Texas Business reports:  AUSTIN, Texas—The Texas Venture Labs at the McCombs School of Business is now the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs, in recognition of a combined gift of more than $6 million from Fort Worth businessman and entrepreneur Jon Brumley to fund the growth of the program at The University of Texas at Austin. 

Texas Business reports: Comic book hero superpowers may be one step closer to reality after the latest technological feats made by researchers at UT Dallas. They have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.

Texas Business reports: HOUSTON—The Houston Technology Center (HTC) and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) formed a partnership to further expand HTC's mission of accelerating the growth of emerging technology companies in the Houston region and to develop the insights required to support NASA's long-term goals of increasing private/public collaboration.

Texas Business reports:  Baylor University announced today a $2 million gift, given anonymously to the Hankamer School of Business, to endow the Baylor Entrepreneurship Innovation Challenge, a business plan competition that will provide invaluable opportunities for students from all over the nation as they seek to develop their business ideas.

Texas Business reports:  In what will be the company's largest cash donation to The University of Texas at Austin, Dell has committed $5 million to the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the university's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

Texas Business reports:  TNG Pharmaceuticals, a team from the University of Louisville that developed a vaccine to prevent negative effects to cattle from the horn fly, won the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition (Global VLIC), hosted by Texas Venture Labs at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.

Texas Business reports:  A consortium of hardware security experts from Rice University, the University of Connecticut, the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and the University of California-Los Angeles has received a $1.2 million federal grant to conduct wide-ranging research aimed at enhancing the integrity of integrated circuits (ICs), the computer chips that are used in virtually all electronic devices today, from cell phones and medical instruments to laptop computers and flat-screen TVs.

Texas Business reports:  Austin—The Global Venture Labs Investment Competition (Global VLIC), the longest-running investment competition for graduate student entrepreneurs, will be held May 6-7 at The University of Texas at Austin.

Texas Business reports:  Houston—Nuevo Midstream, LLC secured a $65 million equity commitment to support formation of the company.

Texas Business reports:  Competitors in the 2011 Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) will again be rewarded for commercial space business ideas.

 Texas Business reports:  The State of Texas Emerging Technology Fund awarded $3 million to Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) member company Firefly LED Lighting for product commercialization.

Texas Business reports:  Vocal Media, a company that uses the dead-air time in international phone calls to advertise to U.S. immigrant populations, won the Texas round of the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC), the University of Texas business school announced.

TexasBusiness.com notes this story by Lori Hawkins of the Austin American-Statesman: Williamson County's newly formed angel investor group has completed its first deal and is looking for more.

Texas Business reports:  DFJ Mercury of Houston spearheaded a $3 million investment in Swift Biosciences Inc., a Michigan-based life sciences company,

TexasBusiness.com recommends this story by Candace Carlisle of the Denton Record-Chronicle: After Janet Sigler was laid off two years ago, she started caring for her diabetic mother, who had an intolerance to the artificial sweeteners that are commonly found in sugar-free foods.

TexasBusiness.com notes: When Vickie Morris and Jeff Borden enrolled in Tech Wildcatters' 12-week boot camp for entrepreneurs in May, they had one product and two customers.

Since then, their Brand Protection Agency launched two more Web-based products to monitor and enforce branding, pricing and intellectual property, reports Sheryl Jean of the Dallas Morning News.

TexasBusiness.com notes:  With political storm clouds apparently clearing, Dallas-based Tang Energy Group and its Chinese partners have agreed to resume a site search for a North American factory that would build fiberglass wind-power rotor blades.  Tang CEO Patrick Jenevein said his partners with HT Blade in Baoding, China, agreed at a meeting last week to start looking again, reports Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News. 

Austin’s Workstreamer, a business listening platform company defining a new category - business information as a service, today announced that the company has secured $3.5 million in funding in their Series A round.