Google to deliver goods quickly to online shoppers

SAN FRANCISCO — Internet search leader Google is taking another step beyond information retrieval into grocery delivery.

The new service, called Google Shopping Express, will initially provide same-day delivery of food and other products bought online by a small group of consumers in San Francisco and suburbs located south of the city. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., didn't say how many people will be part of the test.

If the pilot program goes well, Google Inc. plans to expand delivery service to other markets.

"We hope this will help users explore the benefits of a local, same-day delivery service, and help us kick the tires on the new service," Google said in a Thursday statement.

The delivery service is part of Google's effort to increase consumer reliance on the Internet, so it will have more opportunities to show online ads, which generate most of its revenue.

Google has learned that the more time people spend online, the more likely they are to use its dominant search engine or one of its other popular services, like its YouTube video site or Gmail, that include advertising.

The delivery service also could spur merchants to buy more online ads if Google's same-day delivery service encourages consumers to do more of their shopping online. Having to wait days or, in some cases, more than a week for the delivery of online orders ranks among the biggest drawbacks to Internet shopping.

It's a problem that Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc., which operate the largest e-commerce sites, already have been trying to solve by offering same-day service in some U.S. markets. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, also offers same-day delivery in five markets.

A mix of national, regional and neighborhood merchants are enlisting in Google Shopping Express. The best-known names on the list include Target Inc. and Walgreen Co. All the merchants in the Google program will sell certain items through a central website. Google has hired courier services to pick up the orders at the merchant stores and then deliver them to the customer's home or office.

Although the couriers will be working on a contract basis, they will be driving Google-branded vehicles and wearing company-issued uniforms.

It remains unclear whether Internet shopping and same-day delivery can be profitable. Online grocer Webvan collapsed in 2001, largely because it couldn't devise a pricing plan that would pay for the costs of same-day delivery without alienating shoppers unwilling to pay too much extra for the added convenience.

Google is still trying to figure out how much to charge for its same-day delivery service. For the six-month test period in the San Francisco area, consumers won't have to pay a surcharge. Google instead will receive a commission from participating merchants.

The expansion into same-day delivery comes at the same time that Google is preparing to close some of its older online services so it can devote more attention and money to other projects.

The realignment has irked some Google users. The biggest complaints have centered on Google Reader, which allows people to automatically receive headlines and links from their favorite sites, and iGoogle, which allows Web surfers to design a page consisting of the Google search engine surrounded set up other online features, such as local weather reports and stock market quotes.

Google Reader is scheduled to close in July and iGoogle will shut down in November.

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Alaska Airlines launches nonstop Boston-San Diego flights

Alaska Airlines said it will launch nonstop flights between San Diego and Boston starting today.

Boston is the sixth new city the Seattle-based carrier has begun serving from San Diego in the past year, officials said.

To kick off the new service, the airline is offering a $159 one-way fare, which is available now through April 9, for travel from April 30 through June 12.

"Alaska Airlines is a key player in the transcontinental market and this new service to San Diego will give passengers even more choices," said Ed Freni, aviation director for the Massachusetts Port Authority. "Alaska's success here is indicative of the strong market in Boston for business and leisure travel."

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DPH releases draft medical marijuana regulations

The state Department of Public Health today filed draft regulations on the medical use of marijuana.

"DPH solicited an unprecedented level of input in drafting these regulations to create a medical marijuana system that is right for Massachusetts," said DPH Interim Commissioner Dr. Lauren Smith. "In this proposal, we have sought to achieve a balanced approach that will provide appropriate access for patients, while maintaining a secure system that keeps our communities safe."

DPH's draft regulations define the following:

• Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers (MMTCs): DPH requires each non-profit MMTC organization to operate its own cultivation and dispensing facilities. This allows for uniform seed-to-sale control and maximized security. No wholesale distribution of marijuana products would be allowed.

• Hardship Cultivation: DPH intends to minimize home cultivation by optimizing access through a variety of approaches, including mandating the industry provides and finances discounted rates for low-income residents at all MMTCs, allowing secure home delivery where necessary and encouraging personal caregivers to pick up product in lieu of cultivation.

• Personal Caregivers: Must be at least 21 years old. DPH recommends that, except in the case of an employee of a hospice, nursing facility or medical facility providing care to a qualifying patient, a caregiver may only serve one patient. A qualifying patient may have up to two caregivers.

• Debilitating Medical Condition: DPH does not further define which medical conditions qualify patients for medicinal use of marijuana, instead leaving that important decision to physicians and their patients. DPH does, however, define the word debilitating, clarifying that medical marijuana is intended for use in patients with serious conditions.

• Defining a 60-Day Supply: DPH recommends allowing up to 10 ounces for a personal 60-day supply, after taking into account the amount permitted in other states that have legalized medical marijuana. Physicians would have the authority to increase the amount of a 60-day supply in limited circumstances.

• Defining a Bona-Fide Physician-Patient Relationship: Means a relationship between a physician, acting in the usual course of his or her professional practice, and a patient in which the physician has conducted a clinical visit, completed and documented a full assessment of the patient's medical history and current medical condition, has explained the potential benefits and risks of marijuana use, and has a role in the ongoing care and treatment of the patient.

• Limiting Youth Access: DPH proposes a highly restrictive model for access to those less than 18 years of age, requiring guardian approval and certification by two physicians, one of whom must be a pediatrician or pediatric specialist. Only those with a life-limiting illness, likely to result in death within six months, would be certified.

• Laboratory Testing: DPH recommends requiring a quality assurance and periodic testing plan that tests for contaminants, such as pests, mold, mildew, heavy metals and pesticides.

• Municipal Oversight: DPH has responsibility for the medical marijuana program throughout the state, including registration of individuals and MMTCs, inspection of MMTCs and enforcement. DPH has developed an inclusive framework for engaging municipal government. DPH does not preclude municipalities from assessing fees or passing certain local regulations, including zoning or siting.

• Advertising: Recognizing the concerns of the substance abuse prevention community and municipalities, while also taking into account the need for qualifying patients to have access to information about MMTCs, DHP has limited certain advertising materials, including, for example, prohibiting ads that depict or encourage the recreational use of marijuana, or portray youth, or show smoking or smokable products.

Beginning today, DPH will accept written comments from patients, interested parties and the public at large. On April 10, the department will present the draft regulations to the Public Health Council, which will review DPH's recommendations and approve final regulations. On April 19, public hearings will be held in Northampton, Boston and Plymouth, and on April 20, the public comment period will close.

For qualifying patients who have already received a written recommendation from a physician, no further action is needed at this time. The law allows such a qualifying patient to cultivate a supply of marijuana for personal medicinal use. Until DPH finalizes regulations and implements this program, this provision remains in effect.

This spring, DPH will also be engaging in a process to determine fees for medical marijuana registrants. By law, this program must be self-sustaining through the fees on medical marijuana treatment centers and on patients using these products. No taxpayer dollars will be used to subsidize medical marijuana.

After finalization of these regulations, DPH anticipates engaging in a competitive application process for medical marijuana treatment centers in the summer and fall of 2013.

In November 2012, 63 percent of Massachusetts voters approved Ballot Question 3, with majority support from 349 out of 351 communities across the state. The act became law on Jan. 1, allowing qualifying patients with certain defined debilitating medical conditions to obtain and use marijuana for medicinal purposes as approved by their physicians. Under the law, DPH was charged with drafting regulations for medical marijuana in Massachusetts.

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Tokai Pharmaceuticals names Jodie Morrison as new CEO

Tokai Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new treatments for prostate cancer, has appointed Jodie Morrison as its new chief executive officer.

Morrison's appointment follows the recent departure of former president and CEO Martin Williams, who left the company to pursue other opportunities, officials said.

Morrison has spent nearly seven years at Tokai, most recently serving as chief operating officer and vice president of clinical affairs. Prior to joining the company, Morrison was director of clinical operations and medical affairs at Dyax Corp., and she previously held clinical management positions at both Curis Inc. and at Diacrin Inc.

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Facebook to hold Android event Thursday

NEW YORK — Facebook has invited journalists to the unveiling of what it calls its "new home on Android."

Next Thursday's event will take place at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. Facebook isn't providing further details. There has been speculation about a "Facebook phone" for a few years. Facebook has long said it would not make its own phone. Rather, such a phone would likely integrate Facebook deeper into the phone's software.

Citing unnamed sources, the tech blog TechCrunch says Facebook Inc. will launch a modified version of Android that embeds Facebook deeply into the operating system, on a phone made by HTC Corp.

A Facebook rival, Google Inc., makes the Android software that Facebook and HTC would be using under that scenario. Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, meaning others including rivals are free to adapt it for their needs. Amazon.com Inc. does just that in modifying Android to run its Kindle tablet computers.

More than half of Facebook's 1.06 billion monthly users access it on a mobile device. A deeper integration would help Facebook with its mobile aspirations.

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Lexington-based QD Vision raises $20M

QD Vision Inc., a Lexington-based manufacturer of optical components for LCD applications, said today it has closed a $20 million round of funding that will be used to further expand production capacity and fund long-term company growth.

The funding round included all existing investors — North Bridge Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, In-Q-Tel, DTE Energy Ventures, Passport Capital, Novus Energy Partners and Capricorn Investment Group.

QD Vision said its Color IQ optical components significantly improve LCD color performance by up to 50 percent, and work with all major LCD applications, including LCD TVs, and LCD monitors and mobile displays.

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Cyprus sends rumbles through shaky banking system

FRANKFURT, Germany — This week's deal to rescue Cyprus and its banks from financial collapse has renewed fears about Europe's shaky financial system and where trouble might next appear.

Many banks across Europe have been struggling for more than three years as losses on government bonds and bad loans piled up. Some governments, meanwhile, have taken on more debt trying to prop up their lenders to the point where they have needed bailing out themselves.

In Cyprus's case, its banking sector became much bigger than the country's government could afford to rescue — seven times the size of the country's economy. When the banks were hit by large losses and Cyprus could not afford to bail it out on its own, the country turned to the other 16 European Union countries that use the euro.

Rather than making Europe's taxpayers foot the entire bill for bad banking, Cyprus and the other eurozone countries agreed to make the banks' bondholders and big depositors contribute to the rescue. One bank, Laiki, is to be split up, with its nonperforming loans and toxic assets going into a "bad bank." The healthy side will be absorbed into the Bank of Cyprus. Savers with more 100,000 euros in both Bank of Cyprus and Laiki will face big losses — possibly as much as 80 cents on the euro.

Daniel Gros, director of the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said the Cyprus deal "could be a strategic change."

Depositors and investors have taken note of the Cyprus deal and are warily looking around at other countries where the financial sector appears too big or too unstable. The STOXX Europe 600 Banks index have fallen 7 percent since a first bailout deal, later rejected, was reached March 16.

Even some of the more financially disciplined countries in the eurozone can raise concerns: The Netherlands had to take over SNS Reaal, the country's fourth-largest bank, after it suffered heavy losses. And in Germany there are banks under pressure from competition and losses on bad loans. However, most of the countries that are gaining scrutiny in the aftermath of the Cyprus bailout do not have economies on the same scale as the eurozone's financial leaders.

Here is a look at some countries whose banking sectors are getting increased attention form analysts and investors.

SLOVENIA: Privately owned banks are suffering from a burst real estate bubble and unpaid property loans. The country — which is only 0.4 percent of the eurozone's overall economy — has a relatively small banking system and has relied on successful exporters such as home appliance maker Gorenje. But the banks' troubles are large enough that the government has struggled to borrow to finance its deficits and some think it might eventually seek a bailout loan from other eurozone countries.

The new government of Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek is moving to set up a "bad bank" to take shaky loans and investments off banks' hands. Analysts at Commerzbank say depositors will not suffer losses in any bank restructuring because the system only needs a billion euros in new capital for this year. Cyprus, which is half the size of Slovenia, needed up to 8 billion euros to help rescue its banks.

Fitch Ratings said last week it didn't think Slovenia, which is in a recession, would need a bailout. But the agency warned that the quality of the banks' assets and the capital buffers needed to protect them from future financial shocks are deteriorating.

MALTA: Like Cyprus, Malta is a small island country with a big banking system — eight times annual GDP. Its banks have not suffered the huge losses on government bonds that brought down Cyprus' banks. But last year the IMF warned that the size of Malta's banking sector and its interconnectedness to the rest of the eurozone raised the potential for trouble to spread from elsewhere. It told Malta, whose economy has so far avoided a recession, to strengthen deposit insurance guarantees and push banks to strengthen their finances.

The head of the central bank has said that comparisons to Cyprus are misleading. The country is 0.07 percent of the eurozone's economy, with only about 6.7 billion euros of GDP.

LUXEMBOURG: The small, wealthy country's banking system is more than 20 times the size of the economy. Economist Gros says it's completely different from Cyprus, since the banks are subsidiaries of foreign banks, whose parent companies could take any losses. So far the banking sector seems calm.

The terms of the Cyprus bailout could give Luxembourg cause for concern, however. Germany insisted that as part of the rescue, Cyprus should shrink its banking system to the EU average — about 3 ½ times GDP — and abandon its business model of seeking prosperity as a financial center for foreign savers and investors. Luxembourg, which accounts for 0.4 percent of the eurozone, has followed a similar business model to Cyprus.

The country's government has taken exception to the idea, saying it was concerned about "general assessments of the size of the financial sector and the alleged risks this poses." The financial sector is a key pillar of the economy, accounting for 27 percent of GDP.

SPAIN: The country's banks have been struggling under toxic property loans and assets since Spain's property bubble collapsed in 2008. The level of bad debt in the country's banks hit almost 11 percent in January — some 170.7 billion euros ($220.9 billion) in the first month of the year, up from 167.5 billion euros the previous month. The toxic loans have been transferred to the country's bad bank, which was set up as a condition for Spain receiving 40 billion euros in European Union assistance for its financial sector last year. Spain is the No. 4 country in the eurozone, with about 12 percent of the collective economy.

The Cyprus deal has led to speculation that depositors there might head for the exits if the country moves toward a bailout. But that hasn't happened so far. The financial system appears more stable since the European Central Bank offered to help with a country's borrowing costs by buying up unlimited amounts of short-term government debt if necessary.

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Dynasil no longer in NASDAQ compliance

Dynasil Corp. of America said it is no longer in compliance with the NASDAQ stock market after the closing price for its common stock fell below $1 per share for 30 consecutive days, according to a company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dynasil, a Watertown-based developer of sensing, detection and analysis technology for homeland security, medical and industrial applications, said it received notice from the NASDAQ Tuesday.

The notice has no immediate effect on the company's listing, but Dynasil has until Sept. 23 to regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement or face future delisting, according to the filing.

"The company is considering actions that it may take in response to this notification in order to regain compliance with the continued listing requirements, but no decisions about a response have been made at this time," officials said.

The company reported first quarter net revenue of $10.6 million, compared with $12.1 million for the same period in 2012; and $4.6 million in gross profit, compared with $5.1 million for the first quarter of last year.

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