Suhas Uliyar is moving from one Seattle area mobile software company to another. The 39-year-old executive left the chief technology officer post at Bothell-based Dexterra late last year, a job he had held since the company was founded in 2003. Now, Uliyar has landed at Spring Wireless, a Sao Paulo, Brazil company that established its North American headquarters in Seattle last month.

The move is interesting because Dexterra and Spring Wireless operate in the same arena and share the same venture backer: NEA. Losing a CTO can be a big blow to a company given the technical knowledge that walks out the door.

Uliyar says there’s no animosity between him and Dexterra. And the former acting CTO at Micromuse said he was simply ready for a change. When the Spring Wireless position became available, he said he was "like a little baby in a candy store."

"I didn’t feel that we were treading on toes because the market and what we are going after is completely different," he said.

Spring Wireless is focused on applications that "bridge the gap" between consumer and businesses, he said. For example, a customer in Latin America is utilizing the technology to allow people to buy ice cream with their mobile phone serving as a digital wallet of sorts.

"I wanted to figure out other opportunities that were much broader and could impact the consumer directly, as opposed to being just in the line of business applications," he said.

In his new role, Uliyar will serve as chief solutions architect. Reporting to Spring’s CTO Cristiano Oliveira, Uliyar will assist with new products and strategy as the company moves into new global markets.

Uliyar will be based in Spring’s Seattle office, which is led by former Microsoft manager Shakil Haroon. That office, now at 10 workers, is expected to grow to 35 people in the next 18 months.

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and NASA to put image archive into Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope  

Microsoft’s window into space is about to get more interesting. NASA will put large volumes of high-resolution images and other planetary data into the Redmond company’s WorldWide Telescope online application under an agreement announced this morning.

The arrangement calls for NASA’s Ames Research Center to process more than 100 terabytes of data, including high-resolution images of the moon and Mars, which will then be incorporated into the interactive WorldWide Telescope later this year. Among other content, Microsoft’s online telescope will feature images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been monitoring the planet since 2006.

According to a news release, NASA and Microsoft will work together on the underlying technology to deliver the images. The release also describes how NASA will tap into its archive for the project:

"To further integrate the planetary data into WorldWide Telescope, Ames is developing a suite of planetary data processing tools. These software tools convert historic and current space imagery data into a variety of formats and images of the moon, Mars and other planetary bodies readily available for easy browsing and use by the general public, enabling the creation of enhanced educational tools for students and teachers."

WorldWide Telescope was launched last spring. Separately, Microsoft and NASA previously worked together to make images of the Kennedy Space Center, including the Space Shuttle on its launch pad, available via Microsoft’s Photosynth technology.

READ MORE and COMMENT, more and Healionics helps introduce glaucoma implant for dogs  

As Americans grow more connected to dogs and cats, a new market is developing to provide additional health care services to pets.

Witness the new offering from Healionics. The Redmond startup today announced that its STAR biomaterial was being used in a new product to treat glaucoma in dogs. The TR-ClarifEYE - built in conjunction with Chandler, Arizona-based TR-BioSurgical — is described as a "glaucoma implant" that improves tissue integration.

The device is a first step for Healionics, which is also researching whether its Sphere Templated Angiogenic Regeneration technology could also be used in obesity management, diabetes care, advanced wound care and other human-related conditions. 

Healionics raised $2.6 million in December from angel investment groups, bringing total funding to $4.3 million. Meanwhile, Xconomy reports that Michel Alvarez has assumed the CEO post from Rob Brown.

“We are very excited to announce the first commercial shipment of STAR, which is a significant milestone for Healionics and represents the Company’s first revenue from product sales," said Michel Alvarez in a statement.

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