Electronics

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -- Lear Corp., the world's largest maker of vehicle interiors, is poised to expand in the $20 billion global automotive-electronics market after last month's purchase of UT Automotive for $2.3 billion.The value of electronics per vehicle is expected to average $5,400 next year, up from $1,500 in 1990, James Vandenberghe, Lear's vice chairman, said yesterday.Buying the United Technologies Corp. unit created the world's No. 3 maker of vehicle electrical systems, behind Delphi Automotive Systems Corp.

Jim Roche has enough military toys on his office wall to overthrow a puppet regime.A friend who knows his boyish delight in things that go whoosh and bang once joked that being general manager of the Northrop Grumman Corp. electronics division in Linthicum gives Roche access to "the biggest F.A.O. Schwarz in the world."It's about more than toys, of course. Northrop Grumman bought the former Westinghouse plant exactly a year ago next Saturday because its 7,300 workers make radars and other gear for the real-life versions of those attack jets, submarines, helicopters and trucks on Roche's shelves.

William Arthur Anderson, a retired businessman who became a volunteer fund-raiser for Morgan State University and helped garner millions of dollars for scholarships and school activities, died Sept. 22 of cancer at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.Since 1984, Mr. Anderson, who was 77 and lived in Cross Keys in North Baltimore, was a volunteer with the Morgan State Foundation, where he was chairman of the development committee, treasurer and vice-president. The foundation is one of the university's major fund-raising arms.

Strong sales of radar and marine systems at the Linthicum electronics unit helped Northrop Grumman Corp. post 23-percent increases in both net income and overall sales for the first quarter of this year, the company said yesterday.Northrop Grumman reported net income of $75 million on sales of $1.96 billion, up from net income of $61 million on sales of $1.6 billion for the corresponding period in 1996.Last year, the first quarter included just a month of results from the newly acquired former Westinghouse plant in Linthicum.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Circuit City Stores Inc. said yesterday that its fiscal second-quarter earnings fell 23 percent because of spending on special promotions and less demand for consumer electronics.Net income fell to $31.6 million, or 32 cents a share, in the quarter ended Aug. 31, from $41.2 million, or 42 cents, in the year-earlier period.Wall Street expected the nation's largest electronics retailer to earn 30 cents a share, according to 17 analysts polled by IBES International Inc.Sales rose 10 percent to $1.77 billion, from $1.60 billion in the year-earlier period, on sales of major appliances, the company said.

Newt's cavalry shutting down the gummint are not really Commie subversives sent by an alien power to destroy the power of the Free World. That's merely the effect they produce.The electronics-systems division of Westinghouse will finally belong to a company that wants to be in the electronics-systems business. What a switch.Cheer up. Federal lockout or no federal lockout, IRS forms are in the mail.%Break up Nebraska!

David Packard,83, who co-founded electronics pioneer Hewlett-Packard Co. and helped to build it into a $31 billion enterprise with a philosophy of encouraging employee creativity, died of pneumonia yesterday at Stanford University Hospital.In 1938, Mr. Packard and William Hewlett borrowed $538 and founded the Palo Alto, Calif., company in a rented garage. They built it into Silicon Valley's largest employer with 100,000 workers and more than $31 billion in revenues last year.Mr. Packard retired from active management in 1978 but remained the company's chairman until 1993.

LOS ANGELES -- Northrop Grumman Corp. yesterday posted lower-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter, hurt by fewer deliveries of the military contractor's B-2 stealth bomber.Net income was $58 million, or $1.17 a share.In 1994's final quarter, the company had a loss of $121 million, or $2.45, after taking $324 million of pretax charges for an accounting change and asset sales.Per-share results fell short of the average forecast of $1.30 from nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc. will unveil its first product aimed at the handicapped market at the 1992 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.Language Master 6000SE, a talking electronic dictionary, spell checker, thesaurus, grammar checker and message unit, is the first hand-held unit that has full speech capability, said company spokeswoman Mindy Fendrick.The device, priced at $495, was designed as an aid to people with handicaps such as blindness, speech impairments and learning disabilities.

Marilyn M. Rawlings says building her $7-million-a-year company, Cameo Electronics, was a simple matter of having goals and pursuing them in a logical and determined manner."

Baltimore County residents can no longer put most household electronics out for trash collection starting Friday, when a new law takes effect. The county council enacted the legislation to keep potentially hazardous materials such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic out of landfills and waste-to-energy plants. Residents will be responsible for recycling computer equipment, such as monitors, keyboards, printers, laptops, and scanners, as well as televisions, VCRs, DVD players, telephones, including cell phones and answering machines, stereos, fax machines, and video display devices.

When the housing market was booming and credit was readily available, shoppers dropped thousands of dollars on big-screen televisions, stereo systems and the latest computer technology. But splurging on big-ticket items stopped with the turbulent economy. And now consumer electronics stores are feeling the pain. Circuit City announced yesterday it will close 20 percent of its more than 700 stores - including three in Maryland - and lay off 17 percent of its work force just after Christmas.

The high-tech industry's near-term health depends on how badly you need that iPod or flat-panel television. After catering to corporations in its early days, the industry has grown increasingly reliant on consumers. Even during economic slowdowns when businesses tightened their belts, Americans kept buying bigger TVs, sleeker cell phones and faster computers. But analysts say that with people losing their jobs, home prices plummeting and retirement savings deflating, consumers won't continue to blithely spend on high-tech gear.

Sharper Image Corp. Shares declined $1.03 to close at 41 cents. A week after naming a new chief executive, the electronics and specialty gifts retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Less than two years after going public, Visicu Inc. has agreed to sell out for $430 million to the health care unit of the Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics NV. The $12-a-share cash offer represents a premium of 35 percent over Monday's closing price of $8.86 for the Baltimore company that developed systems to monitor intensive-care patients. But the price is far below its trading range in the weeks after its April 2006 initial public offering. Visicu's board has agreed to recommend the transaction, which is subject to regulatory review and a vote of Visicu shareholders.

Eugene Curtis Van Dyke, a retired TV and electronics repairman, died of complications from an infection Aug. 30 at Cross Keys Village Brethren Home Community in New Oxford, Pa. The former longtime Sykesville resident was 70. Mr. Van Dyke was born in Catonsville and raised in Pasadena and Glen Burnie. After graduating from Glen Burnie High School in 1955, he was an Army paratrooper and radio specialist. During the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Van Dyke worked for Himmelfarb Bros., then for Liberty TV, where he was a repairman and later manager.

Alex Linowitz, a former owner of Lafayette Radio Electronics on North Charles Street and an expert at repairing music boxes, died Friday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Fairhaven retirement community in Sykesville. He was 89. Born in New York City and raised in Brooklyn, Mr. Linowitz attended City College of New York. He did not complete his final semester because of financial hardships his family faced during the Depression. "He had to quit school and go to work," said a daughter, Judy Doyle of Reisterstown.

I have held Tyco Inter- national Ltd. shares a long time. Do you think I should keep holding? - R.C., via the Internet There's never a dull moment for shareholders of this Bermuda-registered conglomerate that's working to engineer a comeback in both results and public image. It recently announced a 38 percent gain in fiscal fourth-quarter profits and a $600 million restructuring program to improve operating efficiency. Its underperforming printed circuit group has been sold off, several health-care technology firms have been acquired, and its ADT home-security sales organization has changed from independent dealers to an internal work force.

The $200 Robosapien V2 robot is the must-have Christmas toy for 11-year-old Jenna Jarvis. Toy makers like such passion. And this year, they are selling more toys that cost upward of $100 after watching consumers spend big bucks for iPods and game consoles during past seasons. Even though the toys are pricey, parents like Pete Jarvis are willing to pay. "This will be her big present," said Jarvis, 36, of Pasadena. The $10 Barbies and Legos aren't going away. But toy makers are betting that a blend of high-tech wizardry with life-like horses, Jeeps and robots will get young shoppers to put such extravagant items on their Christmas lists.

Will my Sony Corp. stock ever do any better? - K.R., via the Internet Introduction of Trinitron television sets and Walkman portable music players vaulted this Japanese consumer-electronics brand to the forefront years ago, but that seems a distant past. It is good news for shoppers this holiday season, but not for Sony, that sales of liquid-crystal-display televisions will be competitive and price-driven. Rivals Panasonic Corp. of North America and Samsung Electronics Co. are ready for a fight.