Note to our readers: The Bulldog wrapup of technology news, which has been a staple of WRAL TechWire for years, is taking on a new look. We are expanding it to incorporate Triangle and regional headlines, not just news from The Associated Press and other wires. In effect, the Bulldog will become the new home for other occasional WTW posts such as Triangle Headlines. No one publication in the Triangle can adequately cover all the tech and life science news that’s happening daily – well, make that hourly. The Bulldog, which draws its name from an old newspaper term for early editions and from WTW Editor Rick Smith’s late bulldog Roxie, will attempt to bring you a daily wrapup of highlights.

Today’s report:

  • Apple upping NC investment
  • Netflix’s shrinking DVD business
  • CoLucid Pharmaceuticals sold
  • Biogen settles suit
  • Satellites now track jetliners
  • European GPS anomalies

The details:

  • Apple upping NC investment

Apple is increasing its campus in western North Carolina with another $1 billion in planned expansion, according to The Charlotte Business Journal. The tech giant already has invested some $3 billion in Catawba County for a server farm, a huge renewable energy complex, and other facilities.

“The Catawba County Board of Commissioners agreed Tuesday night to extend its program of incentives to cover the latest investment by the Cupertino, California, company,” the newspaper says.

Read details at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/18/new-apple-investment-in-n-c-could-eventually-push.html

  • Netflix’s shrinking DVD service faces uncertain future

Originally cast in a starring role, Netflix’s original DVD-by-mail service has been reduced to a bit player — one that may eventually get killed off as the company focuses on its booming video streaming service.

Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings report released Wednesday provided the latest glimpse at the DVD service’s descent into oblivion as the streaming service hogs the spotlight.

The DVD service shed 159,000 subscribers during the final three months of last year to end December with 4.1 million customers. That’s an 11-year low for a format that gave Netflix its initial shot at stardom, allowing it out-innovate and outmaneuver Blockbuster Video, then the king of home-video rentals.

Now, though, the DVD service operates mostly as an afterthought that caters to a shrinking audience of die-hards who prefer to watch movies and TV shows on discs instead of streaming or downloading them onto a mobile gadget.

  • CoLucid Pharmaceuticals sold

CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, launched by Pappas Ventures in the Triangle which later moved to Boston, has been sold, according to The News & Observer in Raleigh.

“[The] drug-development company that got its start in Durham but moved its headquarters to the Boston area in 2015, has agreed to be acquired by Eli Lilly & Co. for approximately $960 million,” the paper reports.

See details at:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article127183184.html#storylink=cpy

  • Biogen settles suit

Biogen, which has a large manufacturing presence in the Triangle, has reached a $1.25 billion settlement in a patent dispute involving its “top-selling multiple sclerosis drug,” reports the Triangle Business Journal.

“The deal, which gives Biogen a license to Forward Pharma’s intellectual property, could help the company extend the life of Tecfidera, which accounts for around a third of its total revenues,” the paper says.

Read more at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2017/01/18/biogen-to-pay-1-25b-settlement-in-tecfidera.html

  • Satellite tracking to keep tabs on airliners over oceans

Nearly three years after a Malaysian airliner vanished, it’s still possible, if unlikely, for a plane to disappear. But that’s changing with new satellites that will soon allow flights to be tracked in real time over oceans.

New international safety standards also begin to kick-in beginning next year, although the deadline for airlines to meet most of the standards is still four years away. Even then, it could be decades before the changes permeate the entire global airline fleet because some of the requirements apply only to newly manufactured planes.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished from radar on March 8, 2014, while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. An exhaustive search of a remote corner of the southern Indian Ocean has failed to turn up the aircraft’s remains, and search efforts were called off this week.

“If the exact same thing happened today, I think we’d have the same result,” said William Waldock, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, and former accident investigator.

  • Europe’s Galileo satellites hit by anomalies

The European Space Agency opened an investigation on Thursday into anomalies that have affected five of the first 18 Galileo satellites in orbit.

The agency, which launched the navigation system last December, said however that the failures are not affecting the satellites’ proper functioning.

The Galileo system, named after the Italian engineer and astronomer, is designed to provide commercial and government customers with more precise location data than GPS.

The European agency said in a statement that a total of nine onboard atomic clocks have failed, but insisted it “is confident that the clock issues will be resolved.”

Each Galileo carries four atomic clocks. The nonfunctioning ones are three rubidium devices and six passive hydrogen maser clocks, the agency said.

“No individual Galileo satellite has experienced more than two clock failures, so the robust quadruple redundancy designed into the system means all 18 members of the constellation remain operational,” the ESA said.