Apple shares up big!!

Leading blue chip stocks, Apple Inc. released great earnings that have shares soaring $8.29 (2.42%). Tech stocks have led a surge in the market the past two days. After a few disappointing 1st quarter results, technology companies Google, Intel, Apple and others have pushed the Dow near a 3-year high.

Last week results were not as pleasing with Alcoa (AA:NYSE) and Google (GOOG:NYSE). These big companies were disapointing but have benefited from the better week of other companies.

Apple reported $24.57 billion in Q1 revenue. Both revenue and profits grew and have shown that even without Steve Jobs, Apple is still able to innovate its products, cut costs, and increase the bottom line. Comparing this quarter to the same one in 2010, Apple saw a 28% increase in Mac sales, and 113% increase in iPhone sales (thanks in part to the dual network availability).

Choosing a Laptop in a Tablet World

A Thursday morning WSJ article caught my eye titled "Choosing a Laptop in a Tablet World." It goes into the growing popularity of tablet devices but yet there is still a disparity between product capabilities. Laptops probably won't disappear just yet: they have a physical keyboard, lots of ports, plenty of storage and more horsepower than tablets offer. The article goes into look at timing, memory, graphics, processors, hard disks and ports.

Bottom line is, if you are not in pressing need of a laptop then wait because the industry is evolving at incredible speeds. If you can't wait, the author recommends 4 gigabytes of memory, no specific processor any of the newest Intel ones will suffice, anting up for the more expensive graphics is a must, 320 gigabyte hard disk is enough, and HDMI capabilities to plug into the computers ports is great for connecting the laptop to the television.

It's time to see those earnings...

1st quarter earnings are being released this week and into the next. I found an article about the construction of Apple's latest operating system, Lion, that has yet to be released to the public but may be able to protect users privacy. The new browser will feature a "do not track" feature to block websites from following your Internet tendencies to try and sell you things. It has been a topic of how intrusive is some of this stuff and it is becoming very annoying. You cannot go online now and now be bombarded with flashing lights of similar shoes you just bought on the side of the yahoofinance article you are trying to read.

I have Apple's Snow Leapord OS and have been very happy with the system. I am a strong believer in Apple products and expect the Lion to be fast and effective. Apple's Safari browser currently accounts for about 6.6% of Web browser users on the Internet, compared with 55.9% for Microsoft's Internet Explorer and 21.8% for Mozilla's Firefox, according to estimates. Today (Wed. April, 13), Republican Cliff Stearns (R.Fla.) introduced privacy legislation that would encourage companies to offer more information to consumers about how they are being tracked.

India's Internet Age

Apparently, India is an undeveloped Internet economy: The nation has the lowest Internet penetration rate among major emerging markets and very little online commerce. NBC came out with a new show this year called Outsourced, as an American company was believe it or not, outsourcing part of their business in India. They were bringing American capitalism to a country with a country with a huge workforce. They are selling goods found on the Internet so it is a funny show about teaching Indian's the in's and out's of it all.

But back to the article, a laundry list of Indian Internet companies are emerging to offer their take on services that proved successful in the US and elsewhere. There are firms positioned to become India's Amazon.com, Groupon or Orbitz. All these firms have the ambition of capitalizing on India's growing interest in buying things online. There was a dot-com boom in the US in the late 90's, I wondering if history will have a chance to repeat itself or if the world has learned from its mistakes?

The Winklevoss' back in the news

Until the movie The Social Network came out, to most, the Winklevoss twins would not be known. The two out of three college friends that sued Mark Zuckerberg for $65 million for stealing their intellectual property rights, cannot back out of their deal ruled the Judge. The twins claim that the Facebook board overestimated the value of the company to pay them less in settlement stock.

The court has ruled in Facebook's favor, but the Winklevoss' lawyer says they will seek a rehearing with the entire appeals court bench.

Facebook transparency

On Friday, April 8th, a WSJ article was written about Facebook sharing their server design. A lot of companies like Google Inc. and others keep key details about their computing infrastructure private, but Facebook's move is being done in hopes of a better relationship within the industry. They are calling it the "Open Compute Project" and should encourage industry-wide collaboration around best practices for data-center and server technology. "By sharing this, we will make it more efficient for this ecosystem to grow," said Mark Zuckerberg.

By sharing its designs, Facebook said other companies would be able to focus on applications and developing for social websites. It seems that this move has come as tech giants like Google, Apple and Twitter, are scrambling to build vast new data centers so they can provide computing resources, data-storage capacity and software services to companies and consumers over the Internet.

Not another "flash crash" !!!

Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, a Winnetka, Ill., data firm, told Barron's that he has reason to believe that a Flash Crash 2 is possible. Suspicion is high due to high volumes of quick trades made in the month of March. His point being that there is a growing trend to let computers automatically adjust to preset levels, to buy or sell, it's quicker than human's. Robotically making trades can make the markets crash. On May 6th of last year, the infamous "flash crash" sent major markets down 9% in just 15 minutes! Temporarily, $1 trillion of the market value disappeared. Automated systems are programmed by mathematicians whose ultra short-term strategies have radically altered markets. And while there have been flash-crash fixes, they haven't stopped the new invaders, which are orders of magnitude faster. Having the fastest, newest technology becomes so important to traders to make adjustments but they will never be faster than automated computers.  

We've read about this before...

LIFT restaurant in Vancouver will test the use of iPads. As of today, printed menus are an option with the launch of iPad menus. LIFT is the first Vancouver restaurant to participate in a four-week trial of the company's LiveMenu application.

"It's incredible what this software can do," states Bob Lindsay, managing partner at LIFT. "Although it's never going to replace the need for knowledgable servers, we feel it's a fun, interactive way to complement the dining experience." From the look of the restaurant in pictures the place looks very trendy and hip. Set right on the end of a peer on Coal Harbour, it will be interesting if more restaurants give the technology a shot. LIFT plans to monitor and evaluate feedback from guests and staff over the course of the trial period.

Tsunami tech affects

Sony Corp. said that its next-generation portable game machine is delayed because of last month's Japanene earthquake and tsunami. This picture is what the new system will look like when it comes on the market. Production problems brought on by the natural disaster have forced the Tokyo-based company to consider rolling it out in only one geographic area, Jack Tretton, president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said.

Supposedly, the NGP will deliver the power of the PlayStation 3 game console in a handheld system. It features front and rear-facing cameras and a rear multisensor touchpad.

Sony (NYSE: SNE) fell 42 cents at markets close.

Texas Instrument acquisition leads the news

Texas Instrument Inc. (NYSE: TXN), the second largest U.S. chipmaker, has agreed to buy National Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: NSM) for about $6.5 billion. This feat will be the company's biggest acquisition, extending its lead in analog semiconductors.

Shares closed at $14.07 but National Semiconductor shareholders will get a nice premium of $25. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. Each company has unique strengths and will be forming an industry giant of marketshare, products, specs, and excellent customer design tools. This news just came public fifteen minutes ago in market after hours. Like I've made note of in previous blogs a company that is taken over is a valuable stock. NSM shares are up 101.8 points or 72% and TXN is down 2%. Very interesting consuming move by Texas Instrument and big news in the industry.