To: Benjamin Shell who wrote (496 ) 1/13/1998 6:31:00 PM From: Lee Bush Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1781
Ben: One investor concern with continued bulletin board status is that lower-priced stocks that do not report regularly will be dropped from the electronic bulletin board (EBB) and only appear on the paper pink sheets. As HTSF has been very good at reporting, I assume that we will continue to have prices posted on the EBB. Thank you for your continued concern for you shareholders. We look forward to a great 1998. The company looks much stronger than it did during the time that the shares were based above $2.00. I see no reason why we cannot return to that level again, and the investment banker will certainly help our current situation. I noted that the NIST has assigned a high priority to the development of individual learning computer programs. See the following: --------------------------------- C) Copyright 1998 Investors Business Daily, Inc. Tech Funding: Criticism Fails To Slow NIST Date: 1/13/98 Author: Matt Krantz It's an age-old debate that's torn apart nations and ruined cocktail parties: Is innovation the job of business or government? At the epicenter of the debate in the U.S. is the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology. People argue over how much funding - if any - should go to NIST, created in '90 to fund technology projects and the Malcolm Baldrige quality award. Congress has earmarked $672.9 million for the agency in '98, a 19% jump over '97's budget. Raymond Kammer, appointed NIST's director in November, recently spoke with IBD about his hopes for the agency. IBD: How did you react to the government's latest funding decision? Kammer: I took it very favorably. It was a significant increase. The appropriation for (NIST's) Advanced Technology Program (which funds projects) was $192.5 million. Of that, over $80 million is for new programs. Given the intense controversy of the program, I took that as a welcome sign. IBD: Why does government need to take a role in research and development? Kammer: The marketplace does short-term (R&D) work extremely well. But as international competition has increased, the focus of much of U.S. industry's research has gotten closer to the marketplace. About 20 years ago, all large U.S. industrial firms had basic research labs. General Electric (Co.) had a great lab. AT&T (Corp.) had Bell Labs, which had a Nobel prize winner every other year. Steel companies had amazing corporate research labs. Basically, that doesn't exist anymore. Basic research is something companies look to government and universities for. IBD: How does ATP help? Kammer: The focus of ATP is that if the government brings the risk down by putting up half the money, can we get people with novel ideas in the private sector to focus farther out? If the program turns out as well as the early results suggest, I think the controversy will be over. People will say, ''That works, and works well.'' IBD: Is there an example yet of the program's success? Kammer: One of the companies we supported early on was Cree Research. It wanted to improve the process to grow large silicon carbide crystals, which are building blocks of optical electronic devices. Have you ever seen a blue light-emitting diode? That's a silicon carbide crystal. Cree had ideas on how to increase the yield and lower the price. They did. The price of these crystals dropped from 46 cents to 18 cents. As a result, Cree's sales went up 860%. They're now a market leader, and they're even exporting. Cree went from 41 employees to 140 employees. We're just now seeing results. It takes five, eight, 10 years to get the payoff from a project. We're just now having projects old enough to be evaluated. IBD: In what technologies is NIST interested? Kammer: We're excited about the potential for further contributions from biotechnology. One of the companies we supported is getting favorable results from a novel treatment for diabetes. Human bodies produce insulin, which regulates blood sugar in something called the islets of Langerhans, located in the pancreas. This company's developed and is now testing artificial islets of Langerhans. That mean a more natural form of regulating it, with no needles for the patient. The effect that could have on the quality of life for many individuals would be remarkable. Also, as portable phones get as portable as portable computers, everything's going to get smaller. One of the constants we think people will need are power supplies. On your portable telephone, for instance, there are two size-determining issues. One is the interface . . . . You want to be able to speak and hear at the same time. Second is the size of the batteries. There are technologies that could be commercialized that would allow batteries to not limit (device size). Maybe this will lead to very novel designs for telephones and other portable devices. Another area that has a lot of potential is learning technology. We need more efficient ways to teach humans. That may be by using a computer that lets students set their own learning pace with an expert system that points out topics that need to be learned. ---------------------- Lee