Productive Development

Toyota Motor Corp.'s new Prius hybrid sedan has topped rival Honda Motor Co.'s Insight two-seater in the latest round of the automotive "green" wars. And a Toyota spokesman said Wednesday that advance orders for the five-seat Prius have exceeded expectations and will prompt the company's U.S. sales arm to seek a production increase.

Stanford Ovshinsky was not a household name like Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein, but he was often compared to them, for good reason. He invented the nickel-metal hydride battery, which has powered high-tech items such as cellphones, laptop computers and hybrid cars. He created paper-thin solar panels potent enough to work on a cloudy day and cheap enough to be produced in sheets a mile long. PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012 He founded a whole field of electronics that earned him a mention in dictionaries (see "ovonics")

General Motors Co. on Thursday continued a shake-up of its executive ranks, naming its first female product development chief. The Detroit automaker said Mary Barra would become senior vice president of global product development and be responsible for the design, engineering and vehicle quality of the company's 11 brands around the world. The appointment comes as GM faces a slowdown in new product introductions this year and next, threatening to slow the momentum of its recovery from a 2009 bankruptcy and the closing or sale of four of its eight U.S. car brands.

Ford Motor Co. announced a series of senior management changes but gave no hint to who might succeed Alan Mulally as the automaker's next chief executive. Lewis Booth, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Derrick Kuzak, group vice president of global product development, have elected to retire effective April 1. Each has served the automaker for more than 30 years and at times has been mentioned as a possible successor to Mulally. Booth, 63, will be succeeded by Bob Shanks, who is currently vice president and controller, it was announced Thursday.

StarTel Corp., an Irvine-based manufacturer of telephone marketing and answering systems, reported a net loss of $437,000 for the second quarter, compared with an $88,000 profit during the same period in 1986. Sales were $2.3 million, down 24% from $3 million a year ago. For the first half of 1987, StarTel reported a loss of $1.2 million, compared with earnings of $152,000 a year earlier. Sales for the six months were $4.2 million, down 25% from $5.6 million in 1986.

Dan Brown has been appointed corporate vice president of product development for MTI Technology Corp. in Anaheim. Prior to joining MTI, Brown was senior vice president of engineering at Storage Concepts in Irvine, and vice president and managing director for the I/O product division at Western Digital in Irvine. Lee Bridges has been appointed to the newly created position of vice president of key accounts for Superior Business Network in Newport Beach.

Dental/Medical Diagnostic Systems Inc., Woodland Hills, has received equity funding in a private placement, selling approximately 216 million shares of common stock and warrants to purchase up to 719,101 shares of common stock for $1.92 million. The proceeds will be used for new product marketing and as working capital. Dental/Medical Diagnostic Systems develops and markets products used in dentistry, including a digital X-ray system.

Daniel J. Jinguji has been named vice president of product development for Interactive Buyers Network International Ltd. in Ventura. Jinguji is a former Microsoft Corp. design engineer who co-wrote "Learn Microsoft Visual J++ 6.0 Now," published by Microsoft Press. He developed and taught software engineering at the Boeing Co. before joining Microsoft.

Zygo Corp., a Middlefield, Conn.-based producer of measurement instruments for industrial, scientific and aerospace applications, has established a product development division in Simi Valley. The unit, called the Zygo Flying Height Test Division, will develop and market products for the data-storage industry. It is working on a "flying height tester" for use in the production of high-performance hard-disk drives.

Here's the burning question that tortures a multitude of geeks and marketers in Silicon Valley: "With so many instant millionaires around here, why ain't I one of 'em?" Guy Kawasaki, the original Macintosh evangelist and now chief executive of Palo Alto-based Garage.

Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey will take on a more active role at the fast-growing social networking and microblogging service, the company announced Monday. Dorsey, who has been Twitter's nonexecutive chairman, was named executive chairman in charge of leading the company's product development. Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo announced the new position for Dorsey in a tweet Monday morning, writing that he was "excited" that Dorsey was "returning to the company day-to-day leading product as Executive Chairman.

General Motors Co. on Thursday continued a shake-up of its executive ranks, naming its first female product development chief. The Detroit automaker said Mary Barra would become senior vice president of global product development and be responsible for the design, engineering and vehicle quality of the company's 11 brands around the world. The appointment comes as GM faces a slowdown in new product introductions this year and next, threatening to slow the momentum of its recovery from a 2009 bankruptcy and the closing or sale of four of its eight U.S. car brands.

With dairy prices off nearly 40% from last year's peak, farmers, industry advocates and milk processors filled a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing room Tuesday to discuss lasting solutions to their crisis. Consumer demand, particularly for cheese, has slipped amid the worldwide economic downturn. But production continued to grow. In September, the price dairy farmers received for 100 pounds of milk was $11.90, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, down from a high of $19.50 in June 2008.

Less than a week after Palm Inc. introduced its new Pre smartphone to a warm welcome from critics and consumers, the company said its chief executive, Ed Colligan, was stepping down. Colligan, 48, will be replaced by Jon Rubinstein, 52, who has led Palm's product development efforts since October 2007. An engineer by training, Rubinstein is also a former employee of rival Apple Inc., where he helped develop the popular iPod.

As General Motors Corp.'s "car czar," Bob Lutz has delivered a consistent message to engineers and designers: Abandon business as usual. When GM was on the way to losing $10.6 billion in 2005, Vice Chairman Lutz was the catalyst behind a successful effort that brought the launch of the new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks forward by three months. Getting the revamped GM trucks to dealers last year helped to shore up sagging U.S. sales and beat rival Toyota Motor Corp.'

A treatment for Parkinson's disease that Amgen Inc. considered one of the most promising drugs in its research pipeline didn't work in a clinical trial, the Thousand Oaks biotechnology company said Monday. The drug, called GDNF, had produced startling results in earlier studies involving small numbers of Parkinson's patients. This spring, Amgen showed analysts a video of a Parkinson's patient who was able to jettison his walker after treatment.

Two biochemists with key expertise in the field of drug design have accepted positions at the Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, a development that will strengthen the scientific center's effort to turn its basic research into commercially marketable products. In addition, the scientists could augment the institution's continuing work to create and produce man-made enzymes that Scripps researchers hope could revolutionize industrial processes worldwide. The two researchers, who are to assume positions as full faculty members--the equivalent of full professorships in academia--are: Shapes of Proteins - Jeffrey Skolnick, 35, a professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and a specialist in protein structure.

General Motors Corp.'s new vice chairman and product czar, Robert A. Lutz, was named head of GM North America on Tuesday, signaling an attempt by the world's largest auto maker to return product design and development to the forefront of its business. Lutz replaces Ronald L. Zarrella, who is leaving the company after seven years to become chief executive at his old employer Bausch & Lomb Inc., the optical products maker. Lutz, 69, was a longtime top executive at the former Chrysler Corp.

3Com Corp., a maker of equipment to link computers, gave Broadcom Corp. the right to purchase about 2% of its stock and formed a development alliance with the Irvine maker of communications chips. Broadcom will receive a warrant to acquire 7.1 million shares in Santa Clara-based 3Com over two years, Henry T. Nicholas III, Broadcom's chief executive, said in an interview. Broadcom stock rose $14.63, or 11%, to close at $142.81 a share in Nasdaq trading. 3Com shares rose 34 cents to $9.97.