Tech Digest: network outsourcing; UW astronomy; Merge acquisition

Milwaukee — Merge Technologies Incorporated has closed its acquisition of California-based AccuImage Diagnostics Corp. for $6 million in cash. Both companies make medical imaging software.

Milwaukee — Johnson Controls has renewed through 2010 its deal to buy managed network and telephone services from Nortel Networks, a global telecom headquartered near Toronto, Canada. Johnson Controls officials said outsourcing nearly all the management of their network allows them to save money and focus on their core business, the manufacture of automotive and building control systems.

University of Wisconsin-Madison — The South African Large Telescope, set to open this spring on a mountain plateau 220 miles from Cape Town, will relay information back to UW-Madison astronomers through a device being built in the university's Chamberlain Hall.

Twenty times per second the device will capture images of the night sky, separating them into different wavelengths of light to help scientists figure out what exactly they're looking at. The night sky near the edge of the Kalahari Desert is said to be one of the darkest and clearest in the world.