GBI launches Web-based program for improving “greenness” of existing buildings.The Green Building Initiative has started pilot testing a Web-based tool designed to give building owners and facility managers a practical and cost-effective way to assess and improve the performance of existing commercial and institutional buildings. Green Globes for Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings uses an online application to help owners assess and benchmark building performance, develop action plans for improvement, evaluate and compare multiple buildings within a portfolio, and foster increased environmental consciousness while training operational staff to reduce costs. www.thegbi.org German company acquires Graphisoft.German architectural software company Nemetschek AG recently acquired a 54.3% majority stake in Hungarian company Graphisoft for $68.51 million. Graphisoft, established in 1982, provides software solutions for building design. The company has offices in Hungary, Germany, the U.S., Japan, the U.K., Spain, and Finland; with more than 100,000 customers in 82 countries; and about 260 employees.Panasonic and Absolute Software reach security agreement for Toughbook line.Panasonic recently announced that it will embed BIOS support for Absolute Software's Computrace-enabled security software in its CF-19 and CF-30 Toughbook notebook computers and the CF-T5 business-rugged tablet computer. Panasonic also expects to begin shipping smaller CF-W5 and CF-Y5 business-rugged models, as well as the CF-74 semi-rugged notebook, with Computrace embedded later in 2007.
Tech briefs
This article first appeared in the 200701
issue of BD+C.
