The new Cyberstates report from the American Electronics Association came out Wednesday and it paints an interesting picture about the health of Idaho’s high technology industry.

About the only category that Idaho leads in, when compared to other states, is the difference between high tech wages and the average state wage. Idaho’s average high tech wage is $67,200 a year a whopping 107 percent higher than that state’s average wage of $32,400.

With that kind of gap one would think that the state would be clamoring to create more high tech jobs and pull Idaho out of its long-standing reputation as a haven for low-wage jobs.

Well I wonder when Areva will be breaking ground on its new nuclear fuel plant in eastern Idaho?

Gov. Butch Otter signed the two Areva incentive bills into law this week.

The package is the most significant piece of economic incentive legislation to come out of this session.

The French company charged into Idaho earlier this year saying it would like to build a new plant in eastern Idaho, but it just wasn’t happy with Idaho’s tax system. The company also made sure to emphasize that it was looking at other states as well.

Now, all we can do is wait on Areva to see if Idaho’s quick action to cap the company’s property tax value at $400 million and eliminate sales tax on its equipment pays off.

It looks like the new research center for the dairy industry is one step closer to reality.

The Times News in Twin Falls is reporting that the Idaho Center for Livestock and Environmental Studies would likely be located near Twin Falls and the College of Southern Idaho.

If you remember the research center was one of the things Gov. Butch Otter used as an example of how he was committed to research after he took so much heat for not supporting the $50 million package of incentives and funding the now defunct tech council proposed to help grow Idaho’s tech industry in 2005.

After more than a year, Aaron Stanton unveiled his project that got him a meeting with Google in February 2007.

His talks with Google are still ongoing, but on Monday he unveiled the idea to the world Monday by launching a Web site called BookLamp.org.

His BookLamp software program is pretty cool. It’s a program that analyzes books based on writing style.

What I like about his program is that it has the potential to take the guesswork out of trying to determine what is a good book. I’ve lost count of how many so-called good books I’ve started but never finished based on a review or its ranking on the best sellers list.

It seems that Mike Reynoldson, Micron’s government affairs director, took issue with some of the recent comments about Micron losing favor with Idaho Legislators.

He didn’t name me specifically, but I’m assuming he’s referring to my blog last week about new incentives for the French company Areva where I made my observation about Micron.

From my perspective it appeared that state leaders really weren’t showing any interest in helping Micron through its tough times.

In his widely distributed e-mail that made it to a few of my colleagues and other media outlets via the Governor’s office, Reynoldson wrote at length about how concerned the state is about Micron.

Monday’s big news was that Micron Technology has finally decided that Boise is worthy of a new fabrication plant.

It was welcome news and something I hope become a reality.

And as I expected, the news was greeted as a positive for the economy by state and local leaders and a sign that things aren’t as bad as the national headlines make them out to be.

Granted it is good news, but we have to put it into context. The new plant still isn’t a lock.

Micron said it doesn’t have a timeline for building, and the expansion will be tied to market conditions and other economic factors.

My boss pointed out to me recently that we haven’t done a very good job of covering business legislation during this year’s legislative session.

I can’t argue with him, but when you only have two business reporters and lots of breaking business news it’s hard to make it to the temporary capitol to see what is up.

So I took a few moments this and did a quick review to see what I might have missed.

I came across a few highlights.

The Commerce Department and the Office of Science and Technology’s budget is still bare bones, but the Legislature did agree to continue funding the Business and Jobs Development Fund with a $1.1 million appropriation.

Dangle a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant in from of their faces and Idaho legislators suddenly think incentives aren’t that bad.

The Idaho Falls Post Register had a story last week about a company called Areva. The company, which is controlled by the French government, has made Idaho one of five states that it might locate a new plant.

But here’s the kicker. The company will only keep Idaho on the list if Idaho lawmakers come up with an incentive package.

Company leaders say Idaho’s tax rates aren’t as competitive as the other states they’re looking at.

It looks like Boise is again heading for the top five again in the annual Forbes magazine “Best Place for Business and Careers” list.

The list hasn’t been published yet, but a reporter from Forbes has been in Boise this week talking to some of the local tech companies.

He interviewed Shane Vaughan with Balihoo on Tuesday.

Vaughan, the Boise software company’s vice president of marketing, told me today that Boise is one of the companies the magazine decided to pull out in a separate profile to accompany the list.

Each year the magazine profiles a few of the cities that make the list.

One of my biggest frustrations is that we don’t have the resources to cover high tech companies outside of Boise.

But I know they’re out there and every once I a while I run across a fascinating company that I had never heard of.

Today while I was doing my morning Google ritual, I ran across a story from the Central Valley Business Times in Stockton, Calif. that mentioned an Idaho company called Pine Creek Precision.

It’s based in Kendrick, which I’ll admit I had to go to the atlas to find. Kendrick is a town of about 400 people 20 miles northeast of Lewiston.