Seattle's Aviation Partners, the company that gave us those now-common blended winglets at the end of airliner wings, is experimenting with a new technology that promises to save even more fuel.

The company calls the circular, ribbon-like wing extensions Spiroid Winglets. Like the vertical blended winglets, they're designed to reduce the drag-creating vortexes at the end of airliner wings.

Blended winglets have demonstrated fuel economy savings of about four percent. Initial experiments with spiroid winglets have yielded 6 to 10 percent economy improvements.

One side benefit of the new winglets, says Aviation Partners, is the reduction of wake turbulence behind jets that can throw other airliners off course and can even cause crashes.

Sen. Patty Murray recently sponsored an earmarked $2 million federal appropriation to help fund that research.

Some of Sen. Murray's critics are calling the federal funding "pork," but the senator maintains the research will be worthwhile because it has the potential of saving millions of dollars in fuel costs.

Aviation Partners, which did initial testing several years ago, plans to resume testing this fall. Full development of the spiroid winglets could take four years, the company says.

The lower cost alternative to a passport, the U.S. Passport Card, may be used by employers to verify a person's employment eligibility, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today.

The State Department began issuing the passport card July 14. More than 350,000 people have already applied for the card. That backlog is expected to be cleared by the end of August.

The new card, more portable and less expensive that a booklet-style passport, is good only for international travel to and from the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda by land or sea. International air travel and travel to other countries requires a regular passport.

First time adult applicants pay $45 for the card. Minors are $35. Those with booklet-style passports can get a passport card for $20.

Regular passports cost $100 for adults and $85 for children. Renewals are $75. Both adult passports and passport cards are good for 10 years. Minor cards and passports have a five-year-life.

Here's a link for information about the cards.

Boeing Co. booked nine new passenger jet orders this week, raising its 2008 total to 551.

The new orders came from Azerbaijan Airlines which ordered two 767s and two 737-900ERs, from British Airways which placed orders for two 777s, from Delta Air Lines, which ordered two more 777s and one from an unidentified order for a single Boeing Business Jet, a modified 737.

The past week also saw the first 787 order cancellation. Azerbaijan Airlines canceled an order for the Dreamliner and substituted one for the 767.

Azerbaijan's 767 order was the first in 18 months for the twin-aisle jet.

Office vacancy rates in the Puget Sound area are among the lowest in the nation, new figures from commercial real estate firm Colliers International show.

While national downtown office vacancy rates in 2008's second quarter jumped from 10.9 percent in the year's first quarter to 11.27 percent in the second, Puget Sound downtown vacancies fell from 8.9 percent to 8.6 percent, the study showed.

The nation's highest downtown vacancy rates were in the Midwest and where St. Louis posted a 21.5 percent downtown office vacancy rate and Missouri's other metropolis, Kansas City, recorded a 20.6 percent vacancy figure. Dallas Fort Worth, Tex. was nearly those two cities' match with a 19.8 percent vacancy figure.

Charlotte, N.C., had the nation's lowest major city downtown vacancy percentage, 1.9.

Two other Northwest cities, Portland and Boise, posted below average downtown office vacancy rates. Portland's vacancies during the second quarter were 7.1 percent, and the Idaho capital showed an 8.2 percent vacancy rate.

Colliers figures for Seattle include all of the Puget Sound area's cities. The company doesn't publish separate figures for Tacoma or Bellevue.

Suburban offices unfilled with paying tenants amounted to 10.9 percent of the total Puget Sound supply still below the national average of 14.2 percent.

Titus Tool Co. Inc. will layoff 50 workers at its Kent headquarters beginning in November.

Titus is part of the multinational group Titus+Lama+Huwil. The Kent headquarters runs the U.S. operations, the company also has offices across Europe and in China.

The company builds hardware such as hinges and connectors for furniture. It isn't known if the Kent office is the only one affected.

Multiple messages left by a News Tribune reporter with a company spokesman were not returned. A state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification announced the layoffs this week.

More information on the company is available at http://www.titusplus.com/.