last Friday.

"The sale has been finalized," said Globe spokeswoman Ellen Clegg.

The deal had been on hold after a ruling by Worcester Superior Court Judge Shannon Frison in a class-action lawsuit brought by newspaper carriers at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The four named carriers in the suit had argued they were wrongly classified as independent contractors and were owed mileage and expenses, which could add up to as much as $60 million for the approximately 1,500 carriers, according to court documents.

Henry's deal, which was completed within about an hour of the release of the judge's decision, includes the Globe, Boston.com, the Telegram and all related properties, including the broadsheet's Dorchester headquarters, seen as the most valuable asset.

Henry has been tight-lipped about his short- and long-term plans for the Globe, but has frequently visited the news plant.

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Hub home inventory way down this fall

A year ago housing inventory levels statewide were down 17 percent from the previous year. Well, here we are a year later and things are pretty much the same — which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That is, unless you're a buyer looking to find a home in the city of Boston.

The fall market is typically the second busiest time of the year for real estate transactions after the spring market. Yet where is the inventory? According to Otis & Ahearn Real Estate, the downtown Boston market currently has 328 units versus 531 units at the same time last year, which is a decline of 62 percent. At the same time, the average price of sold units year to date is $727,457, up from $660,864 last year. That's a 9 percent gain. The downtown market includes these neighborhoods: Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, East Cambridge, Charlestown Navy Yard, Chinatown, Fenway, Financial District, Leather District, Midtown, North End, South Boston, South End, Seaport, West End and Waterfront.

So where is the inventory? Private sellers seem to be more hesitant to put their homes on the market, as they have no place to go. And with an abundant supply of new development inventory just a few years ago, developers who put the brakes on projects then for various reasons, including lack of financing, are now trying to play catch up. But that will take time.

With the last new building selling out at a record pace (Millennium Place in Downtown Crossing), there's not much left on the horizon for new inventory. The bulk of inventory currently being built is to be leased and not sold, although that could change as developers see the continued need for new supply. In any case, the time frame for these projects to be built is anywhere from 30 to 48 months from breaking ground to obtaining their certificates of occupancy, so any new inventory should come in about three years.

"In the downtown market there is only 1.5 months of supply inventory," said Kevin Ahearn, president of Otis and Ahearn. "Since 2004, the city has lost 1,100 units of sales priced at under $500,000." To this end, says Ahearn, "the city and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) are working to promote both higher density and height construction to help with this lack of lower priced inventory."

Two of the three strongest city markets (Back Bay and South End) have just 138 units between them, according to information gathered from the Multiple Listing Service Property Information Network.

Surprisingly, other than the latest bit of sluggishness in the market due to the government shutdown, which sparked a bit of fear with consumers, the market has held steady here in Boston.

According to Ahearn, "The city of Boston should have a record year in terms of overall number of transactions (with the exception of 2004 and 2005) since 1998."

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

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