Technology

Tessco Technologies Inc. of Hunt Valley reported Friday that its profits increased in its third quarter over the year before, although revenue was down by about 10 percent. Tessco, a provider of products for wireless broadband systems, earned $5.4 million, or 65 cents per share, in the third quarter ended in Dec. 30. That compares with $4.8 million, or 59 cents per share, for the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Revenue totaled $204.5 million, down from $226 million a year earlier.

Last night, I presented a $1.3 billion operating budget proposal for Baltimore County Public Schools for fiscal 2014. Due to financial limitations, the proposed budget does not meet all of our needs, but it provides a good foundation related to our three budget priorities: managing continued growth in student enrollment; raising the bar and closing gaps in student academic achievement; and investing in our future by strengthening our infrastructure....

Gov. Martin O'Malley, speaking at the first statewide forum on college completion, called on Maryland's higher education institutions Tuesday to devise new ways to use technology to bolster graduation rates. "We've done a much better job in getting people to college," O'Malley told educators assembled at Morgan State University for the forum. "We need to improve getting people through college. " O'Malley has called for 55 percent of Maryland adults to have a college degree or advanced certification by 2025.

The state's technology development arm said Monday that it has changed key investment programs, will be managing new funds and has launched a program to help companies seeking patents. The Maryland Technology Development Corp., known as TEDCO, said the changes include raising to $100,000 the amount of funding a startup company can receive for a project from the Maryland Technology Transfer and Commercialization Fund - newly renamed the Technology Commercialization Fund. The maximum had been $75,000.

We who make our living lamenting the lack of progress on improving the environment must applaud when progress does rear its head, even as we refrain from clapping too hard. A decade ago, there wasn't much of anything hopeful to say about septic tanks from the bay's standpoint. I called them "outhouse technology in the 21st century" and "a 50-year-old grossly polluting waste system. " Septic tanks had mostly fulfilled their original purpose of protecting human health where central sewers weren't available by filtering bacteria in household waste through the soil.

Even as epidemiologists worry about a shrinking arsenal of antibiotics to fight potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital are betting on another weapon to prevent infections: robots. It sounds more futuristic than it looks: The hospital uses "robot" devices resembling portable air-conditioning units to saturate the air in sealed rooms with hydrogen peroxide, disinfecting all surfaces before converting the potent mist into water vapor. The technology has been used at the hospital more than 4,000 times over the past five years, with promising results.

The Baltimore VA Medical Center said Wednesday it has become the first hospital in Maryland to offer three-dimensional mammograms, a technology it hopes will better detect breast cancer in women. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year, 3-D mammograms give a deeper view of breast tissue than traditional two-dimensional tests. The device allows doctors to examine breast tissue in individual layers rather than in one big mass. The 3-D views enable doctors to detect small lumps that may get lost in layers of tissue and thus allow earlier breast cancer detection, said Dr. Rakhi Goel, director of breast imaging at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

A little-noticed provision in a massive, $633 billion military spending bill approved by Congress last week will end a decade-old battle over whether to ease export restrictions on U.S. satellite technology. If signed by President Barack Obama, the measure would be a boon for federal space contractors in Maryland and elsewhere who have long argued that the strict rules - intended to prevent foreign countries from obtaining sensitive technology - are so broad they have allowed other countries to surpass the United States in the satellite business.

For the last dozen years, Vince Talbert has focused on one thing: Bill Me Later. The 45-year-old Baltimore native co-founded the online payment company with three partners in 2000. The company helps Internet shoppers buy stuff online without a credit card. In 2008, PayPal, an eBay subsidiary, bought Bill Me Later for $945 million. Talbert, a marketing professional, and his partners made a lot of money and went to work for the bigger online payment company. Lately, Talbert has developed a deep interest in supporting educational technology startups in the Baltimore area.

When Keith Short began delivering packages for UPS in Glen Burnie 23 years ago, he used bulky pads of paper to track parcels and pens that froze in the cold. Today, Short scans packages on and off his truck with a handheld computer that tells him what to deliver where and when, and can even direct him turn-by-turn. "The whole route is in here," said Short of his handheld "DIAD" computer — an abbreviation for for Delivery Information Acquisition Device. The handhelds — now in the fifth generation — have made UPS drivers' jobs more efficient, especially during the peak holiday season when UPS picks up and drops off millions of packages each day. The ideas for improving the technology percolate in the offices of UPS' Information Services Group in Timonium.