Today in Globe Business
In a laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, graduate students hover around a complex setup that involves tubes, chambers, and dials. The students load sawdust into one side of the machine and, within moments, a brown liquid begins to drip into a catch basin on the other side.
The liquid - known as green gasoline - is the chemical equivalent of traditional gasoline, but cleaner and less expensive. According to its inventor, that means the green gas, also referred to as grassoline, has the potential to transform the economy.
“The goal is to make all of the same compounds you can make from petroleum,’’ said George Huber, the professor leading the research. “When you look at biomass versus crude oil, biomass is significantly cheaper.’’
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Knee-surgery devices maker raises $50 million
A Burlington medical device company, ConforMIS Inc., is set to disclose today that it has raised $50 million from a consortium of private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds, one of the largest investments in a Massachusetts life sciences company this year.
The company will use the money to expand its product line in the growing field of knee resurfacing, a potential $6 billion market, said Philipp Lang, ConforMIS’s chief executive. The company, founded in 2004, will also build up its sales force in the United States and Europe.
ConforMIS, with about 100 employees worldwide, including more than 60 at its Burlington headquarters, takes its name from products that conform to patients’ knees and require minimally invasive surgery. It has introduced three implants used in partial knee replacements and plans to seek approval next year for a total knee replacement product.
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Heavyweights trading punches in digital face-off
Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have been sparring with each other for years. This summer, the gloves have come off.
The two most powerful companies in digital technology are openly invading each other’s most lucrative markets: the office productivity software and computer operating systems Microsoft makes, and Internet search, which Google dominates.
Last week, Google declared an end to “beta,’’ or test status, for its online office software, Google Apps, as part of a new effort to sell the service to corporate users. Then the company said it’s building Chrome OS, a full-fledged operating system for personal computers that will compete with Microsoft Windows. It’s due next year.
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