Convention expansion bill item raises ‘red flag’

Hotel tax money from communities all over the Bay State could be pledged to secure the bonds for the $1.1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

"I would say it's a red flag," said Charles Chieppo of the Pioneer Institute. "It's just a very puzzling provision. ... You can make a determination it's worth the extra money or not, but it's not going to pay for itself."

The controversial expansion bill before Beacon Hill lawmakers would give the state treasurer and the secretary of administration and finance the power to essentially use the state hotel tax money as collateral against the loans for the project. That means revenue generated by communities as far away as the Berkshires or Cape Cod could secure the bonds for the Boston project.

Last year, the state hotel tax amounted to $195 million. Some 65 percent of it goes to the general fund (the rest goes to the Massachusetts Tourism Fund).

Chieppo said using the hotel tax as collateral could have implications on how much the state can spend on capital projects, such as bridges and buildings.

And it's a break from the legislation that constructed the convention center in 1997, when the bonds were backed largely by fees generated by Cambridge and Boston.

The provision applies to the 5.7 percent state hotel room tax revenue, not the local hotel tax option that many towns and cities also tack on to room bills.

Massachusetts Convention Center Authority spokesman Mac Daniel told the Herald that using the funds would lower state borrowing costs and could produce a higher credit rating on the bonds.

"The statewide hotel excise tax would remain intact and would not be used to pay for the proposed BCEC expansion. We have no intention to draw upon these taxes. It's simply to provide additional security and lower costs," he said.

The MCCA wants to add 
1.3 million square feet of space, including 335,000 square feet of exhibition space, and says it can do it without new fees or taxes.

The Herald first reported yesterday that the MCCA is proposing to skirt the state's transparency laws by keeping secret all financial information of the private businesses they contract with, even as they seek more power to make deals with them.

Those provisions are in a convention center expansion bill the House Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets will hear tomorrow.

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Twitter tweaks website to attract new users

NEW YORK — As Twitter looks to broaden its appeal beyond its 241 million users, the company is introducing a redesign of profile pages that includes bigger photos, more user controls and a distinct resemblance to Facebook.

"Moment by moment, your Twitter profile shows the world who you are," the company wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "Starting today, it will be even easier (and, we think, more fun) to express yourself through a new and improved Web profile."

As part of changes coming in the next few weeks, users who access Twitter via the Web will notice larger photos on their profile pages. Besides profile photos on the left corner of the page, the redesign includes a large banner photo that resembles the big rectangular cover photos on Facebook pages. Users will be able to "pin" one of their tweets to the top of the page to give others an idea of the topics they like to tweet about. In addition, tweets that receive the most interest from other users will appear slightly larger.

The more visual look is an attempt to attract people who may be intimidated by Twitter's onslaught of text filled with quirky acronyms, at-symbols and hashtags. The changes come at a time when Facebook is adding features to its site that are Twitter-like, highlighting the way the two companies are jockeying for people's time and advertisers' dollars.

Is Twitter saying a picture is worth 140 characters? Perhaps not. The new profiles don't apply to Twitter's mobile app, which is a more popular way to access the service than the website. Mobile is also where Twitter earns most of its money. EMarketer expects about 77 percent of Twitter's estimated $1.1 billion in advertising revenue to come from mobile this year.

Even so, Twitter has acknowledged that it needs to reach a bigger audience. CEO Dick Costolo described the effort in broad terms during the company's February earnings call with analysts.

"By bringing the content of Twitter forward and pushing the scaffolding of the language of Twitter to the background," Costolo said, "we can increase high quality interactions and make it more likely that new or casual users will find the service as indispensable as our existing core users do."

Costolo also promised more visually engaging content, of which the profile page redesign is just one example. Last fall, the company decided to make users' feeds more visual by including previews from Twitter photos and Vine videos.

Twitter's first-quarter tally of users signaled that growth is slowing on the service. The company added just 9 million new monthly users in the fourth quarter, only 1 million of which came from the U.S. It added an average of 16 million new accounts in each of the first three quarters of 2013.

Twitter said in February that it had 241 million users at the end of 2013. By comparison, Facebook boasts some 1.23 billion users, while WhatsApp, the messaging service Facebook is buying for $19 billion, said it had 400 million active monthly users last December.

Twitter has not yet reported its first-quarter financial results, so it's hard to tell if the slowdown is a sign of trouble or just a blip. EMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said in a recent report that Twitter's user base "may be growing more slowly than expected, but the social service has steadily increased its ad revenue and shown that its ads can drive engagement and interaction."

Noah Elkin, executive editor at eMarketer, said advertisers "love the engagement they get on Twitter." That said, he added that the company is still under pressure to grow.

The redesigned profile page, Elkin said, will likely have a "relatively minimal impact" on Twitter's advertising revenue, "unless and until" the company brings the new look to its mobile app.

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The Ticker

U.S. stocks dive again

U.S. stocks fell yesterday, with the S&P 500 posting its biggest three-day drop in two months, as investors bid down Internet stocks and rotated into defensive names to protect against further declines.

Internet stocks were among the day's biggest decliners with Amazon.com down 1.6 percent at $317.76 and Yahoo! Inc. off 3.5 percent at $33.07. The Global X Social Media ETF, which includes Groupon Inc. and LinkedIn, fell 2.5 percent.

The Nasdaq index posted its worst three-day decline since November 2011.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 166.84 points, or 1.02 percent, to 16,245.87; the S&P 500 lost 20.05 points, or 1.08 percent, to 1,845.04; and the Nasdaq dropped 47.98 points, or 1.16 percent, to 4,079.753.

Consumer borrowing rises in Feb.

Consumer borrowing in the U.S. rose more than forecast in February, reflecting the biggest gain in automobile, school and other non-revolving loans in a year.

The $16.5 billion advance in credit exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists and followed a revised $13.8 billion gain in the previous month, Federal Reserve figures showed yesterday in Washington. The median forecast in the Bloomberg survey called for a $14 billion increase.

Gains in the labor market, home values and stock portfolios are contributing to healthier balance sheets and bolstering confidence. Income growth, along with improved credit scores, is giving consumers the wherewithal to take out loans for big-ticket purchases such as new cars, helping sustain spending.

Today

 Labor Department releases job openings and labor turnover survey for February.

 Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing on biofuels.

 Senate Finance Committee hearing on tax preparers.

 Senate Budget Committee hearing on tax reform.

 House Ways and Means Committee hearing on overhauling tax policy.

TOMORROW

 Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for February.

 Federal Reserve releases minutes from March interest-rate meeting.

 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger.

THE SHUFFLE

Eastern Bank, a full-service commercial bank headquartered in Boston, announced it has appointed new trustees and corporators. The new trustees are Patricia "Pat" Maguire Meservey, of Salem State University and Kirk A. Sykes, president & managing director of Urban Strategy America Fund, L.P. New corporators are David C. Howse, executive director of the Boston Children's Chorus and Nancy Nangeroni, chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

If your company has new hires or job promotions,
send along the info with a photo to bizsmart@
bostonherald.com.

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Genzyme resubmits drug to FDA

Three months after the Food and Drug Administration rejected Genzyme's key drug Lemtrada for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, the Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company yesterday said it plans to resubmit its application for FDA review in the second quarter, rather than appeal.

In a statement, Genzyme said the resubmission will include information to "specifically address issues previously noted by the FDA" in its Dec. 27 rejection letter.

A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment.

But in December, Genzyme and its French parent, Sanofi, said the agency had said the studies of Lemtrada were not well controlled and failed to demonstrate that the drug's benefits outweighed its risks, which include thyroid cancer and bleeding.

While an advisory committee recommended that the FDA not approve the drug for newly diagnosed MS patients, "there is a population of patients where the drug would serve a purpose — patients that weren't responding to other medications available," said Richard P. Hoffmann, a Hernando, Fla., pharmacist who served on the committee.

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Cortana to take on Siri

Microsoft's upcoming digital personal assistant gives us a glimpse into the future of how our smartphones and tablet computers will work for us: anticipating — not just responding to — our requests and our needs.

Named for an artificial intelligence life-form featured in its gaming series Halo, Cortana will launch with the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update. In its current state, Cortana is a combination of Apple's voice assistant Siri and Google Now, the Android-based version that is powered by the search giant's body of knowledge.

Cortana was announced last week. Demonstrations and reports indicate Cortana may at times act more like a person than a computer.

In designing its first digital personal assistant, Microsoft actually interviewed personal assistants. So ask her for the nearest good restaurant, and rather than giving you a list more than a dozen items deep, Cortana does research and comes back with one solid choice.

Cortana carries a digital "notebook" with some personal information and preferences, much like a real-world assistant would. If this all feels too invasive, a user can edit the notebook to limit the information Cortana receives. So she won't read your email unless you say it's OK. But what's the point of having a personal assistant if you can't trust that person — er, program — with your personal information. The ability to limit Cortana's access is likely meant to prevent the type of criticism prompted by Google Now's automatic email reading.

Much like hired help, Cortana can respond to phone and text messages, according to Microsoft.

As it learns more about you over time, Cortana becomes contextually aware, knowing who and what is important to you. For instance, you can tell Cortana, "Next time I'm talking to my wife, remind me to tell her how beautiful she is." Microsoft says Cortana will discreetly remind you just as Don Draper's assistant might do. Same thing if you ask Cortana to prompt you to get a present for your wife next time you're at the mall.

Cortana might be Microsoft's best shot at making a real dent in the smartphone market. It's the personality of Siri combined with the practicality and feature-richness of Google Now. And it has an advantage over both in that it will be a presence across all your devices — from your PC to your Xbox and Windows tablet.

Google and Microsoft are the only companies that could do something like this, and Google hasn't. Given that Microsoft is now giving Windows Phones away for free to manufacturers who want to run its software, this slow-to-grow platform couldn't do much more than it's doing to help its chances.

Over the years, lots of people have questioned Microsoft for continuing to throw money at Bing. But Bing is what allows Cortana to work. So maybe the people in Redmond really do know what they're talking about. After all, it seems they've created a personal assistant who's absorbed the entire Internet and knows what to do with it.

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Kitchensurfing brings chefs home

For people who want to entertain with talented chefs cooking in their homes — and learn a little about cooking themselves — it may be time to go Kitchensurfing.

Founded in New York in 2012, the company branched out into Boston last year, pairing customers with professional chefs and amateurs with a culinary flair.

"There's a novelty factor about having a meal prepared for you that's special and intimate," said Kitchensurfing founder and CEO Chris Muscarella, a self-described "competent home cook, but no chef."

"People are amazed at the food coming out of their kitchen," said Muscarella, who grew up in Framingham. "And instead of being stuck in the back of a restaurant, chefs get to actually see people enjoying the food they prepared."

After years of working in the tech industry, Muscarella helped open a restaurant in Brooklyn a few years ago and thought: "If a chef wanted to be an entrepreneur, how would they be able to do what they love without having to put up any money to do it?"

Muscarella's website lets people enter the number of guests in their party and their budget. Kitchensurfing connects them with chefs who send them menus that can be customized, and the price per person. Customers then pick a chef, who shops, shows up at their house, cooks, serves and cleans up afterward.

Chefs are vetted by the company in a test kitchen and set their own prices, with 10 percent of each transaction going to Kitchensurfing.

In Boston, there's Mark Hardin, who prepares a taco and burrito bar starting at $25 per person, and Bing Liu, formerly of Corton and Dovetail — two upscale New York restaurants — who offers a tasting menu beginning at $100 per person.

Jeff Gabel of Boston discovered Kitchensurfing through Twitter and in January hired Chris Borges and Jose Ordovas to prepare a nine-course tasting with wine pairings for two for $300.

"It was comparable to (opulent Back Bay eatery) Clio, but I didn't have to go out, and I got to learn how to make pasta," said Gabel, 25. "I would certainly do it again. I think it's changing how people think about fine dining."

Kitchensurfing chefs Borges and Ordovas, two Harvard graduate students who often cook together when they aren't studying immunology, prepared an elaborate dinner that included duck with dark chocolate and squid ink agnolotti, each stuffed with a single bay scallop and draped in mussel shell broth resembling sea foam, on a plate sprinkled with brown butter powder like sand.

"The beauty of Kitchensurfing is they let both amateur and professional chefs sign up," said Borges, who was trained by his father, a New York chef who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. "It gives us the opportunity to hone our craft. Before, we would get a group of friends together and cook for them. But the stakes are higher when you're cooking for someone who's paying you."

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Phone passwords go high tech

Traditional passwords, sometimes difficult to remember and easy to steal, are inadequate for increasing digital security needs and companies are answering the call with fingerprint sensors, voice biometrics and sound waves.

"User ID and password is how I logged into AOL in 1994," said Andrew Grochal, vice president of operations and finance at digital security company Certus Technology Systems, an early-stage startup that is testing logging onto websites and other secure locations like ATMs using high-frequency sound waves. "The user ID and password is a painful, horrible nightmare, and now everyone has a smartphone in their pocket that can send and pick up sound."

Certus works by sending a unique, one-time sound undetectable to humans ­— like a dog whistle — from a computer to a smartphone app, which then authenticates the user, said Grochal. Because the sound expires 0.3 seconds after use, Certus is significantly harder to hack, Grochal said. Another benefit of Certus, Grochal said, is not having to remember complex passwords.

"The goal is to fix both the user experience problem and the security problem at the same time," he said.

Certus has raised $375,000 from angel investors, and is running a pilot program with a local company. Grochal said the company will likely begin a second pilot in the coming months.

Digital security has begun to move beyond passwords after high profile username and password hacks with the addition of fingerprint sensors in both the iPhone and Galaxy S5, Samsung's flagship smartphone.

"Passwords are more unwieldy and less secure than some of these other methods," said Roger Kay, founder of Endpoint Technologies, a technology research and analysis firm.

Nuance, the Burlington-based company that powers Siri, added voice biometrics to its own personal assistant app last week.

"Entering a pin or a password is clunky," said Josh Lipe, director of mobile products and solutions for Nuance.

For consumers, Nuance is using the voice biometrics technology to improve personalization and understanding, but it offers voice recognition and authentication for businesses to address "increasing consumer dissatisfaction with PINs, passwords and security questions," the company said in a statement.

Lipe said voice biometrics could easily replace a pattern or PIN to unlock a phone, features that have not kept up with advancing technology. "2003 called. They want their features back," Lipe said.

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What’s causing RAV4’s tire pressure warning to light?

I have a 2005 Toyota RAV4 with 115K miles. Intermittently the dashboard's tire pressure warning light comes on, even when all tires are within 4-5 pounds. This is the indirect-type TPM system associated with the ABS brakes. I use the "blinks 3 times" method to get the light to stay off after verifying pressures. The dealer has no clue what is causing this and suggested just ignoring the light. The tire store verified that the tires are OK.

Three of my tires pass the "Lincoln's head" test, but should probably be replaced this summer. One is a warranty replacement so is a slightly different diameter than the others. I think the warranty tire was installed after this problem started but I'm not sure. Where would you start to run this to ground?

Toyota issued a brake system service bulletin in February 2006 that indicated that the Low Tire Pressure warning light can illuminate without cause due to a lack of or improper "re-initialization" after tire replacement or tire rotation. The "blinks 3 times" procedure you described is the proper re-initialization procedure, so it's time to check the tires.

Measure the rolling diameter of each tire by one of two methods. With all four tires at equal pressure, put the vehicle on jack stands and measure the circumference of each tire with a tape measure. Or park the vehicle on dead-level ground with the steering straight, mark with chalk the pavement and each tire at the tire's center-bottom point, roll the vehicle straight forward one tire revolution and recheck each tire's chalk mark. All four marks should be at bottom center of each tire. If not, mark the pavement at each tire chalk position and measure the distance between each mark with a tape measure. This will measure the circumference of each.

Since the indirect TPM system on your vehicle uses the ABS wheel speed sensors to "look" for a wheel/tire rotational speed difference caused by low tire pressure reducing the rolling circumference of a tire, I can't help but be suspicious of the warranty replacement tire. If it is more than about 3 percent larger in circumference, it may be triggering the TPM system due to its larger circumference and different rotational speed.

L L L

I would like to know what is going on with my 1998 Toyota 4-Runner. The engine makes this growling, groaning noise. It sounds like a power steering pump but the noise only appears when the weather is cold. During warm weather it hardly makes any noise. It has 160,000 miles on it, has plenty of pep and runs like a champ. I do not have any problems steering the car. Do you have any suggestions?

Have you ever had the power steering system flushed and refilled with fresh fluid? After 16 years and 160,000 miles, aerated and contaminated power steering fluid may well be causing the whine in cold weather. First, try adding a couple of ounces of SeaFoam Trans-Tune or similar power steering fluid additive. Better yet, have the system flushed and refilled with new fluid. I'll bet this stops the whine.

L L L

Recently on a road trip I was passed by a car on which one of its rear tires appeared to be bouncing up and down. A few miles up the road, it was stopped. That tire had blown out and had taken most of the back bumper with it. What causes a tire to be vibrating like that when cruising on the interstate at 75 miles an hour?

An ignorant motorist. I can't imagine the driver not feeling the vibration from that wobbling tire at that speed. Unfortunately, I've seen more than enough evidence of major problems that potentially affect vehicle safety being completely ignored by the motorist, primarily because nothing had happened yet.

In this case, I would suspect two possibilities. First, a tire that has suffered a structural failure or belt separation in the carcass or a progressive separation of the tread, which could explain the rear bumper damage. Secondly, a dead shock absorber/strut on that corner of the vehicle. The uncontrolled up-and-down movement of the wheel could lead to this type of tire failure eventually.

The moral of the story? If it doesn't look, feel, sound, smell or drive right, stop and investigate why. Not sure if anything's wrong? Have it checked out by a professional.

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Baking up a winning co. recipe

Cake will come in a can, allergy-sufferers will be able to taste-test their food and legislation will be tracked big-data style if the newest winners of Harvard's i3 entrepreneurship challenge have their way.

"This is a launchpad," said Brooke Nowakowski, whose company Spray Cake won the top prize in the Technology and Entrepreneurship category.

Spray Cake, which has filed a patent on its batter in a whipped cream can concept, will use the $10,000 to move closer to production.

"It definitely feels like a shift from something that was a dream of ours to something more attainable," said John McCallum, who said he has been working on Spray Cake long before i3.

McCallum's "dream" ­— cake batter in a whipped cream canister — is targeted toward working families. Spray Cake will let busy families make chocolate and vanilla cakes and cupcakes without the preparation and mess that comes with baking, McCallum said.

Harvard's i3 competition wrapped up on Thursday, awarding $10,000 to winners in four categories.

"i3 was at its most competitive this year, with overall applications up 20 percent," said Paul Bottino, who runs the Harvard Innovation Lab. "This year's winners really had to shine to be recognized."

Another winner, HuePick, will use the prize to turn its detection system for food allergies from a concept into a product.

"It's very difficult to bootstrap a medical device company," said Sam Peinado, referring to running a company without investors and funding.

HuePick, a device that will let people who have food allergies test food before eating, needs seed money to get off the ground, Peinado said.

"This is more of a moment to pat on the back and say good luck, because now the work begins," Peinado said.

Other winners included a data-driven product for tracking legislators and an improved 911 system. A year-long program, i3 is now in its seventh year, and has given out more than $650,000.

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BMW’s SUV runs like a hot rod

Some cars you just know are fast, others have a flashy appearance to compensate for a lack of performance and then there's the 2014 BMW X5, a hot rod disguised as a sport utility vehicle.

Our $73,000 X5 tester was the top-shelf 50i model with a twin turbocharged 4.4-liter, V8 engine. BMW seamlessly blends luxury and cargo capacity in its flagship all-wheel-drive SUV and leaves it up to the driver to discover the X5's astonishing power and coupe-like handling.

BMW actually calls the X5 a "sport activity vehicle" rather than an SUV, which I agree better suits our tester, considering the X5's low ground clearance and 20-inch, low-profile tires. While the X5's sophisticated all-wheel-drive provided peace of mind when I got caught in sleet and then snow on an early spring commute, this BMW, with its robust exhaust note, seemed better suited for the drag strip than picking its way along a rocky dirt road.

When I took the wheel of the X5, I had only a vague notion of the beast under the hood. The first few days, I soaked up the interior's distinctive European leather aroma and dialed in the seemingly infinitely adjustable driver's seat that provided firm support with just enough comfort. I focused on the superb handling that kept the X5 flat through the corners with a decent amount of steering feedback.

Initially, I drove the compact SUV the same way I drive my own car, using the cruise control to conserve fuel. One day on my way to work, I thought I forgot my laptop. I pulled off the highway to check, and sure enough it was in the back. Now I had to find a gap in traffic and get the X5 up to highway speed. I toggled through the X5's drive modes from "Eco Pro," which boosts fuel economy, and the road- dulling "Comfort" mode to the "Sport Plus" mode, which ramps up throttle response, adjusts the shift points of the 8-speed transmission and stiffens the suspension.

After waiting for traffic to clear, I stomped the accelerator. The BMW's 445 horses came to life and I was thrust into my seat. The sides of the road blurred and the 
tachometer jumped far to the right with each precision shift. Cars in the rearview mirror vanished and glancing at the speedometer, I was suddenly well beyond the 5-10 miles per hour of speed limit grace that most state troopers grant motorists. I laid off the accelerator and set the cruise control to an appropriate speed. I couldn't wait for the toll booth up ahead to do it all over again.

City fuel economy at 14 miles per gallon is certainly a downside to the X5's powerful V8 engine. BMW does offer the X5 with a turbo-charged inline 6-cylinder and a diesel option as well, both of which greatly improve the SUV's fuel economy. On top of the $68,000 base price, the X5 has several trim packages. We had the $3,600 M Sport line, which includes upgraded seats and transmission along with "M" badging on the steering wheel, foot rest, and door sills. The X5 50i is a bit overpriced considering the absence of safety technology such as adaptive cruise control, blind spot warning and lane departure warning, some of which are available at an extra cost.

Even with a large rear cargo area that expands with fold-down rear seats, the X5 was a thrill to drive, and it lives up to BMW's reputation, a well-built luxury car with an emphasis on performance.

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