Fuel meter co. to gas up with Kickstarter

A Somerville startup could be the next big innovation in the burgeoning smart-home industry as its fuel monitor hits Kickstarter next week.

Tank Utility, the brainchild of former EnerNOC mechanical engineer Nick Mashburn, is coming out of stealth mode with its app-enabled propane meter just in time for the season of home-heating headaches.

Tank Utility is a small, Wi-Fi-connected device that clips onto fuel tank gauges to collect and report usage data to homeowners via a mobile app. Based out of Greentown Labs, a clean energy business incubator in Somerville, Tank Utility aims to make sure homeowners always have a full tank, sending notifications when fuel levels are running low and projecting when a refill is needed. It's a potentially useful innovation for anyone who doesn't make it a habit of checking their fuel levels daily.

And it's a potential life-saver for owners of seasonal vacation homes, with frozen pipes and flooding posing big risks to that investment. New England is ground zero for that market. There are 94,000 vacation homes in Massachusetts, 101,000 in Maine and another 100,000 in Vermont and New Hampshire combined.

In fact, Mashburn got the idea for Tank Utility when he bought a vacation cabin in the White Mountains, his first experience with a fuel-heated home.

"I asked around about how people manage their tank levels and the answers were 'meh,' " he said. "Nobody's created anything like that."

So Mashburn built his own remote monitor, and that became the prototype for Tank Utility. He's also lucky enough to have a live-in mobile developer. His wife, Gwen Heimburg, has recently spent her weekends and nights designing and programming Tank Utility.

Mashburn has taken an interesting approach to bring the product to market. Rather than looking to the venture capital community, he's going crowdfunding first.

He believes the Kickstarter campaign, beginning Oct. 22, is the path toward raising enough capital for manufacturing. It's certainly going to be a good bellwether for consumer interest in this type of device.

The stats are on his side, with more than $11 billion in annual residential spending on fuel heat and lots of room for more efficiency in that space. More than 8 million homes nationwide use fuel.

It's easy to envision Tank Utility being of interest to Nest and other home automation players, because as they say in "Game of Thrones" and here in New England: Winter is coming.

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The Ticker

MIT celebrates ties to Nobel economics winner

The announcement that a French economist had won the Nobel Prize for economics set off celebrations yesterday across the Atlantic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has strong ties.

Jean Tirole's research showing how regulators can manage markets dominated by a few powerful companies to keep them from blocking competition and overcharging customers is credited with helping drive the deregulation of industries in developed economies in the 1980s and '90s.

Tirole, 61, who works at the Toulouse School of Economics, earned his doctorate from MIT in 1981, was on the faculty from 1984 until 1991 and is still a visiting professor.

Cautious IPO for Fiat Chrysler shares

Investors cautiously greeted the Wall Street debut yesterday of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, a move that shifts the carmaker's center of gravity away from Italy and caps a decade of canny dealmaking and tough restructuring.

The shares opened at $9.00 in New York and rose as high as $9.55 before closing at $8.92, up 2.5 percent from a Friday close of $8.70 for the predecessor company Fiat SpA. Trading was muted, with about 5.8 million shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange.

Markets have another bad day

The stock market slumped , unable to shake off worries of a global economic slowdown and plunging oil prices. Airlines, energy and materials stocks were among the biggest decliners. Stocks are coming off their worst week in more than two years.

The downturn leaves the Standard & Poor's index 500 down 6.8 percent from its recent peak last month and up just 1.4 percent for the year.

All told, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 223.03, or 1.4 percent, to 16,321.07. The Standard & Poor's 500 index shed 31.39, or 1.7 percent, to 1,874.74. The Nasdaq slid 62.58 points, or 1.5 percent, to 4,213.66.

TOMORROW

• Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for September.
• Commerce Department releases retail sales data for September.
• Commerce Department releases business inventories for August.
• Federal Reserve releases Beige Book.

Real estate firm JLL has hired Ryan Enright as an executive vice president, specializing in representing tenants, investors and owners in the leasing of office space throughout Greater Boston. Enright joins JLL from Equity Office Properties.

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Abby ascends to CEO at Fidelity

Abigail Johnson's long-expected ascension to the CEO chair at Boston's Fidelity Investments was announced yesterday in an internal memo sent by her father, Edward C. "Ned" Johnson III, to employees of the second-largest U.S. mutual-fund company.

The 52-year-old "Abby" Johnson, who already had day-to-day control over operations that include mutual funds, an online brokerage and the biggest U.S. administrator of 401(k) retirement plans, will retain her president's title as she takes the CEO position from her 84-year-old father to become the industry's most powerful woman.

"Abby Johnson has agreed to become chief executive officer of Fidelity, reflecting a further step forward in our leadership succession plan," Ned Johnson, who'll remain chairman, said in the memo. "Along with our senior team, we will work together to strengthen Fidelity's industry leadership and to innovate in ways that enhance the experience we provide to our customers."

The elder Johnson had been chairman and CEO since taking over from his father in 1977. Fidelity signaled Abby Johnson was the clear successor in 2012 when it named her president overseeing asset management, retail and institutional brokerage, retirement and benefits services. The appointment resolved the long-running question of succession at the family-controlled firm.

Over the past decade, Fidelity, which had managed assets of $2 trillion at the end of August, has ceded its once-powerhouse status to Vanguard Group as its actively managed mutual funds have become less appealing to investors focused on lower-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds.

Abby Johnson, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School, has a net worth of $9.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She started her full-time Fidelity career in 1988 as an equity research analyst and has worked in almost every major company division.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

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Weather station is cool, but costly

Netatmo smartphone weather station ($179, Amazon)

Just in time for winter, I checked out this urban weather station, which is billed as a smartphone-connected air quality monitor. It comes with two sensor-laden aluminum cylinders, an AC adapter, mounting materials and a USB cable.

The good: You'll fly through the setup process and be impressed with the sleekly designed monitors for indoor and outdoor use. It collects lots of helpful data, tracks temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, barometric pressure and even noise.

The bad: It's a little pricey when you can get most of that information from the thermostat.

The bottom line: There are some compelling potential uses for this device, including another way to monitor carbon dioxide and the ability to make sure your home is the right temperature when you're away (as anyone who's ever had their pipes freeze can attest). It's worth your consideration.

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Boston the hot spot for bots

Global robotics executives will converge on Boston this week as the leading business development event for the robotics industry has its 10th annual conference here, solidifying the Hub's reputation as a national leader in artificial intelligence bots.

Cutting-edge innovators will display robots that teach special education students, toy robots, autonomous vehicles for mining and military manufacturing, wearable robots that help people with disabilities walk, and humanoid bots complete with arms and legs.

"Boston has really become the focal point for leadership in the promotion of robotics on a national stage," said RoboBusiness attendee Rich Mahoney, director of robotics at SRI International, a Silicon Valley research and development nonprofit. "More than iRobot being founded there, it's the leadership those founders have shown."

Executives from Bedford-based iRobot, forefathers of the iconic Roomba and to a large extent Greater Boston's robotics scene, will be among the 1,200 CEOs, CTOs, CSOs, investment partners and VPs of business development who will attend RoboBusiness at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. The three-day event, which begins tomorrow, draws visitors from more than 22 countries to network, meet experts and see the newest technology in the global robotics industry.

Billerica-based Harvest Automation plans to debut a new, unnamed robot for handling and moving crates in warehouses.

Charles Grinnell, founder and COO of Harvest Automation, said the size and capabilities of his robots allow them to work alongside people, increasing safety and resulting in an estimated efficiency increase of up to 50 percent.

It's a version of their HV-100, a robot that picks up plants, already used in agricultural businesses throughout the nation.

"No other automation suppliers are doing that type of thing," Grinnell said. "It's a very low-cost and flexible solution that are safe to work around people."

Another notable Hub appearance: Cynthia Breazeal, the creator of family robot Jibo, profiled by Booting Up in August, is a keynote speaker.

Casey Nobile, co-chairwoman of the conference, said collaboration is the key to progress in the industry.

"Technologists who may be in labs all over the world working on very specific challenges can meet and share ideas so that these technologies are built into tomorrow's robotics systems," she said. "That's what really drives the industry."

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Identity theft dogs woman in Palmer

A Palmer woman has spent five years fighting to restore her credit rating after identity thieves stole her personal information — including her Social Security number — a cautionary tale as a seemingly endless parade of data breaches hit retail stores.

Adria Champney said she realized she was a victim of identity theft after she started getting flooded with calls from banks about fraudulent checks, from credit card companies about unpaid bills and hotels complaining of damaged rooms in 2009.

"There were charges pressed against me. I had to go for so many lineups at the police station," Champney said.

"Luckily, there would be people who were like, 'No, it's not her.' "

Champney's mother, Marisa, estimates that she and her husband are out more than $30,000 in legal fees. She said she's on medication to alleviate anxiety that she's developed since the ordeal began. But she's most concerned about her grandchildren.

"Now, if they see a cruiser or something, they freak out," Marisa Champney, 60, said.

It's a situation many shoppers could find themselves in as more and more stores report that consumer information has been stolen. Dairy Queen and Kmart last week both said stores were hit in a cyberattack. As in the cases of Target and Home Depot, criminals hacked payment systems, stealing information from customer credit cards to use and sell on "dark clouds," or black market cloud platforms. Security experts say the most important thing to do is watch your bank accounts diligently.

"If your credit card information is stolen, it's a hassle, but the real danger comes if they're able to get other information, like your Social Security number," said Dan Schiappa, general manager of security firm Sophos.

Schiappa said consumers may be inadvertently putting themselves at risk online by not using different passwords on individual sites or by using passwords that hackers can guess by reviewing social media profiles, where information such as favorite music and sports teams are on display.

In Champney's case, local authorities have been able to investigate the identity theft, but Chris Sullivan of the Massachusetts Bar Association said many cases involve hackers from other countries. In those cases, victims have to rely on federal authorities to step in, and even then, they're vulnerable to the potentially more lax laws abroad.

The Champneys hope for improved security measures to lessen the prevalence of identity theft.

"I think a lot of people think somebody steals your bank account and that's that," said Marisa Champney, "but they don't realize the extent of how far it can go."

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She’s got Nancy Drew game

For nearly a century, Nancy Drew, the bright, young amateur sleuth in the mystery series of the same name, has served as a role model for the likes of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady Laura Bush and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Now, a 16-year-old Concord girl who shares the same admiration for the fictional heroine has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her first entrepreneurial venture: the Nancy Drew Board Game.

"I feel especially in the modern day, (Nancy) is a huge role model, not only for girls, but for all young people who aren't sure they can make their dreams come true," said Quincy MacShane, who has read all 56 books in the series, beginning when she was about 9. "She gave me the confidence to know I could make mine come true. She empowered me."

One night about three years ago, Quincy was in her room and her parents came in and asked if she had finished her homework.

"No, but I have this," she said, holding up the game she'd made on the back of a Monopoly board.

Designed for two to four players ages 8 and up, the game is a kind of Trivial Pursuit for Nancy Drew fans. Players choose a character and a token from the series — a magnifying glass, a flashlight, Nancy's roadster — and move around the board's perimeter, "buying" books from the series by correctly answering questions about them. The player who acquires the most titles wins.

When Quincy told her father she wanted to make the game for more people so that they could learn about Nancy Drew, he said, "That's a big endeavor."

"We as parents want to encourage our kids to be creative," Nick MacShane said. "What we were surprised by was how persistent she was."

Quincy made a second version of the game, which a family friend, a designer, helped refine. And then she and her father approached Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing, which owns the Nancy Drew trademark, and demonstrated the game.

"I was very impressed," said Stephanie Voros, vice president and director of subsidiary rights. "It's a niche market, but, 84 years after the first book was published, there are still enthusiastic fans like Quincy out there. She really represents the Nancy Drew reader these days, who is smart and inquisitive."

After obtaining the rights from Simon and Schuster, Quincy and her family formed a company, Sutherland (her middle name) Games, which she heads as president. Then she applied for a patent and launched a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to raise $20,000, with the hope of getting the game on store shelves before the holidays.

As of Friday, with 15 days to go in the campaign, she had raised $8,346.

"I did not anticipate the amount of support I'm getting," Quincy said. "To have it come this far is an amazing feeling."

To support the game, go to: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2026070997/nancy-drew-board-game

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Local law firm serving craft beer industry

Local law firm Bowditch & Dewey is hopping on the explosive growth of craft breweries in Massachusetts and across the country with the creation of a specialty practice focusing on the beer industry niche.

"It's a thriving and growing industry," said Bob Young, an attorney in the firm's Framingham office and a co-chairman of the new group. "In a lot of ways, they're facing issues that are common to a lot of startup businesses. One of the key challenges ... for the brewers is how to convert their passion and their skill of making beer into a viable business."

Overall beer consumption is down somewhat, but craft beer sales have been growing by double digits. The market represented $14.3 billion of the total 
$100 billion beer market in 2013, up 20 percent from the prior year, according to the Brewers Association, a Boulder, Colo., trade group for craft brewers, which it defines as small, independent brewers.

"There are new breweries in planning or coming online at an astounding rate," Young said.

Bowditch & Dewey will tap 10 to 12 attorneys from offices in Framingham, Boston and Worcester to address corporate formation, real estate, environmental, employment, insurance and licensing issues in the heavily regulated industry.

"Employment issues come to the fore quite quickly as the business evolves from a couple of buddies in the basement to rented or even owned space with a 200-
barrel tank producing mass quantities of product," Young said.

Young and his firm already have represented craft brewers, including San Francisco's Anchor Brewing in a non-compete case brought against it and an employee this year by Boston's Harpoon Brewery. The parties resolved the case, and it has been dismissed.

The new practice also allows for a melding of personal and professional interests for Young, whose current fridge selection includes Morph IPA from Night Shift Brewing in Everett, some brews from Framingham's Jack's Abby Brewing and Allagash Saison from the Portland, Maine-based Allagash Brewing Co.

"I have long-considered myself an aficionado of craft beer," he said, "One of the great aspects of the craft beer movement, is it's really become more or less the equivalent of — at least in my mind — wine, where you have a glass with a meal, and the flavor of the beer can enhance the food."

Bowditch & Dewey's move is an interesting one, said Eric Hendler, who founded Jack's Abby in 2011 with his brothers. "Personally we haven't needed something like that as of yet, but … if an issue arose, it would be nice knowing that there was someone who had experience in particular to breweries," he said.

The small brewery — which expects to produce about 15,000 barrels this year and whose best-seller is an India-style pale lager called Hoponius Union — also is riding on craft beer's increasing popularity. "We've been fortunate that more and more consumers are giving beer a shot," Hendler said. "A lot of places that would not have considered us a year ago are now giving us a chance."

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Shift in kids' TV watching habits drives big changes to Discovery-Hasbro partnership

The seismic shifts in the way kids watch TV has led to major changes in the partnership between Discovery Communications and Hasbro in the Hub Network.

The kidvid channel that launched in October 2010 will be rebranded Discovery Family Channel as of Oct. 13. Hasbro's ownership stake in the channel will drop from 50 percent to 40 percent as the programming focus shifts to Hasbro-produced children's fare in the daytime hours and family-friendly fare in primetime.

Discovery group prexy Henry Schleiff will add oversight of the rebranded channel to his growing portfolio. Discovery exec Tom Cosgrove will serve as general manager of the Discovery Family.

The changes were sparked in part by the fact that the sides were coming up on the expiration of their original partnership agreement. With so much of kidvid viewing moving to VOD and SVOD platforms, the partners realized that a linear channel squarely devoted to kivid has limited growth potential. That reinforces how much the rise of on-demand options has changed the game for linear TV programmers in just the four years since the Hub was born.

At the same time, Discovery's research showed that the Hub attracts a healthy "co-viewing" audience of kids and adults watching together in primetime. With the brand overhaul, the plan is to program original series designed to appeal to multigenerational family auds in primetime. The partners see an opening for a channel that is consistently focused on drawing multigenerational viewers in primetime.

Hasbro, meanwhile, gains more flexibility to sell new and existing shows to digital outlets such as Netflix and Amazon. Kidvid is a huge component of overall viewing for the SVOD heavyweights, even though it doesn't get nearly as much attention in pop culture as original series aimed at adults.

Discovery bought out the additional 10 percent stake in the channel from Hasbro. That allows Discovery to consolidate the outlet's revenue and earnings with those of its 12 other majority-owned channels in the U.S.

Hub, which was a makeover of the former Discovery Kids channel, has been consistently overshadowed by its more established rivals, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, but it is nonetheless a profitable venture for the partners, and those earnings will now flow directly to Discovery's bottom line as it will have majority control.

Discovery and Hasbro execs stressed that the decision to revise the terms of the partnership was done by mutual agreement in the best way to make the most of the asset. Hub Network has grown its subscriber base from 56 million cable homes in 2010 to about 70 million today. The channel makes most of its money on affiliate fees, so the hope is to grow the advertising side with broader-based programming in primetime.

"Hasbro is a world-class company with franchises and characters that appeal to kids and families around the world. They have been terrific partners over the past several years as we developed our kids television audience in the U.S., and we look forward to a continued strong collaboration as we evolve to the Discovery Family Channel together," said Discovery Communications' prexy-CEO David Zaslav.

The decision by Hub's founding president Margaret Loesch to step down by year's end also accelerated the makeover process. Discovery and Hasbro both recognized that they stood to benefit from modified terms.

"This was the result of conversations about the most important elements of our success and how to bring the strengths of each parent company to bear to move the channel forward," Brian Goldner, president-CEO of Hasbro, told Variety. "We saw the opportunity to build up the audience in the evenings and show advertisers that they have a great opportunity to reach adults and kids."

Hasbro-produced hits for the Hub include the toons "My Little Pony," "Littlest Pet Shop" and "Transformers Rescue Bots." Primetime programming will now be drawn in part from the Discovery vault of shows revolving around natural history, adventure and science themes.

For Rhode Island-based Hasbro, the Discovery channel is a the centerpiece of a content-focused strategy that involves feature films, such as the "Transformers" series with Paramount and the upcoming "Ouija" due out next month from Universal.

The toymaker is investing big in production through its Burbank-based Hasbro Studios arm. "We are continuing to develop partnerships with the big studios for some of our biggest brands," Goldner said. "And you'll see us developing movies with smaller budgets and strong filmmakers."

(c)2014 TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

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State report asks business to close gender wage gap

Gov. Deval Patrick is challenging businesses to close the wage gap and recruit more women to senior positions as a task force yesterday released a report showing women still earn less than men in comparable positions.

The "Successful Women, Successful Families" task force, led by state Secretary for Labor and Workforce Development Rachel Kaprielian, outlined recommendations, including promoting science, math and technology careers to young women, and developing training programs to increase the number of women executives.

It also called for more family-friendly policies such as flexible work schedules.

"This is an ongoing, important issue, and will become an even greater issue over time," said Kaprielian. "To have the kind of talent we need to compete in a global economy, we need to have all our players dressed and ready to play."

The report found that women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in the state, creating a $12.2 billion wage gap.

Patrick yesterday said that 14 businesses had agreed to take part in a corporate challenge and work with Bentley University's Center for Women and Business to close the wage gap and put more women in leadership roles.

"I appeal to other business leaders to participate in this program and help break down the barriers facing women in the workplace so we can even the playing field and ensure that Massachusetts strengthens its leadership position in our global economy," Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish said in a statement.

C.A. Webb, executive director of the New England Venture Capital Association and a task force member, said it's up to the private sector to address workplace inequality.

"The governor and his staff are only in office for a few months ... We have to see what efforts private entities can take on," Webb said. 'We can't just keep talking about this stuff."

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