Tortilla chips might not be health food anytime soon, but science may have found a way to make them lower your cholesterol. Researchers are frying chips in oil spiked with an ingredient from plants called phytosterol, which can soak up cholesterol without harming the taste.
Consumer reaction has been mixed on the scores of often taste-challenged foods that are lower in fat, carbs or sugar. Food industry analysts believe sterol-enriched snacks may get just as tough a reception from the medical community and from consumers wishing to reduce cholesterol — even if the new treat tastes the same as regular snacks.
Warnock Food Products, a Madera, California-based snack food research company, bought licensing rights to the Brandeis University process and is reviewing marketing strategies with another California food product developer, Mattson.
- - -
Universal keys: Researchers said they have found a way to crack the code used in millions of car keys, a development they said could allow thieves to bypass the security systems on newer car models.
The research team at Johns Hopkins University said it discovered that the "immobilizer" security system developed by Texas Instruments (TXN) could be cracked using a "relatively inexpensive electronic device" that acquires information hidden in the microchips that make the system work.
Texas Instruments was recently given demonstrations of the team's code cracking capabilities, but the company maintains its system is secure.
The radio-frequency security system being used in more than 150 million new Fords (F), Toyotas (TM) and Nissans involves a transponder chip embedded in the key and a reader inside the car. If the reader does not recognize the transponder, the car will not start, even if the key inserted in the ignition is the correct one.
Researchers said they were able to crack that code, too.
- - -
Say cheese: Eastman Kodak, wrapping up a $3 billion shopping spree aimed at transforming the world's biggest film manufacturer into a digital heavyweight in photography, medical imaging and commercial printing, is buying Canada's Creo for $980 million.
Kodak (EK) said its acquisition of Vancouver-based Creo (CREO), the world's biggest maker of printer software, will modestly dilute its earnings this year but will not alter its full-year profit projections of $2.60 to $2.90 a share.
Acknowledging that its chemical-based businesses, led by silver-halide film, were in irreversible decline, Kodak launched an ambitious strategy to delve deeply into growth markets in the digital imaging realm.
Creo's software manages the movement of text, graphics and images from the computer screen to the printing press.
- - -
Shake, rattle and roll: Tired of pushing all those buttons on your cell phone? Japanese handsets slated to hit stores next month are designed to solve that problem: They respond to shakes, tilts and jiggles.
The mobile phones manufactured by Japanese electronics maker Sharp for Vodafone (VOD), come equipped with a tiny motion-control-sensor, a computer chip that recognizes and responds to movement.
Just jerk your cell phone in the air in a variety of patterns made of up of two simple moves — combining left, right or top, down movements — to program your phone in nine different ways to scroll or jump to e-mail or other features.
Vodafone is not giving a price or sales target for the handset, which will be sold only in Japan for now. It said it's working on other kinds of games for the Japanese handset using movement but did not give details.
- - -
Compiled by David Cohn. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
