• Strix Systems certified Digital Payment Technologies’ on-street and off-street parking pay stations which connect to Strix’s wireless mesh networks.
• Cambridge, Mass.-based Vanu has announced a $32 million venture capital investment. Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) led this round of funding, while previous investor Charles River Ventures and Tata Capital participated. The capital investment will largely support business development, marketing and integration currently under way in India. The company also announced two new board members: Bruce Sachs of Charles River Ventures and Promod Haque, managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners.
• Strix Systems and Digital Payment Technologies (DPT) have teamed up to provide cost-effective wireless network solutions for parking meters. Strix Systems certified DPT’s LUKE on-street and SHELBY off-street parking pay stations which connect to Strix Access/One wireless mesh networks. The interoperability of the technologies supports real-time credit card transaction processing, resource monitoring and alarming, pay-by-cell phone integration, real-time reporting, along with remote rate and pay station configuration capabilities.
• Digit Wireless has introduced TRACE, its software enhancement that lets users write words quickly by “tracing” words on touchscreen virtual keyboards and other devices with physical capacitive-sensing keyboards. To input a word, the user simply places a finger over the first letter, skims over each letter that forms the word, and then lifts at the end to activate the final letter, displaying the word on screen. Spaces are inserted automatically at the end of each word. TRACE uses dictionary lookup and predictive technology to improve accuracy. The company’s first product was the Fastap keypad technology.
• Alcatel-Lucent has received WiMAX Forum Certification for its 802.16e compact base station at 2.5GHz. The company’s portfolio is made up of products that comply with the 802.16e-2005 standard (also called Rev-e), which supports fixed, nomadic and mobile services. Currently, the WiMAX Forum has more than 530 member companies including service providers, regulators, equipment vendors, chip vendors and content providers.
• ComSouth named Scott Obert-Thorn as CFO for the company and Mike Penn as vice president of marketing and sales. Obert-Thorn previously served as controller, while Penn worked at Sprint Nextel, US Cellular, and others.