Aixtron shake-up aims for LED equipment top spot

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Aixtron’s new chief executive laid out a strategy focused on returning to profit and wrestling back leadership of the global market for LED chip-making equipment from U.S. rival Veeco Instruments. The German company swung from a profit in 2011 to a net loss of 103.2 million euros ($132.9 million) last year as orders from customers making light-emitting diode (LED) chips for televisions and lighting equipment dried up. …

Read more here: Aixtron shake-up aims for LED equipment top spot

New Android apps worth downloading: Gravy – local events, CallSnap, Sonic the Hedgehog

Need help finding things to do? Grab Gravy, today’s first app worth downloading, and find local events and all the information you need to plan to attend them. We’ve also got CallSnap, an app that lets you respond to a call you can’t take by snapping and sending a photo. Finally, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega’s classic high-speed platformer, has finally come to Android for your old-school gaming approval.

Read more here: New Android apps worth downloading: Gravy – local events, CallSnap, Sonic the Hedgehog

German opposition party marks bittersweet 150th

French President Francois Hollande, right, gestures next to Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the German Social Democratic Party, SPD, left, in Leipzig, Germany, Thursday, May 23, 2013. Germany's main opposition party , SPD , is celebrating the 150th birthday. The Social Democratic Party is marking Thursday's anniversary with festivities in Leipzig, the eastern city where it was born in 1863. Guests include its main rival: popular conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, who's just been named the world's most powerful woman by Forbes magazine for the third consecutive year. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)BERLIN (AP) — Germany's main opposition party marked a bittersweet 150th birthday on Thursday — trailing badly in polls ahead of September elections and hearing praise for its efforts to reform Europe's biggest economy from French President Francois Hollande, a recent left-wing winner who has lost his luster.

Read more here: German opposition party marks bittersweet 150th

BTG says interventional medicine buys could boost sales to $1 bln

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – British pharmaceutical company BTG announced two deals on Thursday that it said could create an interventional medicine business with potential sales of $1 billion. Chief Executive Louise Makin told Reuters the deals would more than double BTG’s revenues in the fast-growing market of targeting specific areas rather than administering drugs to the whole body. BTG added to its liver cancer treatments by agreeing to buy the targeted therapies division of Nordion Inc for about $200 million, adding Therasphere radioactive glass beads to its chemotherapy beads unit. …

Read more here: BTG says interventional medicine buys could boost sales to $1 bln