Daily News Briefs

Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions Inc. (TAOS) has been granted a product license from Texas Instruments (TI) to manufacture and market the TIL311 hexadecimal LED display. Terms of the agreement, which is effective immediately, were not disclosed. In 1999, Texas Instruments transitioned out of this line of optoelectronics through a product license agreement with TAOS Inc. for TI's Intelligent Opto Sensors. The TIL311 was Texas Instruments' only remaining optoelectronic product. TAOS will offer the TIL311 through its sales channels and continue customer support through Texas Instruments. TI introduced the TIL311 hexadecimal LED display in the early 1970s. It is used in fault monitoring and other applications that require single- and multi-digit display. TAOS said samples are now available and it is ready to take orders for immediate delivery. . . . Alpine Research Optics (ARO) announced it completed moving into its new, 35,000-square-foot building in December. The facility includes 4000 square feet of cleanroom space for substrate fabrication, coating and optomechanical assembly. In addition, all inspection, cleaning and packaging is now performed under class-10,000 cleanroom conditions. The new address is 6810 Winchester Circle, Boulder, CO 80301 (Phone: 303-444-3420, fax: 303-444-1686, e-mail: sales@arocorp.com). ARO President David Collier said the expansion provides the extra capacity to meet the growing demand for ARO's high damage threshold, high post-coated flat and deep ultraviolet optics. He said ARO has planning permission to add 30,000 square feet of manufacturing and research space as needed. . . . Eastman Kodak Co. announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show 2004 in Las Vegas that it will extend its leadership in the consumer kiosk category by enabling Kodak Picture Maker kiosks with mobile printing capabilities. Beginning next month, camera phone users will be able to beam images to a Kodak Picture Maker using Bluetooth or infrared technologies and to quickly edit, enhance and print their images. Kodak also said it has expanded its global partnership with Nokia in the US to jointly develop kiosk printing services and other retail printing solutions and to engage in a number of co-marketing activities in 2004.