In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology and life science news:

  • Eight N.C. firms crack the Deloitte Fast 500 list
  • Dignify Therapeutics receives $50,000 N.C. grant
  • BlackBerry offering security software
  • Monsanto reaches modified seed settlement
  • The Turing award is now worth $1 million

The details:

  • The Fast 500 from N.C.

Eight North Carolina firms cracked the 2014 Fast 500 technology list from Deloitte.

The rank, the company and its revenue grow over the past year:

No. 40, MaxPoint, 4,055 percent

No. 263, Issuer Direct Corp., 369 percent

No. 290, Bronto Software, 315 percent

No. 297, Salix Pharmaceuticals, 301 percent

No. 370, PowerSecure, 216 percent

No. 382, AvidXchange, 204 percent

No. 469, SciQuest, 149 percent

No. 479, Cree, 144 percent

  • Dignify Therapeutics Receives NC Grant

RTP-based Dignify Therapeutics has landed a $50,000 grant from the North Carolina Office of Science, Technology and Innovation’s One North Carolina Small Business Program.

The grant came after Dignify received a $159,000 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which is part of the NIH.

Dignifiy is developing drugs to restore bladder and bowel control to people with spinal injury, spina bifida, and other neurological conditions.

  • BlackBerry Expanding Mobile-Security Arsenal

BlackBerry is expanding its efforts to sell mobile-security software on its rivals’ smartphones to help counter the waning popularity of its own devices.

As part of the strategy outlined Thursday in San Francisco, BlackBerry unveiled several upgrades to its mobile security weapons and a partnership with smartphone market leader Samsung Electronics.

Many of the security features will protect smartphones running on operating systems made by Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen is counting on the increased emphasis on mobile security to help the Waterloo, Canada company, to double its annual software revenue to about $500 million. The security arsenal is designed to help businesses and government agencies protect their employees’ smartphones from malicious software and other hacking attacks that can steal confidential information.

  • Monsanto to Pay Pacific Northwest Wheat Farmers

Monsanto Co. says it will pay $2.4 million to settle a dispute with farmers in the Pacific Northwest over genetically modified wheat.

The discovery of the genetically modified wheat in Oregon in 2013 prompted Japan and South Korea to temporarily suspend some wheat orders, and the European Union called for more rigorous testing of U.S. shipments.

No genetically engineered wheat has been approved for U.S. farming.

Federal agriculture officials determined the wheat is the same strain as one tested by Monsanto a decade ago that was never approved.

Monsanto will put $2.1 million into a settlement fund to pay farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho who sold soft white wheat between May 30 and Nov. 30 last year. It also will make payments to several regional growers associations.

  • Turing Computing Award Boosted Fourfold to $1M

Recipients of the A.M. Turing Award, one of the most prestigious honors in computing, will now receive $1 million, a fourfold increase.
Google Inc. is providing funding for the prize. Previously, Google and Intel Corp. shared the $250,000 funding commitment.

The award is named after the British mathematician Alan Turing and is given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery.
In Thursday’s announcement, ACM President Alexander Wolf said the increase puts the Turing Award “at the monetary level of the world’s most prestigious cultural and scientific awards and prizes.”

Past recipients include Douglas Englebart, who developed the mouse and other computing technologies, and Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who developed the key communications technology behind the Internet.

The recipient of the 2014 prize will be named early next year.