Under The Radar News - Friday
Move over Intel, AMD... Via Technologies upcoming Isaiah CPU could put an end to the Intel (INTC)/AMD (AMD) duopoly. Isaiah consumes 3.5 watts to Atom's 0.6-2.5, but its Superscalar design should allow it higher performance. Wal-Mart (WMT) will sell a $398 Everex gBook using the chip. From Blockbuster's earnings call. Blockbuster (BBI) CEO Jimmy Keyes on proposed acquisition of Circuit City (CC): "We will not proceed with the transaction unless it makes sense both strategically and...
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Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone?
Daniel Eran Dilger Today's broad array of smartphone operating system contenders are offering lots of potential answers to a problem that only requires one. It appears the market has two options ahead: either pool generic hardware makers behind a single operating system and deliver a smartphone marketplace that resembles the Windows PC market, or watch them fall to a dominant leader and have a smartphone market that resembles Apple's iPod ecosystem. This decision isn't going to be made by a class of intellectual elite, or by government mandate. it's going to be made by the market itself. Here are the factors that will influence the outcome, either marginalizing Apple's iPhone into a niche as the company has twice experienced previously at the hands of DOS in 1981 and Windows in 1991, or positioning it as the dominant leader as Apple has achieved for itself with the iPod since 2001. The third segment in this series looks at Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance as a possible “DOS-attack” against Apple's iPhone. Subsequent segments will look at Nokia's newly opened Symbian and other mobile contenders challenging the iPhone. Will the iPhone Meet its Match from a Modern Day DOS? Will Windows Mobile Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone? Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Will Symbian Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Google Acquires Android. In 2005, Google purchased a startup named Android, which had been in business for nearly two years. The secretive startup was known only to be working on software for mobile phones. It was being run by a who's who of mobile industry veterans, including Andy Rubin, the founder of Danger. Rubin had earlier worked at WebTV along with Chris White and Andy McFadden, both of whom had also joined Android. Richard Miner of Orange and Nick Sears of Tmobile also brought their mobile provider experience to Android. At the time of the acquisition, Google didn't announce any plans for Android and instead only told BusinessWeek, “We acquired Android because of the talented engineers and great technology. We're thrilled to have them here.” It appeared that Google was only going to be expanding its search services for mobile phone users, along the lines of the Google SMS answer system it had recently released. Google Buys Android for Its Mobile Arsenal - BusinessWeek Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV: The Fall of WebTV The GPhone Myth. As reports began to leak out about talks between Google and hardware makers throughout 2007, rumors began to fly about “the GPhone,” a competitive offering that was supposed to take on the iPhone. Some phone enthusiasts hoped Google would jump in to rescue the struggling OpenMoko project and turn it into a viable project that could attack Apple's new smartphone. In October 2007, I printed the Great Google GPhone Myth, taking apart the idea that Google would be directly competing against the iPhone, and describing that Google was really working on a free alternative to Windows Mobile as a conduit for getting its search and related services on a broader variety of mobiles. Google's services were already on the iPhone. In November, Google played its hand: it had organized a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance to develop open standards for mobiles. The first product from the group would be Android, a mobile operating system built on the Linux kernel. Google wasn't getting into the phone handset business at all; it was only making sure that its mobile search products would not risk being marginalized by the threat of Windows Mobile on phones in the same way Microsoft had been working to leverage its PC monopoly to push Google search off the Windows desktop. The Great Google gPhone Myth Introducing Android: Leader of Linux. Two weeks later, Google released an early version of the Android software. On top of a Linux kernel, Android uses a specialized version of a Java Virtual Machine that takes Java language code and turns it into what Google calls “Dalvik bytecode” rather than Java bytecode as a standard JVM would. This allows Google to leverage existing and familiar Java language tools without paying Sun for a Java license. Like Mac OS X and its fraternal iPhone OS, Android includes a variety of open source libraries, including SQLite and WebKit. On top of that, Google developed a series of frameworks that handle the tasks Cocoa Touch does on the iPhone. Android also bundles a set of applications. While Apple adapted its existing Mac OS X to work in a mobile environment to create the iPhone OS, Android is more like a customized Java environment running on a specialized mobile Linux variant: elements of maturity in an otherwise experimental new platform. What is Android? -Google Android was by no means the first mobile OS using Linux. Both Palm and its amputated ACCESS software arm have Linux-based mobile platforms. Nokia has Maemo, which it uses in its Internet Tablets, and also recently acquired Trolltech and its Qtopia mobile Linux platform. Motorola has teamed up with MontaVista Software to use its Mobilinux. Intel created the Moblin project for mobile Linux, aimed at Internet devices. Google's OHA also isn't the first consortium to attempt to standardize a mobile Linux platform. The OSDL started the Mobile Linux Initiative to define requirements for hardware; the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) then worked to define various phone profiles aimed at the Japanese market; the Linux Phone Standard (LiPS) Forum tried to do the same thing in Europe. In 2007, LiPS was folded into the new LiMo Foundation, along with the OSDL. All of these committees have had some overlap and some complementary features. Several of Google's OHA partners are also LiMo members, including NTT DoCoMo, Wind River, and Motorola. So why didn't Google just join LiMo? “LiMo, very candidly, wasn't moving fast enough,” OHA board member John Bruggeman told CNET. Google hopes to herd the Linux cats into a progressive, structured platform that can battle against Symbian and Windows Mobile to succeed as the new DOS of smartphones. Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux? The Presumption of the Necessity of DOS. The previous segment examining Windows Mobile pointed out how the PC industry as a whole assumed that Microsoft's desktop Windows monopoly would easily take over dominance in the MP3 player market, pushing Apple into a niche position. This was expected because DOS had pushed Apple's early computers into a reduced role starting in 1981, and Microsoft had repeated this again in 1991 when the DOS world migrated to Windows, effectively pruning Apple's Macintosh into a Bonsai platform. The inability of one company to dominate any product category has been frequently repeated by PC industry pundits as a given, despite the fact that history is full of examples of this happening. Sony dominated personal music players for two decades under the Walkman brand even while equally large competitors tried to push it from this position; Nintendo has similarly owned handheld gaming despite ill-fated efforts to grab a piece of its pie by products running a generic platform such as Microsoft's WinCE (Gizmondo), Linux (GP32), and Symbian (N-Gage). In fact, outside of the Windows/DOS PC, there are actually few examples of a generic platform taking over an industry. Nearly every other consumer-facing product uses proprietary platforms: car makers, stereo equipment, appliances and so on typically all use designs custom to their maker. The paradox of the Windows PC market has been that Microsoft's broadly licensed software supposedly saves hardware makers from investing in software development while ensuring compatibility, when in reality it adds significant costs to PC makers while limiting their ability to differentiate themselves. That explains why PC makers have been perpetually merging together and going out of business while Microosft has rolled in money over the last two decades. Parallel efforts to copy Microsoft in broadly licensing an operating system have regularly failed: IBM's OS/2, Apple's Mac OS, Palm's PDA OS, even Microsoft's own efforts to duplicate Windows dominance in other markets, from copy machines to PDAs to smartphones to SPOT watches to music players. The closest copy may be Symbian, but its customers are partners, not simply consumers of a generic third party's operating system as Windows licensees are. That indicates it is not necessary to duplicate the dominance exercised by Microsoft over the PC industry in the smartphone market. Google's Android and Symbian exist more as technology sharing pacts among manufacturers, but both aspire to take Microsoft's DOS role among smartphones. However, the idea that Apple's iPhone must be dethroned by a modern-day DOS, whether Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, is not just debatable, but does not sync with the reality of more recent events. Apple's recent history of the iPod further refutes the idea that a software analog to Microsoft is needed. The iPod Emergence: Apple & Pixo vs IBM & Microsoft. Apple's iPod in 2001 made no effort to clone the DOS business model; it actually did the opposite. When Apple entered the market, there were a number of existing MP3 devices using custom software, hardware designs, and DRM codecs. The iPod used off the shelf components to deliver a custom MP3 player using third party software, but Apple also added its own technologies: easy to use sync with iTunes, a fast Firewire interface that made uploading music far faster than the prevailing USB 1.0, and an attractive industrial design. With the iPod, Apple played the role of IBM in 1981, using Pixo's embedded operating system to enter the market quickly, just as IBM had used DOS. The difference was that Apple didn't direct any market attention toward Pixo and added a lot of value on top of that core embedded OS. A modern day Compaq couldn't simply clone the hardware and license Pixo to run on it in order to compete against the iPod, because the iPod was much more than just generic hardware running Pixo software. As the iPod developed, Pixo's role diminished and was eventually displaced. Just like IBM, Apple jumped into a new market just as demand was beginning to explode. Apple made MP3 players far more attractive to a general audience by delivering greater playback capacity than most entry level devices offered, along with an ease of use that encouraged buyers to jump in at the higher end of the market. That left Apple with not only the lion's share of the market, but also by far the most profitable segments of the market. Two decades prior, IBM badly fumbled its play with the early PC and ended up irrelevant in the PC world by the late 80s, sideswiped by Microsoft's DOS and the cloners who were licensing it in parallel, notably Compaq and later HP and Dell. Steve Jobs had witnessed that happen, and was determined to not let it happen again to Apple. Rather than being manipulated by a software middleware vendor as IBM had, Apple worked to incrementally develop the iPod market itself. After consuming the hard drive-based player market, Apple took on the Flash RAM-based market with a tiny hard drive system used in the iPod Mini, and followed up with Flash-based devices of its own in the Nano and Shuffle. This allowed Apple to progressively serve an increasingly wider market, incrementally growing upon an established foundation. With the iPod, Apple became, in effect, an IBM with its own internal Microsoft. Microsoft's Failure Despite Features. In contrast, Microsoft entered the music player market by promoting music player hardware reference designs around WinCE. However, it was unable to ship a finished design until the iPod had become firmly established around 2005. Later branded as PlaysForSure, the devices were sold by various hardware makers and all purported to support the same DRM and the same music subscription services while also offering a broader array of hardware that presented video before the iPod did, supported wireless before the iPod, and so on. Despite these unique features, all of those PFS designs still failed. Microsoft blamed the failure of PFS upon its music store and hardware partners and decided to take Apple on itself in 2006. It relaunched a Toshiba PFS player as its own device under the Zune brand, adding WiFi music sharing features and a larger display than the current Pods had. It failed dramatically as well. Did Microsoft's attempts to float a new DOS among music players fail because of Apple's success, or due to Microsoft's own problems? The failure of the Zune, which followed the iPod model rather than the DOS model, seems to suggest that Microsoft itself was to blame. Consider too that Microsoft's Windows Mobile phones, which use the same underlying operating system as its failed PlaysForSure music players and the Zune, had similarly flopped even before Apple could release a charismatic phone equivalent to the iPod. Of course, when the iPhone was released, it hit Windows Mobile hardest. The iPhone made Windows Mobile Smartphones look ridiculous and underpowered, and made Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones look clumsy and awkward, despite the fact that they both supported a variety of features the iPhone didn't, including the ability to edit documents, capture video, send MMS, and so on. Simply adding on features did not enable Microsoft to compete against Apple. The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that competing against Apple requires more than just having a feature arsenal. Microsoft's failures in themselves do not necessarily mean that Google's Android will fail in its attempts to float its own smartphone platform. Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing Microsoft’s Zune, Vista, and Windows Mobile 7 Strategy vs the iPhone Will Google Succeed where Microsoft Failed? Microsoft's demonstrated inability to successfully enter consumer markets for MP3 players and smartphones has given observers little faith that the company will somehow turn things around in late 2009 when its next generation of devices are expected to be released. However, prior to that the first fruits of Google's efforts to build its own smartphone operating environment will arrive. Will Google's Android take over Microsoft's crown as the “DOS vendor” among smartphones? Supporters of Google's Android project point to some parallels between Android for smartphones and Windows on the PC: Android will allow hardware makers to differentiate in ways that can offer features Apple can't (or doesn't want to); it should allow software developers to offer features Apple does not allow on the iPhone; it embraces open, hobbyist experimentation in ways that Apple currently isn't; and it opens the potential for content providers that Apple is not interested in allowing. Openness is Android's key competitive feature. Will all this openness allow Google to unseat the iPhone to become the primary platform developers want to participate in, and subsequently soak up the market for third party hardware makers that Windows Mobile serves? While Google currently has no market share due to the fact that no Android phones have yet shipped, it does have broad vocal support from a variety of the same kinds of hardware manufacturers that supported DOS and Windows and helped to make those platforms successful in the desktop PC market. HTC and Android. The first Android phone is expected to be the HTC Dream; Taiwan's HTC (High Tech Computer) also manufactures Palm's Treo Pro phone as well as many of the most visible Windows Mobile devices. In addition to models produced under its own name, HTC also sells Windows Mobile devices under the Dopod brand, as well as no-name phones branded by providers, such as AT&T, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and others. HTC will also be building the XPERIA X1 Windows Mobile phone for Sony Ericsson. HTC was quick to throw its support behind Android despite its long term alliance with Windows Mobile. Why would it so enthusiastically support an unproven platform from a company that has no experience in consumer hardware platforms? One can only assume that HTC is not happy with the current state of Windows Mobile, and desperately wants another “DOS” to succeed where Microsoft's has so spectacularly failed. As an Original Design Manufacturer for Palm, HTC watched as Palm adopted Windows Mobile in place of the Palm OS and subsequently fell even deeper into crisis. Palm's only successful phone since has been its Palm OS-based Centro. HTC undoubtedly sees Android as its ticket to becoming the next Dell, but without a similar dependance upon Microsoft. Android for mobile phones is essentially playing the role of Linux for PCs, except that it has the backing of a major company behind it. Can Android Take on the iPhone with Openness as its Feature? As great as this sounds, it's important to consider that Linux on the desktop has made no significant progress in eating into Windows dominance after a decade of trying. Being open, free, flexible, and decentralized hasn't been enough of an advantage to get consumers to migrate from Windows to Linux in any fraction of significance. Similarly, in the music business, Linux-based MP3 players have had no impact on the iPod, despite offering more features, flexibility, support for additional codecs, and so on. In the mobile phone area, Linux enjoys a sizable portion of the smartphone market, but this is almost entirely due to phones sold by Motorola in China, where the advantages of Linux' openness are void. Motorola's Linux phones offer nothing to users in terms of openness or flexibility, and are really no different in terms of features than other appliance 'feature phones' based upon closed operating systems. And again, a key problem with assaulting Apple in a feature war is that neither the iPod nor the iPhone became popular by being “highly featured.” They both delivered perhaps 80% of the functionality found in all other devices in the market. Rather than trying to match every feature and cater to every niche as Microsoft had with Windows Mobile, Apple's devices did a few things very well at launch, and incrementally developed into full featured devices that still lack some of the more unique features of their competitors. Further, in terms of openness, the demographic that embraces Linux' characteristic freedoms is not the same as the demographic that buys smartphones in quantity and then pays for data service. This is a critical fact to consider because a big part of the iPhone's success stems from the fact that it is being pushed by mobile providers who want to capture the cream of the market willing to pay a premium for data services. The Frankenphone. Combining the fractured aesthetic of HTC's Windows Mobile phone hardware with Android's software, based upon Linux' perpetually unfinished DIY openness and Google's Java-like development platform, will not result in a product similar to the iPhone. Instead, it will look a lot like phones that have already failed in the market. Apple's advantage comes from slick hardware designs with a close attention to detail, combined with software that purposely does less so that it can do what it does better. Even Apple's own conservative attempts to broaden its software capabilities with iPhone 2.0 have resulted in instability problems that can be blamed upon both Apple's early releases of its phone operating system and software from inexperienced third party developers new to the platform. Would the current frustrations with iPhone 2.0 be somehow mitigated by additional openness that also embraced all kinds of variables from different hardware makers with less quality control than Apple, a loose committee of additional cooks working to serve up operating system features targeted at every possible conceived need, and a wider third party software group with fewer constraints on illegal behaviors? The Failure of Open. While it is politically unpopular to criticize the well meaning efforts of open source contributors, the failure of Linux on the desktop, the failure of the vaporware Indrema game console, and the failure of the OpenMoko project to deliver a workable phone within a year of its deadline all underline the serious problems open development faces in the world of consumer oriented devices. Open has simply failed to deliver on its promises in the world of consumer hardware. OpenMoko was supposed to release its first mobile phone to consumers for $250 several months in advance of the iPhone. When the iPhone shipped, the group then announced new plans to get its phone out by the end of 2007. Instead, this spring the group announced new plans to move to an entirely different development platform, and ship its phone mid year for $400 with limited functionality and incomplete software outside of basic GSM phone features. Linux's notable successes, from Motorola's Linux phones to the Tivo DVR to Linksys Routers, have often come without any associated openness or freedom, and were instead delivered simply to provide their manufacturer with a free kernel to build upon. This indicates that while Linux may find its way into an increasing number of smartphones, it will likely not be accompanied by the glorious freedom of an open development environment Google has said it would offer with Android. Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone Can Google Succeed Where Open Has Previously Failed? Despite “openness” being Android's strongest competitive feature compared to Apple's iPhone, Google recently revealed that its wide-open development model is intentionally gravitating towards a closed association of top tier partners due to practical considerations. In July, Google accidentally sent out a notice that revealed that it had been seeding private SDK updates to only a subset of its contributors, angering those who believed that Android would be as open as Linux on the desktop or the OpenMoko project. Further, Google has restricted initial development to higher level APIs just as Apple did, further indicating that Google itself realizes that being wildly open to impress a minority of hobbyists will not result in the commercial success of its new platform. That serves to neuter Android's primary advantage over the iPhone. Without delivering on the premise of being wide open, Android is really just a less mature set of Java libraries used to create a specialized binary that runs on a Linux foundation. Unlike Apple's iPhone, Android phones won't have a slick user interface developed by professional artists, nor the iPhone's legacy of mature software development frameworks crafted over the last thirty years, nor the iPhone's tightly integrated hardware with award winning industrial design, nor its marketing power tied into the iPod and Apple's retail stores. Android won't be an open iPhone, it will only be a Windows Mobile phone with a better kernel that runs specialized Java software instead of Win32 or .NET code. Don't expect consumers to be impressed by that. The Biggest Missing Feature. There is one remaining factor that strangles to death any last remaining hope that Android might assassinate the iPhone and assume the crown of the “DOS of smartphones.” That is: Android delivers zero price advantage to consumers. In 1981 and 1991, consumers who wanted Apple computers faced the sticker shock of a somewhat arrogant price tag. Apple sold its computers, as it still does, at the higher end of the market, but there was simply far more range in prices available. In 1981, that meant the Apple II was $2600 and the new Apple III was $3500, even before you added a monitor. On the low end, Commodore sold its far less powerful, but “still a computer” Vic-20 for $300, while IBM entered the market with the IBM PC at $3000. Over the next few years, Apple focused on delivering additional sophistication at the same price, releasing the $10,000 Lisa and then the $2,500 Macintosh. IBM continued selling PCs in the same $3,000 to $10,000 range, but other DOS PC vendors began selling machines at prices that ranged as low as $1500. That left Apple with a roughly $1000 price premium over low end PCs. The products weren't really comparable, but consumers only saw the huge price difference. In 1991, Apple was still selling moderate to high-end Macintoshes for $3,800 to $10,000; the crippled Mac LC was $2500, and obsolete-at-birth Mac Classic ranged from $999 to $1500. Windows allowed PC makers to ship a functional $1500 PC and claim a rough approximation to Apple's $2500 entry level system, maintaining that apparent $1000 price premium. Today, pundits are lucky to find a Dell or HP system that is even a couple hundred dollars less than a comparable Mac. However, in the smartphone business, the iPhone 3G is now the same price, if not less, than generic competing phones on the market. Even more significant is the fact that the price of the phone hardware is nearly nothing compared to the cost of the service plan. This fact simply eases any price premium that could cause buyers to flock to a smartphone running a generic operating system over buying the iPhone 3G, regardless of whether it runs Windows Mobile or Android. 1990-1995: Planting Software Seeds Android Partners Have Already Failed. That same pricing principle similarly prevented buyers from considering many of the alternatives to the iPod. While Apple's original iPod models were more expensive than many of the first MP3 players on the market, they were price competitive with models offering similar features. By 2004, it was Apple who was undercutting MP3 competitors on price. Microsoft offered zero price advantage when it began selling the Zune, a major factor in its failure, but Microsoft simply couldn't out-price the iPod; it was already losing money offering the Zune at the same price as the iPod. Apple now has tremendous market power in buying RAM and other components that will prevent any competitors from being able to offer a huge discount over the iPhone's $199 price tag. Even if competitors were to give their phones away, they would only offer a $200 discount to users who would then still need to pay the same mobile fees to use the phone. Android's other partners, including Samsung and LG, have already failed to capture any significant market share in the music player market. Are they going to maintain their position as smartphone makers now that they face similar competition from Apple, its iPod ecosystem, its iTunes Music and Apps Store, Apple's retail store experience, and other factors that are pushing the iPhone? If they can, it is not obvious how partnering with Android will help. Other Problems for Android. Android was announced in early November 2007 and was followed with an early preview SDK within a couple weeks, a month ahead of Apple's initial announcement of the iPhone 2.0 SDK. However, between March and July 2008, Apple delivered nine progressive releases of its SDK, opened its App Store, and sold 60 million apps, raising $30 million to support iPhone software development in just the first month. It has since released three more SDK updates to developers related to iPhone 2.1, which is expected next month. Android just published its first open SDK beta update earlier this week, warning developers that “applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0.” Additionally, Android still has no phones available. By the time the HTC Dream is expected to launch, Apple will have an installed base of around ten million iPhone (and iPod touch) users supporting software development through iTunes. The business model for selling Android apps is no better than that for selling jailbreak iPhone apps: there is no iTunes Apps Store to promote them, so users will have to track them down on their own. Android developers also have no real freedom that jailbreak iPhone developers lack. The only difference is that there are ten million iPhones to sell jailbreak apps to, and currently zero Android phones. If selling a jailbreak iPhone app sounds like more trouble than its worth, imagine trying to sell Android apps to a non-existant audience. Now add the official iPhone App Store into the mix, where publicity, promotion and profits are booming. What platform is going to have the most applications? How many users will flock to a smartphone platform with no apps? The wisdom of releasing a desirable phone and achieving a significant installed base before releasing an SDK makes a lot more sense in retrospect. Additionally, while Apple has a decade of experience in shipping regular updates to Mac OS X and its Xcode developer tools, Google has only shipped a random assortment of web-oriented SDKs (a number of which have been abandoned) as a tangent to its core business of selling advertisements. When the Android SDK 1.0 is finished later this year, developers will not only lack an installed base to sell their apps to, but will also have no high profile market for selling their apps in, and subsequently no financial incentive to develop applications that add value to the Android platform, just like Linux on the PC desktop. Around the same time, possibly within the next month, Apple will be shipping its second major OS release: iPhone 2.1. Apple will also be upgrading its entire user base to the new software so that developers will have a cohesive platform to target. This mirrors the efforts Apple has taken to upgrade its Mac OS X users to the same reference release. Mobile developers will be seeing money pouring in via iTunes while crickets chirp in the Android section of various mobile online stores. Apple’s iPhone Vs. Other Mobile Hardware Makers: 5 Revenue Engines Same Same, But Different: DOS Model Problems. Android developers will also have a series of other problems to manage. Like Windows Mobile, Android is intended to support everything, from BlackBerry-style keypad phones with a small touchscreen to the simple Windows Mobile Smartphone form factor lacking a touch screen to iPhone-like full size touch screens. Also like Windows Mobile, Android phone makers will have the option to leave off Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS location services, graphics hardware acceleration, and so on. Each Android phone will also have unique camera hardware, support for different video and audio codecs, and varied support for other differentiating proprietary services demanded by mobile operators. This will force developers to to make complex decisions regarding the lowest common denominator they choose to support. So while the iPhone will have a cohesive feature set, a managed software environment, and a functional market, Android will be a loose federation of hardware makers selling the same random features found on Windows Mobile today, with a chaotic development environment that lacks any central market for users or developers. And it will be run as an experiment by a company with no experience in consumer hardware or platform development. The Missing Tap. One specific example of the “DOS model problem” is that Android currently does not support multitouch. It's not touched on in the API, and Google quietly tap dances around its omission. Why no multitouch? Because multitouch screens are expensive, and most OHA hardware members are more interested in making a profit in a competitive phone market rather than impressing consumers as Apple did with the iPhone. Most existing smartphones, even those trying to directly rival the iPhone, use a stylus driven, pressure sensitive tap screen or a simpler, cheaper touch technology that lacks support for sensing multitouch. The iPhone's screen can actually sense up to five fingers at once, but the primary feature multitouch offers on the iPhone is the two fingered tapping and the pinching effects everyone associates with it. Android could certainly support multitouch if there were a demand for it, but that's the point: Google knows that its hardware partners are cheap and unlikely to put out hardware that actually competes with the iPhone. Instead of using expensive technologies that deliver clever yet largely invisible functionality, OHA members, just like PC makers, are far more likely to add flashy, impractical gadgety fluff that's cheap to tack on, such as slide out keyboards, neon tubes, and scratch and sniff stickers. That's how you impress gullible nerds on the cheap. Google itself is blowing smoke and erecting mirrors to distract from the reality that it being a “DOS vendor” means supporting bargain basement hardware from penny pinching duplicators. Android has been demonstrating some “wow” features such as a Street Maps app that pans around based on an internal compass in the demonstration phone. The problem is that that kind of thing only makes for a fun demo. Nobody needs to twirl around their phone in the air to see a view of the other side of the street, but everyone who has used an iPhone will wonder why they can't pinch to zoom out. Even worse, most Android phones aren't going to have a compass built into them, so Google is demonstrating features most Android users won't be able to use. That Sounds Like Microsoft… Google's design decisions are beginning to look a lot like Windows Vista; rather than actually working to make laptops boot faster, Microsoft came up with the idea of adding a small screen to the back of Vista laptops so users could check their email without having to wake the system up. But this was a stupid idea for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that most users just want a laptop that boots up quickly. Few laptops got the mini screen, but every user who tries Vista on their laptop will wonder why it doesn't boot up as fast as Mac OS X Leopard. In the same way, Google is advertising features for Android that most users won't ever see in their actual phones while ignoring things people will expect based on their exposure to the iPhone. Android is simply selecting the wrong features. Android will offer the advantages of supporting MMS, recording video, and the list of other features Windows Mobile already supplies. Those features didn't stop Apple from firing past Microsoft in the smartphone arena however, just as the Zune's highly touted WiFi and screen didn't phase iPod buyers. Incidentally, just months after the Zune, Apple had not only demonstrated a larger display but a higher definition multitouch screen, and not only WiFi, but functional WiFi that could be used to browse the web or check email. This suggests that Apple, with its faster release schedule, won't stay behind any of the leading features potentially offered by Android for very long. Android partners, however, will find it as difficult to catch up with Apple's unique features, just as Microsoft has been stymied to keep up with Mac OS X, the iPod, and the iPhone. The underlying reason: both Google and Microosft are tasked with maintaing support for a huge variety of hardware options demanded by all their partners. Apple has the unique circumstances to do only what it needs to do itself. Android in Windows Mobile's Shoes. Like Windows Mobile, Android faces a difficult market. In the US, it competes against the popular BlackBerry in corporate markets and the iPhone among consumers. Worldwide, it competes against entrenched market leader Nokia. The difference is that Google, unlike Microsoft, has no in. Windows Mobile was adopted by Windows-bound IT shops despite its weaknesses. Nobody has any preexisting reason to try an Android phone apart from hobbyists and open software enthusiasts, a demographic that has done little to move Linux on the PC desktop. Google also lacks Microsoft's installed base; it's starting from zero. The smartphone industry initially doubted Apple's chances of making much progress with the iPhone, despite the company having the Mac platform, the iPod, retail stores, platform development experience, marketing savvy, industrial design prowess, and so on. Google doesn't have any of those things. Mobile Providers vs Android. Apple also started with an exclusive partnership with AT&T, a three legged race that demanded effort from both. Google is hoping that hardware makers handle the hardware details and that mobile providers will be excited to sell its Android phones. While hardware makers such as HTC clearly appreciate having found a free alternative to Windows Mobile, it's not obvious why providers would be excited about Android, as it promises an openness that most mobile providers strongly oppose. AT&T took a big risk in getting behind the iPhone, as the phone encouraged users to use email rather than fee-based SMS and MMS, it supported WiFi for data access, and it bypassed AT&T's MEdia Net services to plug into iTunes instead. Verizon refused to parter with Apple and grant it those kinds of concessions. Is AT&T going to take a similar risk to partner with a phone that is not exclusive to it, and is Verizon now going to open its arms to support phones that do not exclusively support BREW, VCast and its other proprietary services? While Android may well eat into Microsoft's Windows Mobile business by stealing away its hardware makers, it seems unlikely that Android will ever serve as more than free alternative to Windows Mobile in a market where Windows Mobile is increasingly irrelevant. Android may have the dubious distinction of swallowing Microsoft's mobile business the same way Microsoft ate up the Palm OS, but even if it accomplishes that goal, Google will likely find itself unsustainably hungry immediately afterward. It will also find itself swimming in a shark tank of hungry rivals, including Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry, and Apple's iPhone. Symbian is the final generic platform vying for the opportunity to play DOS in the smartphone market. The next article will examine Nokia's chances in its bid to match Microsoft's PC dominance in the mobile market while setting out in a new venture to copy Android's open software model. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast (oh wait, I have to fix that first). It's also cool to submit my articles to Digg, Reddit, or Slashdot where more people will see them. Consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
Top AIG execs threaten to quit over pay. Five top AIG (AIG) executives are reportedly ready to quit over worries about the government clipping their pay packages. Pay czar Kenneth Feinberg has already reduced compensation for AIG's top 13 employees by 57%, and is currently working on the next 75; sources say some Fed and Treasury officials have urged Feinberg to ease up. The uprising was apparently initiated by AIG general counsel, Anastasia Kelly; she's joined by the heads of one of AIG's international life-insurance businesses, its financial-services division, its international property-and-casualty-insurance businesses, and its U.S. property-casualty business. A key point of contention is the so-called golden-parachute severance payments executives are currently eligible for. Citi, Treasury at odds over TARP exit. Citigroup (C) may have to wait before shaking itself free of the Treasury's 34% stake, because the Treasury is concerned such a sale might weaken the bank's cause with investors should it need to raise capital. Citi is trying to convince the government to allow it to repay its remaining $20B in TARP loans within the next ten days, short of which it will be forced to wait until mid-January, but the Treasury wants to wait until the bank and regulators agree on a broader plan to repay all obligations under that plan, including government guarantees on $301B of devalued securities and other assets. Treasury sees smaller TARP loss. The Treasury has done such a good job in stabilizing the U.S. financial system that the projected long-term cost of the TARP is now at least $200B less than previous estimates, according to a Department official. The administration had estimated that taxpayers would have to shoulder $341B in costs under the program, but higher-than-expected returns on the Treasury's investments to stabilize the system have more than halved that number. In a speech Tuesday, President Obama is expected to talk about using leftover TARP funds for job creation, although he may hit resistance from Republicans who want to use such funds for deficit reduction. Publishers look to close digital ranks. In an effort to exert greater control over their financial futures, five print publishers have teamed up in a new digital venture, sources say. The venture, to be announced this week, will create a digital store and common technology and advertising standards to sell titles on electronic readers. The venture is spearheaded by Time Inc. (TWX) and includes News Corp. (NWS), Conde Nast Publications, Hearst and Meredith (MDP). The partners are all paying an initial ante, but are as yet unclear on a number of key issues. "Now that this transition is underway, the big thing is to figure out what is going to work for consumers, how you make the best offerings and get them out there, and underneath that how it is delivered," one executive said. BIS sounds risk alarm. The Bank for International Settlements stated in its latest quarterly report, published over the weekend, that banks may once again be lured to take big risks because of rock-bottom interest rates. The study found evidence of a significant link between an extended period of low interest rates prior to the financial crisis and banks' risk-taking, which it said could consequently fuel new asset price bubbles. BIS also noted the volume of international debt securities issued in Q3 fell 16% from Q2, to $1.998T while net issuance almost halved to $475B. Total turnover in exchange-traded derivatives was stable at $425T, which is about 60% of the volume seen before the financial crisis. BHP, Rio ink iron ore JV. Mining giants BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RTP) signed an agreement over the weekend to combine their iron ore operations in Western Australia, a deal they say will save them $10B a year. But the deal faces significant regulatory hurdles due to concerns about excessive dominance of the iron ore market. Originally outlined in June, the deal was formalized Saturday; the companies anticipate completion of the deal in the second half of 2010. The statement made no mention of any payment from BHP to Rio Tinto, which has the larger iron ore production, but a figure of $5.8B had been proposed in earlier negotiations. Under the plan, each company would own 50% in their combined Western Australian iron ore assets, but would continue to market the ore separately. Chevron makes 'clean' push in Australia. Chevron (CVX) entered an agreement worth $82B to supply liquid natural gas to Tokyo Electric Power Co. out of Australia, where its Wheatstone venture is based. Chevron and competitors are investing heavily in Australia as they angle for a larger slice of the LNG market. The deal will help vault Chevron up 14 notches in 2016 to the No. 6 spot in global rankings. Payback time for U.K. banks? While U.S. politicians grouse about bank ingratitude, the U.K. government is contemplating more direct action: making banks pay taxes that could raise anywhere between several hundred million pounds over one year to more than 1B a year for 2-3 years in taxes. The measure, which could be announced as soon as Wednesday, would apply to U.K. banks such as Barclays (BCS), HSBC (HBC), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), as well as the British arms of overseas firms, such as Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan (JPM) and Deutsche Bank (DB). However, timing of such a move remains uncertain amid "formidable practical obstacles." Intel cans Larrabee. Intel (INTC) said it's yanking plans to sell a consumer version of its much-touted, much-delayed multi-core graphics chip - Larrabee - which was meant to establish a new area of competition with Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD). Intel said it had decided not to offer the chip at all as a conventional product, though it will make it available as a platform to help programmers design new applications that can carry out computing tasks in a parallel fashion. "The silicon and software development are behind where we hoped to be at this point in the project," an Intel spokesman said. Intel said it will provide an update about future versions some time next year. Amazon denies store report. Amazon.com (AMZN) said it has no plans to open walk-in stores in London or anywhere else, contrary to a report over the weekend that said the internet e-commerce giant was looking to cash in on so-called "click and collect" shopping. Kuwait turns profit on Citi. The Kuwait Investment Authority, the Gulf country's sovereign wealth fund, said it sold a $4.1B stake in Citigroup (C) and that it made a $1.1B profit (37.7% return) in the process. The authority converted its preferred shares to common shares after working out a deal with the bank, selling all of the shares for $4.1B. The KIA invested $3B in Citi and another $2B in Merrill in 2008 as Wall Street lenders turned to outside investors to replenish capital hit by subprime-mortgage losses. SWFs have been unwinding their investments in Western banks after stocking up on big names when share prices hit rock bottom during the global financial crisis. Hershey gets sweet with Nestle. Hershey Foods (HSY) has been in contact with Switzerland-based Nestle (NSRGY.PK) about teaming up to buy Britain's Cadbury in a counter-move to Kraft's hostile offer, sources say. As expected, Kraft launched a formal unsolicited 10.2B ($17B) bid on Friday. Hershey said in a Nov. 18 regulatory filing it was “reviewing its options.” In a statement this morning, Cadbury said it will formally respond to the Kraft offer on December 14. GM cedes JV control to SAIC... In a trade-off it hopes will give it a higher stake in another China JV, General Motors said it has agreed to let China's SAIC take control of their JV, where SAIC will now have a 51% stake. GM said the transfer was necessary to help SAIC consolidate earnings from the Shanghai GM joint venture, which local financial regulations barred as a 50/50 partnership. In return, GM hopes to get a higher stake in the producer of Wuling micro minivans, a JV owned by GM, SAIC and the government of Guangxi province in southwestern China. GM, which has a 34% stake in the venture, is planning to expand in Hong Kong and then India early next year. ...and hires recruiter for CEO job. As GM scrambles to find new growth models, it has hired a recruiter, Spenser Stuart, with orders to find a permanent CEO who has extensive global, manufacturing and turnaround experience. Importantly, the automaker is hoping to attract someone with operating experience in Asia because "next year, GM expects to sell more cars in Asia than North America," a source said. Sources said GM also wants someone who can work well with U.S. government agencies and prepare the now private manufacturer for an IPO. Early Monday, GM appointed Tim Lee as president of GM International, succeeding Nick Reilly - thought to be the beginning of a major overhaul to the carmaker's ranks. Apple adds Lala to iTunes list. Apple (AAPL) confirmed it bought Lala Media, the fast-streaming online music company that lets users pay just $0.10 to access music. While terms were undisclosed, one report said Apple got away with a big discount. The technology gives users permanent access to web songs that can be streamed but cannot be downloaded to a user's computer hard drive or to portable players like iPods. The three-year-old company is developing an iPhone application that would greatly expand the service's reach, by making Lala web songs available on the go via the phone's wireless internet connection. Geithner: Goldman would have failed. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Goldman Sachs (GS) executives were wrong when they claimed in an interview the firm would have survived without government help at the peak of the crisis. "None of them would have survived," Geithner said over the weekend. He also directed more barbs at Wall Street's compensation culture, saying: "We have to end that era of irresponsibly high bonuses." Today's MarketsOverseas markets were mixed Monday. Stock futures have moved lower overnight, while Treasurys are poised to carry significant gains into the week's first session.
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Asian Tech Stock Weekly Summary (July 13 - 19)
JapanHardwareKonica Minolta Holdings Inc. would start output at its new factory in Japan that makes high-tech film used in LCD panels by autumn 2010 due to a strong recovery in panel and TV demand. Konica Minolta had planned to begin production at the new plant in autumn 2009, but the company late last year decided to delay the start-up as the global downturn forced panel makers to cut output. Konica Minolta dominates the global market for triacetyl cellulose (TAC) film, which protects the polarisation plates used in LCD panels, with bigger rival Fujifilm Holdings Corp. Konica Minolta, which also competes with Canon and Ricoh in producing copiers and printers, plans to spend 18 billion yen (US$194 million) to build the new factory, which will be capable of making 50 million square metres of TAC film a year.TelecommunicationsNTT DoCoMo (DCM) president Ryuji Yamada said the Japanese operator is on track for launching its new Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile network in 2010, reports the Financial Times. The adoption of LTE will see DoCoMo's handsets become compatible with other operators' 3G networks for the first time since the 2001 launch of its FOMA service, which used a WCDMA standard that was slightly different to the one rolled out by the majority of the rest of the world. DoCoMo has learned a hard lesson from being the first operator in the world to launch 3G services. DoCoMo plans to launch LTE handsets in 2011 that are also compatible with its current 3G network, so customers can still access services if they're outside an LTE coverage area. DoCoMo will use its high-speed LTE network to offer mobile content services in a bid to drive new revenue in the saturated Japanese market.Softbank Corp. (SFTBF.PK), Japan's third biggest mobile telecommunications provider, raised 30 billion yen (US$320 million) from the first BBB rated bonds sold to institutions in Japan by a non-utility borrower since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s collapse in September. The Tokyo-based company, priced three-year, 4.72 percent notes to yield 4 percentage points more than the yen swap rate, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Softbank, rated the second-lowest investment grade of BBB by Japan Credit Rating Agency, becomes the first non-utility company with that rating to sell bonds to institutional investors in Japan for 10 months. Softbank will use money raised from the securities to repay debt, it said in a filing with Japan's finance ministry today. The company sold 60 billion yen in 5.1 percent fixed-rate bonds to individual investors in May, Bloomberg data show.Softbank casts its eyes on the Greater China Region and inked a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai Media Group (SMG) on June 29, 2009. Softbank Founder Masayoshi Son and SMG President Li Ruigang signed on the agreement. The two parties will jointly to develop new media digital content business. Softbank is reported to cooperate with Far Eastone Telecommunications Co., Ltd. in August to launch mobile phone cartoon services. Far Eastone is in talks with Softbank subsidiaries in an attempt to introduce Japan's well-known cartoon works into Taiwan as soon as possible.Semiconductor Japan's Ushio Inc. announced its subsidiary Ushio America Inc. has acquired a 49 percent stake in U.S. firm Necsel Intellectual Property Inc. Necsel has technology for low-cost mass production of visible-laser light sources, and Ushio plans to leverage this to boost its own competitiveness in the markets for light sources for data projectors and digital cinema display systems. Using the technology, Ushio will be able to broaden its lineup of light sources to include semiconductor lasers across the complete spectrum of visible wavelengths. The company plans to purchase the remaining 51 percent of Necsel over the next five years and turn the unit into a wholly owned subsidiaryMedia, Entertainment and GamingSquare Enix Holdings Co. (SQNXF.PK) has shipped three million units of its "Dragon Quest IX" video game software in Japan since its release. In total, global shipments of the "Dragon Quest" series have surpassed 50 million units since the popular franchise debuted in 1986. Sales of the highly anticipated latest installment are going strong, too, with some 2.5 million units flying off the shelves in its first three days on the market -- beating the roughly 2.4 million of "Dragon Quest VIII," which was released in 2004. For the first time in the series, "Dragon Quest IX" runs on the Nintendo DS hand-held system. And through Wi-Fi wireless technology, up to four nearby gamers can play together.KoreaTelecommunicationsSK Telecom Co. (SKM) is considering bidding for Kazakhstan's Mobile Telecom-Service, as part of its recent efforts to seek business opportunities overseas. Kazakhtelecom, Kazakhstan's incumbent telecommunications operator, said in late June that it plans to sell its 51 percent stake in Mobile Telecom-Service and that it would accept letters of intent from potential bidders by and final bids by Aug. 31. Mobile Telecom-Service, Kazakhstan's smallest GSM operator, was launched in 2007 and provides services under the brand Neo with 920,000 subscribers.Mobile/WirelessEricsson (ERIC) plans to invest US$1.5 billion in South Korea over the next five years. The company would set up a research centre in the Asian nation to develop environmentally friendly and fourth-generation wireless technologies. Ericsson also planned to increase the number of employees at its Korean unit to 1,000 from 80. The Korean government was determined to provide a level playing field for foreign businesses to compete with domestic rivals. The investment was expected to help boost Korea's competitiveness in the market for long-term evolution, or LTE, high-speed wireless technology, backed by Ericsson. AT&T and Verizon Communications are also choosing the standard. Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile-telephone company, aims to begin offering a high-speed network in all U.S. regions by 2015 using LTE, which is scheduled to reach 30 markets by next year. LG Electronics, Asia's second-largest mobile-telephone maker, in December said it developed a faster wireless chip used in mobile telephones based on the technology.BiotechnologySamsung Electronics plans to invest about 500 billion won (US$389 million) in the biotech medicine business. Korea's economy minister Lee Youn-ho said that Samsung, the world's top maker of memory chips and flat-screen TVs, would spend the amount over the next five years on the biosimilar business. Biosimilars are versions of biopharmaceuticals whose patents have expired. Samsung declined to confirm the size of the investment but said biosimilars presented a new growth opportunity for the technology giant. Lee signed a letter of intent with several domestic firms, including Samsung Electronics and LG Life Science, on their investment in a government biosimilar industry development initiative, with Korea Development Bank and a state-led fund already committed to providing financial support.ChinaInternetChina's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has not ruled against the proposed merger between Sina (SINA) and Focus Media (FMCN); documents for the merger have not yet been put on MOC records. Focus Media CEO Jason Jiang is "quite anxious" about the merger, and said recently that the MOC has continuously asked for more documentation. The companies first submitted an application for their merger in late December 2008.As of the end of 2008, China saw a netizen base of 298 million, and an Internet penetration rate of 22.6 percent, outracing the global average level of 21.9 percent.Mobile/WirelessA total of 13.21 million mobile phones were sold in China in May 2009, up 9.6 percent from the previous month. The number of GSM mobile phones sold in May increased by 12.5 percent month-on-month to 11.06 million units, while only 2.15 million CDMA handsets, which included 39,800 3G CDMA 1xEVDO handsets, were sold in May, down 3.4 percent from April. The dip in CDMA mobile phone sales is the result of China Telecom's shift in focus from 2G to 3G. In addition, both China Mobile and China Unicom implemented subsidies within their 3G service plans in 2009 to attract more users. Five foreign brands, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG, accounted for a 65.6 percent share of China's mobile phone market in May. Nokia had the largest market share of 31.9 percent last month. Domestic mobile phone manufacturer ZTE was the sixth-largest brand in May with a 3.8 percent market share.Z-Obee Holdings, which provides design services for mobile-telephone manufacturers on the mainland, has launched its own handset brand to meet the country's growing demand for stylish wireless devices. The Singapore-listed company's new "Vim" brand for the mainland mobile-telephone market will cater to price-conscious consumers keen on using fashionable, easy-to-operate handsets. The firm's production road map includes launching a new model every 45 days, which would enable it to introduce at least eight models in Hong Kong and on the mainland each year. The initial batch of Vim handsets being introduced on the mainland includes a his and hers model designed for couples that has a text message authentication function. This allows text correspondence between the pair to be decoded with a specific password for privacy. Each Vim handset has a voice diary function, allowing users to record appointments on the phone and be automatically reminded by the device at the designated time.TelecommunicationsChina Mobile Ltd. (CHL) will invest 70 billion yuan (US$10.2 billion) in building and upgrading its telecommunications networks, and promoting the use of its 3G services in the country's vast rural areas over the next three years. The ministry will help it promote the adoption of 3G-enabled applications in rural areas.China's three telecoms carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom (CHU) and China Telecom (CHA), injected more than 100 million yuan (US$14.6 million) in online advertising for two consecutive months of May and June. Their online ads expenses amounted to 198 billion yuan in May, when it welcomed the World Telecommunications Day on May 17, and China Unicom started trial operation of WCDMA. China Unicom's online ads input reached 78.79 million yuan on that month. In the same period, the carriers paid large amount of money in TV advertising as well, shouldering into prime time of CCTV, China's leading television station. Their expenses on online advertising fell, but still stayed above 100 million yuan to 115 million.ZTE Corp. (ZTCOF.PK) has captured 34 percent of the latest 8.6 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) 3G network expansion tender by China Mobile Communications Corp. Huawei Technologies won 22 percent while partner Nokia Siemens Networks claimed 7 percent. Datang Mobile Communications Equipment and domestic partner FibreHome Technologies ranked third with a 21 percent share. The rest went to China Putian, New Postcom and Ericsson, each winning five to six percent. ZTE and Huawei were helped by their offers of a free upgrade in China Mobile's existing TD-SCDMA equipment, which was installed in the previous two phases of network construction. Industry watchers said China Mobile's preference for supporting domestic vendors and homegrown technologies also enabled ZTE, Huawei and Datang to take a bigger share. As a result, foreign vendors' share was shrinking. The latest tender was the third by China Mobile for a network covering 200 cities or 70 percent of the areas on the mainland. The original contract size was about 8.6 billion yuan for the installation of 39,000 base stations.China Unicom aims to go up against market leader China Mobile for high-end users as early as October, thanks to its exclusive sales agreement for the popular Apple (AAPL) iPhone handset. Unicom and Apple are expected to announce a schedule for the iPhone's introduction soon. Meanwhile, industry sources have confirmed that Apple has already submitted the device to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology laboratory for official approval. Unicom and Apple could not be reached for comment on the deal, but telecommunications sources said Unicom would launch the handset in the fourth quarter when its 3G mobile network will cover 284 cities across the country, up from 55 cities at the end of last month. The full commercial launch of its 3G network plus the exclusive deal with iPhone is expected to put pressure on China Mobile to defend its high-end users.HardwareGreater China is expected to see an almost fourfold increase in demand this year for mini-notebooks, commonly known as netbooks, as computer makers aggressively market the low-cost devices amid the economic downturn. That growth spurt is likely to boost sales for the market's leading notebook personal computer suppliers - including mainland Lenovo Group (LNVGY.PK), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Toshiba (TOSBF.PK), Acer and AsusTek Computer (AKCPF.PK) and operators of high-speed 3G mobile networks. Netbook shipments on the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are forecast to hit 3.9 million units, up nearly 260 percent from 1.1 million units last year. The market research firm said total industry shipments would reach nearly 33 million units, up from its earlier estimate of 27 million units. That would result in a global netbook penetration of about 20 percent and flat year-on-year demand for pricier, full-featured laptops. Many buyers were adjusting their discretionary spending and were buying netbooks as lower-priced alternatives to traditional laptops. Netbooks are smaller than typical laptops, carry few software applications and are mainly used for wireless internet access.Lenovo Group plans to expand its sales network coverage from more than 100 Indian cities to more than 300 within 2009. The company is currently restructuring to divide its global business into mature and emerging markets. Lenovo previously will open 30 retail locations in India to bring its store total to 150 and expand its service centers from 130 to 250.Shenzhen-based Coship Electronics Co., Ltd. has won an order worth US$21 million from EMB, an old customer in South America to supply digital TV set-top boxes. The order from EMB represents about 6.79 percent of Coship's total operating revenue in the entire 2008 and is the first overseas contract that Coship makes public this year. In November 2008, Coship got a set-top box order valued at US$12.21 million from the South American company. Coship had sold set-top boxes worth 120 million yuan (US$17.5 million) to EMB as of June 30, 2009, eight months after it secured the first order from the latter. The Shenzhen company, engaged in the production and sales of digital TV equipment and electronics, saw its digital TV set-top box software and hardware sales revenue account for 93.94 percent, 96.83 percent, and 95.94 percent of its revenue from major business in 2003, 2004, and 2005, respectively.TCL Corp. said that its net profit may plunge 80 percent from a year earlier to 85 million yuan (US$12.4 million) during the first half of this year. TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd, one of TCL's subsidiaries, saw sales of handsets and accessories slide 12.32 percent year on year to 1.02 million units last month, while its first-half sales declined 24.69 percent from a year earlier to 5.06 million units. TCL Multimedia Technology Holdings Ltd, another subsidiary of TCL Corp, sold 616,898 LCD TVs in June, up 60.3 percent from a year earlier, and 342,353 CRT TVs, down 56.1 percent year on year. TCL sold more than 2.31 million LCD TVs in the first five months of this year, representing a year-on-year increase of 103.7 percent. The sales volume of LCD TVs in the first five months accounts for nearly 60 percent of the company's sales in 2008.Alternative EnergySuntech Power Holdings (STP) plans to invest 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) in the four projects with a combined capacity of 1.8GW that it signed up to in recent weeks. The money represents just the initial investment. China's long term plan for the PV industry is 70 percent of projects will be on-grid and 25 percent building integrated PV.LDK Solar Co. (LDK) has purchased a 70 percent stake in Italian systems integrator Solar Green Technology for an undisclosed sum. The move is expected to enhance LDK Solar's presence in the Italian photovoltaic sector. In addition, the deal will help Solar Green Technology grow further through its partnership with LDK Solar for several projects in Italy and Europe.ReneSola Ltd. (SOL) has successfully commenced trial production on the first batch of polysilicon from Phase 1 of its two-phase, 3,000 metric ton annualized capacity polysilicon manufacturing facility located in China's Sichuan province. ReneSola's two-phase, 3,000 MT annualized capacity polysilicon manufacturing facility utilizes the Siemens process and a closed loop system to produce polysilicon. Phase 2 of the facility, representing approximately 1,500 MT annualized capacity, is scheduled to reach mechanical completion in September 2009.
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
NY AG mulls bonus pullback. Sources say New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo may demand the return of $4B in early bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees just before being acquired by Bank of America (BAC). The AG's office is also looking into how much BoA CEO Ken Lewis knew about the accelerated bonuses, whether the companies' shareholders had all the necessary information about Merrill's finances and whether federal bailout loans to BoA were used properly. "No longer will this country stand for wasteful spending of tax dollars on bonuses for executives whose companies have taken huge losses and required taxpayer bailouts," Cuomo said. Obama echoed the sentiment, calling Wall Street bonuses 'shameful' and 'the height of irresponsibility.' Pfizer's pull-out fee. Two days after Pfizer (PFE) announced its plans to buy Wyeth (WYE) for $68B, Pfizer shares are trading near a 12-year low. Perhaps, as one analyst put it, it's because "people seem underwhelmed by the deal, maybe thinking Pfizer made a safe move with Wyeth rather than trying to shoot the lights out with a more aggressive company better able to produce blockbuster drugs." Pfizer is moving forward with the deal full-force, and has committed to paying Wyeth $4.5B as a breakup fee if the lenders pull out of the deal. The lenders could choose to act if Pfizer's operations or credit rating decline significantly. Wyeth will have to pay $2B if it drops the deal to accept a higher bid from a different company. Fannie tries for fewer foreclosures. Fannie Mae (FNM) has reached an agreement with former critic Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America to help prevent foreclosures by modifying home loans. Bruce Mark, CEO of NACA, had previously called Fannie a 'major roadblock' to foreclosure-prevention efforts, but is now working to reach a similar agreement with Freddie Mac (FRE). NACA, which serves as an intermediary between borrowers and lenders and works with such major lenders as Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC), helped modify over 20,000 mortgages last year. Madoff transfers. Bank of New York Mellon (BK) will transfer $301.4M to Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff's brokerage, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) will transfer $233.5M. In exchange, the banks will be indemnified against any claims brought as a result of the transfers. The move is part of Picard's efforts to gather assets to be returned to defrauded investors. Roche lowers DNA bid. Roche Holding (RHHBY.PK) lowered its bid price for the 44.2% of Genentech (DNA) it doesn't already own to $86.50 per share from $89 per share, and will take the offer directly to shareholders within two weeks. Genentech had previously rejected Roche's $89/share offer as too low, and though the new bid is lower, it still marks a 2.9% premium on Genentech's recent closing price. A full takeover would allow Roche to cut costs, boost earnings and expand in the U.S. market. Amazon profit beat. Amazon (AMZN) reported better-than-expected earnings yesterday (see details below), showing a 9% growth in Q4 profits and 18% growth in sales. The growth has much to do with Amazon's strategy of aggressive discounting, free shipping offers and continued product expansion at a time when most other retailers are scaling back, and CEO Jeff Bezos cited heavy demand for Amazon's Kindle electronic reader. Amazon also forecast strong sales for the current quarter. Toshiba tossed by global recession. Toshiba (TOSBF.PK) fell the most in 34 years in Japanese trading after the company forecast its largest ever annual loss. Facing an industry glut and falling prices as the global economic downturn worsens, Toshiba's net loss will probably reach 280B ($3.1B) in the fiscal year ending March 31 vs. earlier estimates of a 70B net income. To save 300B in the next fiscal year, the company is delaying construction of new factories, firing temporary workers, slashing output and cutting research spending. In light of the lower earnings outlook and the possibility Toshiba might have to seek equity financing, Goldman Sachs cut its rating to Sell from Neutral. Shares -17.4% in Japan. Dell smartphone? Dell (DELL) may move into the smartphone market as soon as next month, sources say, as a way to boost sales while its core PC business gets hit by the recession. At least one of Dell's models includes a touchscreen and no physical keyboard, like the iPhone (AAPL), while another has a keypad that slides out from beneath the screen. Going up against Apple and Research in Motion (RIMM) in the smartphone market would be a bold move, one that Dell has yet to confirm. "We haven't committed to anything," said one spokesman. Japan's recession deepens. Japan's recession showed signs of deepening Friday, with closely watched industrial production plunging 9.6% in December, the second straight month of record decline, and projections of steep drops continuing into 2009. "I've never seen such a steep production fall," Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano said. Meanwhile, joblessness rose to 4.4% from 3.9%, and household spending fell by 4.6%. On Thursday, the government said Japan's economy entered a recession in November 2007, meaning it's been in recession for 14 months. Japan's recent expansion was fueled by exports, and economists say its current recession is being driven by the global downturn rather than domestic factors. The Shedlock-Schiff Affair: A Chronicle. Popular econoblogger Michael "Mish" Shedlock triggered a firestorm this week when he took down outspoken investment advisor Peter Schiff, claiming that although Schiff may have been right about the U.S. economy imploding, clients who had invested in his funds in the hopes of profiting from his prophecies had seen their accounts decimated. Big Picture author Barry Ritholtz predicted Shedlock's post would set off fireworks "via a major media outlet." He was right. Today, WSJ's Right Forecast by Schiff, Wrong Plan? does exactly that. "Peter Schiff predicted a collapse of the U.S. financial system. The bust-up he didn't foresee was the one that made mincemeat of investors who took his advice in 2008." Meanwhile, Schiff responds, saying that "the crisis is just beginning and the movements thus far in the dollar, commodities, and foreign stocks, are mere head fakes. Once the speculators have been flushed from the markets, the underlying long-term trends I have been following should return in earnest." More joblessness. Initial jobless claims remained elevated, with 588,000 this week after last week's (revised) 585,000 - vs. consensus of 575,000. Continuing claims +66.5K to 4.63M. Durables drop. Durable Goods Orders -2.6% in December, worse than the 2% drop expected. November's numbers were revised to -3.7% from -1%. Ex-transport: -3.6% vs. -2.7% consensus. It's the fifth consecutive monthly decrease. Inventories +0.4% to $343.5B, the highest on record, and up 17 of the last 18 months. Fewer new home sales. New home sales in December fell 14.7% to 331,000 from Nov. - well short of the 397,000 consensus. November was revised to 388,000 from 407,000. Median price $206,500 vs. $246,900 a year ago. Total new home sales for 2008: 482K down 37.8% from 776K last year. Earnings: Friday Before Open AMETEK (AME): Q4 EPS of $0.66 in-line. Revenue of $624M (+6.9%) vs. $660M. Sees Q1 EPS of $0.54-0.58 vs. $0.59. (PR) Cemex (CX): Q4 revenue of $4.5B vs. $4.79B consensus. Majority net loss of $707M vs. +$538M a year ago. (PR) Honeywell (HON): Q4 EPS of $0.97 in-line. Revenue of $8.71B (-6.1%) vs. $8.97B. Reaffirms 2009 guidance. (PR) Honda (HMC): FQ3 net profit sagged 90% to 20.24B vs. consensus of 19.75B. Operating profit of 102B down from 276B a year ago. Sales of 2.533T (-17%). Lowers full-year net profit outlook to 80B from 185B. Shares -9.2% in Tokyo. (DJ) Earnings: Thursday After Close Amazon.com (AMZN): Q4 EPS of $0.52 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $6.7B (+18.2%) vs. $6.44B. "We're particularly grateful for the unusually strong demand for Kindle in the fourth quarter." (PR) Ariba (ARBA): FQ1 EPS of $0.21 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $86.1M (+11.8%) vs. $86.8M. (PR) Broadcom (BRCM): Q4 EPS of $0.08 misses by $0.19. Revenue of $1.13B (+9.7%) vs. $1.07B. Sees Q1 revenue of $800-875M vs. $953M. (PR) CA Inc. (CA): FQ3 EPS of $0.43 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $1.04B (-5.3%) vs. $1.07B. While customers are closely scrutinizing all IT investments, we are seeing considerable interest in our enterprise software as it enables them to increase the effectiveness and cost efficiency of their IT infrastructures..." (PR) Chubb (CB): Q4 EPS of $1.58 beats by $0.06. Revenue of $M in-line. Sees 2009 EPS of $4.80-5.20 vs. $5.62. "We are encouraged by the improved rate environment in the fourth quarter... and there are good reasons to believe that this trend will continue into 2009." (PR) Eastman Chemical Company (EMN): Q4 EPS of $0.05 misses by $0.30. Revenue of $1.35B (-22.5%) vs. $1.4B. "Capacity utilization likely reached its lowest point in December. We anticipate that our capacity utilization will improve through the first quarter due to a modest increase in demand." (PR) Juniper Networks (JNPR): Q4 EPS of $0.321 in-line. Revenue of $923M (+14.1%) vs. $936M. (PR) KLA-Tencor (KLAC): FQ2 EPS of -$0.12 misses by $0.06. Revenue of $397M (-37.6%) vs. $394M. (PR) Monster Worldwide (MWW): Q4 EPS of $0.27 in-line. Revenue of $291M vs. $312M. (PR) PerkinElmer (PKI): Q4 EPS of $0.48 beats by $0.06. Revenue of $495M (+3%) vs. $516M. (PR) PMC-Sierra (PMCS): Q4 EPS of $0.07 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $120.8M (-2.3%) vs. $119.7M. (PR) Rambus (RMBS): Q4 EPS of -$0.10 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $37.6M (-7.2%) vs. $29.9M. (PR) SunPower (SPWRA): Q4 EPS of $0.70 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $401M (+78.7%) vs. $397M. "Long-term solar market fundamentals remain in place and we are encouraged by the commitment to renewable energy by President Obama and Congressional leadership." (PR) Varian Medical Systems (VAR): FQ1 EPS of $0.56 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $509M (+12.8%) vs. $501M. Sees FQ2 EPS of $0.59-0.62 vs. $0.64. (PR) Today's Markets Asia markets closed mixed Friday. Nikkei -3.1% to 7,994. Hang Seng +0.9% to 13,278. Shanghai closed. BSE +2% to 9,424. Europe is lower at midday. London -0.45%. Paris -1.1%. Frankfurt -1.1%. U.S. futures have moved back into negative territory. Dow -0.3% to 8086. S&P -0.4% to 839.50. Nasdaq -0.35%. Crude +0.8% to $41.77. Gold +1.7% to $920.50. 30-year Treasurys -0.2%. 10-year +0.11%. 5-year +0.04%. 2-year +0.03%. Friday's Economic Calendar 8:30 GDP Q4 Advance 8:30 Employment Cost Index 9:45 NAPM Chicago Business Barometer 9:55 University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment 3:00 PM Farm Prices Notable earnings before Friday's open: ACI, AME, AXL, CVX, GCI, HON, IVZ, PCAR, PG, SPG, XOM Notable earnings after Friday's close: none. Seeking Alpha editor Eli Hoffmann contributed to this post.
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How to Use Your Mac and Your iPhone to Completely Automate Your Home
Modernize your home and simplify your life with these painless products and strategies that automate your house, apartment, castle, or whatever keeps the roof over your head. Illustrations by Hanoch Piven Still using jagged little strips of metal to unlock your front door? Paying someone to feed your pets while you’re away for a weekend? Then it’s time to truly enter the second decade of the 21st century. Setting up home-control automation that runs from your Mac and iPhone is surprisingly simple, and the results can feel like magic. We kick things off with a primer that takes the hassle and jargon out of home control, then dive straight into showing you the best possibilities for managing your home’s lights, entertainment, security, and loads more. Just wait until you check out the washing machine that tweets when it’s finished a load…What Exactly is Home Control?You might’ve also heard it called “home automation,” and you might be a bit reluctant to slog through all the jargon and devices that the phrase brings to mind. But really, it’s simple. There are two types of home-control systems: the fantasy technology you see at Disney’s Tomorrowland and the gear you can actually deploy in the real world. Unfortunately, manufacturers of home-control systems have overpromised and under-delivered for so many years that many people have just stopped listening.Good news: It’s safe to start listening again. There’s still a yawning chasm between fantasy and reality--we’re a long way from having a robot butler greet us with our smoking jacket and a perfectly muddled mojito as we step out of our flying car. But we can manage nearly every system in and around the home: lighting, heating and cooling, home theater, security, even irrigation.Why bother? Home-control systems are appealing for many reasons: They deliver unparalleled convenience and efficiency, they add value to your home, they strengthen your home’s physical security, and they help reduce your impact on the environment. With the right tools, you can monitor and manage all your home systems whether you’re on the couch, in the car, or at work. We’ll discuss those specific applications in the following pages, but first, it’s important to begin with an overview of the basics. Which home-control standard do you want to use? There are four major ecosystems to choose from, and naturally, they’re mutually exclusive (at least for the time being)…X10/InsteonIntroduced by Pico Electronics way back in the 1970s, X10 is the granddaddy of home-control technology. The passage of time and the long absence of significant competition helped X10 amass the largest installed base of any home-control technology, despite a reputation for being as reliable as a British sports car from the same era.X10 devices use a primitive form of power-line networking, meaning commands travel over your home’s existing electrical wiring. The X10 protocol doesn’t include a feedback loop, so there’s no way for devices sending commands to know whether those commands have been received and executed. The technology is also highly susceptible to electrical noise, which X10 devices sometimes interpret as valid commands. This can result not only in false negatives (a light or an appliance doesn’t turn on or off in response to a command), but also false positives (turning on or off in the absence of a command).Insteon, developed by SmartLabs (a major distributor of X10 products) in 2001, builds and improves on the X10 protocol without rendering X10 devices obsolete. Like the ZigBee and Z-Wave standards we’ll discuss next, every node on the Insteon network is capable of receiving information and passing on the command to the next node if it’s not the intended target. Unlike those two standards, Insteon devices use both radio frequencies (RF) and power lines to communicate (this retains X10 compatibility and reaches devices where radio waves can’t penetrate).SmartLabs' Insteon uses radio frequencies and power lines to communicate.SmartLabs maintains its own online retail operation and sells directly to the do-it-yourself market. The Insteon ecosystem is extremely robust in terms of the systems it can manage. You can buy plug-in and in-the-wall lighting controls; thermostats; motion, door, and window sensors; irrigation controllers; and more. Third-party support is very good in some respects and surprisingly limited in others. For instance, you’ll find a number of Mac software controllers (see below), but none of the major lighting-control manufacturers in the U.S. (Cooper Wiring Devices, GE, Intermatic, or Leviton) build Insteon-compatible switches, dimmers, or receptacles.Insteon’s failure to gain support from other manufacturers will likely limit its long-term prospects. The development of a bridge (a device capable of translating commands from one standard to another) would save Insteon customers from getting hosed if the market ultimately embraces one of the other competing standards. ZigBeeZigBee is the only home-control specification based on an IEEE standard (IEEE is the leading standards organization for device manufacturers; you’ve likely heard of its 802.11 standard for wireless networking). And you might think ZigBee’s designation as an international standard would automatically render it the marketplace winner (after all, how many wireless-networking products buck 802.11?), but far fewer ZigBee products are available to the do-it-yourself crowd than either Insteon or Z-Wave.Part of the problem is that early versions of the ZigBee standard didn’t guarantee interoperability; companies were allowed to develop products that worked only within their own proprietary systems. ZigBee does have a strong presence in the energy-consumption and -management market, where it’s embedded in thermostats inside the home and in utility smart meters outside it. One of the largest home-control manufacturers, Control4, builds complete ZigBee-based systems; but you must acquire it from a contractor who will handle the installation (charging you handsomely and limiting your expansion options in the process).Few ZigBee devices are sold at retail today, and none of the Mac home-control software programs we looked at are capable of operating a ZigBee network yet. Still, ZigBee’s status as an IEEE standard carries a lot of weight, and that could make it a major contender down the road.Z-WaveZ-Wave is a proprietary wireless home-control standard developed by Zensys, and it enjoys robust support from more third-party manufacturers than either Insteon or ZigBee. Cooper, GE, Intermatic, and Leviton offer comprehensive Z-Wave lighting controls; Wayne-Dalton builds garage-door openers; Schlage manufactures door locks; and so on.Control your home's temperature with this Z-Wave thermostat from Trane. You can buy nearly all these products at retail, but Wayne-Dalton’s HousePort and TrickleStar’s Z-Wave widget are the only Mac-compatible home-control programs we’re aware of, and they’re both very rudimentary. But Z-Wave has gathered more industry-wide momentum than either Insteon or ZigBee (including a critical endorsement from Intel), which could help it become the eventual home-control standard. Hybrid ZigBee/Z-Wave systems are also an option--Control4, for instance, introduced a bridge device late last year that enables its ZigBee system to control Z-Wave devices. Handy.The Future Awaits… Even more good news: There’s no need to make a decision just yet. In the next few pages, we’ll outline the most useful automation options for everything from automatically turning on your lights to amazingly simple webcam security to streaming video servers. Once you decide what’s right for your home, refer back to this primer to decide which hardware standard and corresponding software is right for you. Then it’s time to get your DIY on… even if doing it yourself amounts to Googling “professional home automation installers.”Home-Control SoftwareYou'll need to manage your entire home-control system by running software on your Mac that "talks" to your various interfaced devices. The major software players are:Indigo: Perceptive Automation’s Indigo Lite ($89.95) is compatible with Insteon and X10 modules, but not ZigBee or Z-Wave. It includes both a built-in web server and client/server architecture, so you can control the entire system locally or remotely. You can also schedule events (turn on the outside lights at dusk), set up triggers (send an email message if a door sensor is activated; monitor and program your Insteon thermostat), and more. Indigo Pro ($179.95) adds a host of advanced features, such as voice-command response. You can also control Indigo with your iPhone using the free app Indigo Touch.Indigo's software enables you to control your system remotely.XTension: Sand Hill Engineering’s XTension ($149.95) is compatible with X10 devices, several RF and niche interfaces, and certain wireless weather-monitoring products manufactured by Oregon Scientific. A technically savvy audience--even home automation contractors--will find a lot to like, but the software doesn’t support ZigBee, Z-Wave, or Insteon modules, which is… odd.Thinking Home: Always Thinking’s Thinking Home ($79) works with X10 and Insteon modules, but not ZigBee or Z-Wave devices. It’s not as sophisticated as Indigo, but it covers the basics and boasts an easy-to-learn user interface. Next Page: Lights, Power, Heating, Actions! >>Utilities: Lights, Power, Heating, Actions!Play puppetmaster with your home's utilities from your Mac and iPhone, and reap the benefits of convenience and efficiency.Light Your WayLighting automation puts the “utilitarian” into home-utility automation. These upgrades are flashy only on a literal level; you probably won’t go bragging to coworkers about how your House of the Future can turn its lights on and off. But these techniques form the foundation of home automation and make a great place to kick things off.For starters, try teaching your house to turn on the lights as you pull into the driveway. In addition to a basic home-control setup with Mac software and a hardware interface, you can add driveway-sensor modules ($169.99) or an automation-savvy garage-door retrofit ($71.99). Or just get a new garage-door opener ($189) with a Z-Wave interface to both control and monitor the door. With your Mac software, you can then build an if-then script that ties into your home lighting. If a car pulls into the driveway, activate the exterior house lighting. If you open the garage door, turn on the entryway lights inside.XTension lets you graphically assign icons that match your home setting.More sensors can create additional options. An outdoor motion sensor with floodlights ($54.88) can turn on when someone passes by. Your Mac could then log the time it happened and snap a webcam picture of your yard.You can take the process indoors, activating room lighting based on a motion sensor ($34.99). Full indoor automation can be harder since you might want to lounge around, but sitting without moving would turn the lights off. Still, it can work well in certain situations, such as lighting up a party as it moves around into different rooms.Control Utilities and Devices Over the InternetMost home automation software can connect online, letting you control devices from anywhere. Cancel your sprinkler schedule on a rainy day, open the shades in your teenager’s room at noon, adjust your thermostat when away, and otherwise tap into your setup over the Internet. Indigo and Thinking Home (see above for details) enable a web server within the automation interface. XTension uses an optional plug-in, X2Web ($39.95), to connect online.Indigo Touch, a free iPhone app, lets you change home-heating conditions from wherever you are. You could also remotely connect to an online Mac and control the whole computer as if you were sitting at home, directly using the automation software of your choice. Several remote-access tools enable this approach, including GoToMyPC ($19.95/month) and LogMeIn Free (free). LogMeIn even offers an iPhone version of the app, LogMeIn Ignition ($29.99). Or if you’re on MobileMe ($99/year), the Back to My Mac feature does the same thing. These tools might also be easier alternatives to setting up online components in the automation software because you shouldn’t have to make special network configurations on your home router to allow access.Open-ended plugs, such as the EZ102X4 (top) and the ApplianceLink V2, let you connect any device to your automation network.And many iPhone apps offer another way to connect to your hardware over the Internet. Indigo Touch (free) is a companion for that desktop software. Otherwise, just search for “X10,” “Insteon,” or “home automation” to browse the App Store. Be sure to read the requirements closely--some interface with software on your home Mac, while others talk directly to certain Internet-enabled automation controllers.Create Your Own Animal HouseYou can more easily take good care of your pets in an automated house, especially if you’re coming home late or taking a short vacation. Some hardware ties directly into your setup, while you might have to creatively hack other devices.For occasional meals, consider an internet-connected device, such as the Petwatch feeder ($269.99). The hardware includes a webcam so you can view your pet wherever you are.With this Petwatch feeder, you can watch and feed your pets remotely.If you’re technically minded--or you can draft someone who is--get creative with other home automation devices for great pet combinations. Some pet doors unlock when Fido or Whiskers get close; their collars hold a key. For one option, try a Solo Pet Door ($395 and up). This device retracts when it senses a magnet that your pet wears.We couldn’t track down any pet doors that talk to home automation systems, but you can combine a door like this with your own sensors. Add a proximity sensor and webcam to track and record your pet movement; you could even have your Mac email or SMS a picture. If you add a power relay to the mix, such as the EZIO2X4 ($134.99) or Insteon ApplianceLink V2 ($34.99), you can lock the door remotely. Maybe you want to give your pets access depending on the time of day. Or you could lock the door after a cat returns from a night of carousing. (There’re loads of creative options out there; for a few more, see Top Ten Wonders of the Home Automation World below.)Use Home Control To Live GreenerA home-control system can also help you to reduce your carbon footprint and use previous resources more efficiently. Here are six ways to get started:>> Rather than leaving your exterior lights on all day so your home isn’t dark when you get home, retrofit your light switches and use home-control software to turn them on when the sun sets.>> Conserve water by installing programmable sprinkler controllers that can adjust their irrigation schedules in response to weather conditions and forecasts.>> Create a vacation “scene” that turns your HVAC system off while you’re away. The system can also turn various lights on in the evening and off at night, using a randomized pattern that will fool prospective thieves into thinking the house is occupied.>> Install a programmable thermostat that turns your climate-control system off 30 minutes before you leave and 30 minutes before you’re scheduled to return home. Use your iPhone to remotely update the routine should your plans change.>> Reduce your electrical consumption and improve your media-room ambience by installing a dimmer that brings down the lights when you press Play on your remote control.>> Add an Insteon-enabled 220-volt control to your current high-voltage electrical appliances, such as a water heater (a notorious energy-waster), and conserve money and power by shutting them down during the day or when you’re away from home for extended periods.Next Page: Become Master of All You Survey >> Security: Become Master of All You SurveyYou install software updates to keep your Mac and iPhone secure. Let them return the favor by keeping tabs on your home while you're away.Keep an iSight on ThingsMac has a built-in iSight--or almost any QuickTime-compatible camera attached--you’re one step away from a surveillance system. All you need is software like Security Spy ($50) or EvoCam ($30), and you’re in the counterespionage business. Each application records pictures and video to your Mac continuously, according to schedules you define, or when it detects motion in a camera’s field of view. Just launch the app, point your iSight where you expect snoops to sneak (like a doorway or maybe the desk holding your plans for world domination), then leave your computer running. When the camera picks up movement, the software can start recording, email you a photo of the suspicious event, or alert the Mac running your home automation system to trigger a larger security plan. If you’re more curious than concerned, both applications can upload pictures to an FTP site and serve video to the internet, letting you view your camera’s feed from a browser. You can even log in remotely and tweak your security camera’s settings.EvoCam's surveillance system indulges your counterespionage fantasies.An iSight or webcam is fine for a small room, but Security Spy and EvoCam can monitor and control multiple video sources simultaneously. If your need to know extends to several rooms or even outdoors, you’ll want to weave a larger web of spies... er, cameras.Expand Your HorizonsStepping up from a single-camera system doesn’t have to be difficult. The same software and principles apply; you’ll just add additional cameras, video servers, or network cameras to view and control it all from a central Mac. Video servers send footage from multiple cameras to your wired or wireless network. If your cameras are digital, other Macs running surveillance software can do the job of the server. But if you’re using analog cameras like Q-See’s night-vision-capable QSC48030 ($199.99), you’ll want a dedicated server like Axis’ 240Q ($499.99) to digitize the signals so they can be seen by your Mac.Monitor from afar with Axis's 214 PTZ camera.Network cameras have built-in web servers that can join networks without the need for extra gear. A wide range of network cameras is available for every budget, from Panasonic’s webcam-style, 802.11g-enabled BL-C131A ($299.95) to the Axis 214 PTZ ($1299.00), which wouldn’t look out of place in a villain’s lair (or on a department-store ceiling). These and many other network cameras also sport lenses that can remotely pan, tilt, or zoom in to give you a better view of the action.There are endless varieties of hardware to consider, but the good news is there’s plenty of gear out there to fit your needs. Both Security Spy and EvoCam’s sites offer lists of compatible equipment that make good starting points for building a home-surveillance network.Sensor YourselfHandy as video surveillance is, it probably won’t be a good fit for every room in your house. For places where cameras are impractical, obtrusive, or just plain weird, Insteon motion sensors and magnetic door switches can keep tabs on who goes there when you’ve gone out.SmartLabs Design’s battery-powered Wireless Motion/Occupancy Sensor ($34.99) installs almost anywhere to detect motion in a 110-degree arc at a range of 40 feet. When an intruder is discovered, the Mac running your Insteon system can send you an email, turn on lights, or release the hounds. Because these motion detectors work by sensing heat, you’ll want to install yours in places without extreme fluctuations in temperature. That includes areas near heating grates, fireplaces, or large windows that get lots of sun.SmartLabs' wireless motion sensor alerts you to intruders.If motion detectors won’t do the job, guard your perimeter with SmartLabs’ TriggerLinc Wireless Open/Close Sensor ($34.99). Half the sensor attaches to a door, and the other half installs beside it on the door frame. Opening the door breaks the magnetic contact between the halves, letting your network know a would-be 007 has entered the room or found the hidden compartment in your desk. Since the TriggerLinc is compact and wireless, it installs on just about anything that opens: windows, drawers, server closets, you name it. You’ll never wonder if the babysitter has raided your liquor cabinet again.Unlock the PossibilitiesSecurity isn’t just about keeping people out. It’s also about letting the right people in, and the internet can help. The web lets you access secure information... why can’t it open your front door? For a monthly fee of $12.99, that’s just what Schlage’s LiNK Starter Kit ($299) can do. Its lever lock (also available in a dead bolt model) replaces the one already installed in your door, and ten buttons above its traditional keyhole allow entry with a programmable access code. But the lock also sports a battery-powered transmitter that talks to the included Bridge, a base station that connects to the internet and creates a wireless network for other LiNK devices, like the lamp controller that rounds out the kit.Schlange's LiNK Starter Kit remotely opens your front door.Once you’re a LiNK subscriber, you can log in to Schlage’s site and control your lock from anywhere. Need a friend to check your house while you’re away? No problem--remotely program your lock with a custom access code. The in-laws arrived while you’re stuck at work? Just open the door for ’em (or don’t, we won’t judge). You can even use the free Schlage LiNK iPhone app to manage access while you’re on the go. If you’re worried about being locked out when the internet is down, Schlage claims its locks’ batteries will last up to three years... but keeping a spare key on hand never hurt anybody.Put Professional Security a Touch AwaySchlage’s LiNK is one of several commercial packages that combine home security, automation, and the iPhone to monitor and control your home without fuss. Even if you’re not the DIY type, you can bring your peace of mind into this century.Commercial security companies offer plans and products designed to work together seamlessly. Products can include motion detectors, cameras, and other sensors run from a central control panel on a wall instead of your computer. While the basic idea is the same as a home-built system--devices monitor your house and warn you in case of trouble--commercial systems can offer integrated fire detection and alerts to personnel who will contact the authorities in an emergency. Plans cost anywhere from $30 to $50 a month (plus installation fees), but their features and simplicity may be worth the expense.For a monthly fee, commercial security companies can provide more than peace of mind.Alarm.com, CPI Security Systems, and Platinum Protection each offer free applications that let iPhone users control their security systems. These apps let you arm and disarm your system, monitor camera feeds, receive notifications when sensors detect something, and view a history of recent security events. Want to know what time your teenager really got home from his friend’s house? There’s an app for that.Next Page: Just Stream It >> Entertainment: Just Stream ItYour entertainment wants to be set free... and you want it to be too. These four easy setups will help you get the most out of your music, movies, and TV.Enjoy Your Music EverywhereSetting up a streaming audio system for the first time is like that day when you switched to a DVR to watch TV--you’ll wonder how you ever enjoyed your tunes without it. Once all your music’s on a home network, you can listen to your songs from any computer or standalone music-playing device. Whether you’re unwinding, waking up in the morning, or broadcasting beats throughout your house for a party, you don’t have to fuss with issues like which Mac has which MP3 or where that blasted CD got to--all your music is where you want it to be.Mac fans typically choose between three major music-streaming systems: Apple AirPort Express ($99), Sonos hardware ($349 and up), or Logitech Squeezebox devices ($149 and up). Each system has its own infrastructure, including ways to control everything from an iPhone or iPod touch. And each one has benefits and drawbacks in certain situations.Apple's AirPort Express wirelessly connects your Mac to your stereo.As expected, Apple’s AirPort Express is the best match for iTunes… and little else. These little boxes connect to a small set of computer-style speakers or into a home stereo, so factor those costs into your budgeting. You’ll need one AirPort Express and speaker set for each room you want to play music in. An Apple TV ($229) can also do double duty, streaming music even when your TV is off.While AirPort Express scores with simplicity, there are a few drawbacks. One or more Macs will have to be left on to play music, and extra features that the other systems pack--such as alarms and online services beyond basic streaming radio--don’t work without additional software.Next up: the Logitech Squeezebox devices. They work well once set up, but they feel more complicated than the other choices. Their server software runs off one of your Macs, telling Squeezeboxes where to find your songs. Like the AirPort Express, you’ll have to have a Mac running to access home audio.Sonos Bundle--along with the Sonos app--turns your iPhone or iPod into a remote control.Unlike Apple’s option, Squeezebox devices can play back more internet choices, including Rhapsody and Napster subscriptions. And you won’t have to keep a Mac running when playing online sources--woot! Logitech also offers several Squeezebox devices, from a clock radio–style box with a built-in speaker to hardware that connects to an entertainment center. Consider the Squeezebox if you can sacrifice some of the AirPort Express’s simplicity for better internet features.Last but not least, Sonos rules high-end audio streaming because of the care put into its hardware and interfaces. And audiophiles can really hear the difference between a Sonos device and its competitors. Like Logitech, Sonos hardware comes in a few packages, some designed to attach to a home stereo, one with built-in speakers, and some that connect to speakers. Sonos devices lack an interface beyond volume/mute buttons, so you’ll typically control everything with the excellent standalone remote ($349) or iPhone app. Sonos’ internet streaming choices match the Squeezebox, but unlike either competitor, Sonos hardware can play music directly from a network hard drive, so you don’t need to keep a Mac running. But Sonos might K.O. your budget as much as it does its competitors. You can pick and choose which gear you want, but plan for roughly $500 or more per room. Yowza.Share a Single iTunes Library with Multiple MacsYou’re probably thinking, wait… iTunes works well to share libraries and stream audio over a network. And if you’re happy with that method, there’s no harm in sticking with it. But iTunes sharing doesn’t let you sync music from any system to an iPod or compile ripped songs in a single location--and again, your main Mac needs to be left on for it to work. Fortunately, you can show your music who’s boss and let all of your Macs access a consolidated iTunes library.Before you begin, consider using TuneRanger ($29.99) to sync different libraries together into one master audio source. Then transfer that combined music folder to a network server or always-on Mac that everyone can reach. Launch iTunes on one Mac while holding Option, pick Choose Library, and navigate to the library file on your network.This time, the dreaded can't-find-library box is a good thing.On the other Macs, hold Option when launching iTunes, but make a new library on the local hard drive when prompted. On those systems, change the media folder location in the advanced iTunes preferences to point to the music shared on the network. Within the advanced iTunes preferences on all Macs, be sure to enable the checkbox to copy files to the media folder when adding to the library.Now install Syncopation ($24.95) on each Mac to keep the iTunes libraries synced. Check the setup documents for details, but be sure to click the option to Import Tracks Without Copying in the Advanced preferences.Breathe Music into Old Macs and iPodsIf you’ve got an old Mac sitting around, you can dust it off and turn it into an audio client. Translation: You’ll be able to control it from another computer, pushing songs over your network as if it were Squeezebox or AirPort Express hardware.You’ll never have to turn on--or even connect--a display, either. Try Airfoil on your host computer ($25) with Airfoil Speakers for Mac (free) on the old-Mac-turned-audio-client. You can even duplicate results on an iPhone or iPod touch with Airfoil Speakers for Touch (free).Stream MP3s and internet radio to your stereo with Softsqueeze.Even if you have no Squeezebox hardware, you can install the basic Squeezebox Server (free) software on your main computer to stream audio. Then add Softsqueeze (free) to your old networked Mac, and the Squeezebox software will treat it just like standalone hardware from Logitech.Get Started on Streaming VideoYes, your screen-viewing time can get better. Instead of sharing videos directly between various Macs, you can streamline your consumption of movies and TV by creating a central server that holds all your video. With this method, you’ll leave the server running instead of having to keep various Macs online. You’ll be better organized too.Don’t overthink the biggest piece of hardware in this process: the server. Just repurpose nearly any Mac sitting around. Even a five-year-old laptop or iMac will do the trick. Or for bonus points, turn an old PC into a Linux server.Once you scrounge up an old computer, consider its drives. For a moderate video collection, you’ll want about 60GB of free space. If you gobble down video like Wimpy takes to cheeseburgers, plan for 120GB or even more. Also aim for a speedy drive interface; essentially, just avoid connecting over original USB, which you might find on old systems. And be sure you’ve got a DVD drive if you’re going to transfer over movies. Check out this article for tips.Your network makes up the other biggest factor for streaming success. 100BASE-T is a must; if you have any old 10BASE-T devices between the server and clients, video will stutter. Ideally, consider gigabit (1000BASE-T) devices. If you must have a wireless client or server, get at least 802.11g or 802.11n Wi-Fi, and keep 802.11b devices--the original AirPort standard--off the network. In many situations, old devices slow down the network to maintain compatibility. That said, more than 10 years after Apple introduced AirPort, we still prefer an all-wired connection because it’s more reliable and faster than most wireless networks.Once you connect everything, you’ll just store all video files on the server and play them from client Macs or other devices. Again, iTunes provides the simplest way to manage everything: Run it on both systems, and use shared libraries to stream the video.iTunes can also help you get started with video streaming.But several other software options deliver fine alternatives. Bundled with OS X, Front Row’s big interface is ideal for watching shows across the room. Plex (free) and Boxee (free) are also built around long-distance interfaces and add more internet features than Apple’s software. Check out this article for even more tips, including additional TV-connected devices that can stream shows and directions to hack an AppleTV to run Boxee. Have fun!Next Page: Top Ten Wonders of the Home Automation World >> Top Ten Wonders of the Home Automation WorldYou've seen home automation by the book--now check out home automation off the hook. These labors of love take the good life to a level even the Jetsons never imagined.10. Grass Has a New Enemy We’re all about using the right tool to make a job easier, especially when that job is mowing the lawn in the summer heat. Terry Creer must agree--his remote-controlled lawn mower grafts an electric lawn mower to the wheels of a motorized wheelchair operated with a hobby-store radio controller. Swapping out the wheelchair’s original joystick for a wireless receiver keeps the mow-bot on the right path, and a fail-safe mechanism kills the motor if the controller’s signal is ever lost. Total cost for the project was less than $500. Sipping a cold drink while the lawn mower does all the work? Priceless.9. Tweets, Shoots, and LeavesWant to make the world a greener place? The Botanicalls tweeting plant monitor lets you do just that, one plant at a time. It’s a $99.99 kit that, along with a soldering iron and a little patience, lets you build a leaf-shaped moisture sensor that you stick into a plant’s soil. Once installed in your plant’s pot, the Botanicalls runs on AC power and plugs into your router’s Ethernet port to tweet when your leafy friend is feeling a little dry. With Botanicalls, you can embrace the DIY spirit, expand your techie know-how, and keep the flora in your life happy. What could be better?8. "Alcohol? Why, It's My Primary Function, Sir."When you sense the need to party, Jamie Price’s Bar2D2 is definitely the droid you’re looking for. Built in eight months from plywood, polycarbonate, and a used electric scooter, Bar2 works the room by remote control, serving drinks wherever he’s needed. A beer elevator brings cold bottles to any partygoer’s reach, and six onboard mixers let Bar2 make a galaxy of cocktails with the push of a button. And when the music starts, his sound-activated neon lights help make the party fully armed and operational. Maybe the Empire would have been cooler about that whole rebellion thing with a few of these guys scooting around the Death Star.7. Dryer Sheets and Washer TweetsGetting clothes dirty is fun, but washing ’em is a drag. Who needs the stress of waiting for the spin cycle to end? That’s why we wish we had Ryan Rose’s tweeting washing machine. The limit switch installed on its timer lets a simple microcontroller know when the washer is on or off. Red LEDs added to the washer’s controls show when it’s waiting for a wash to start, and a green LED shows when a wash has begun. When the load is finished, the washer tweets an update and displays an alert on a wall-mounted screen. It’s the coolest thing to happen to cleanliness since the bubble bath!6. The World Will Tweet a Path To Your Door You might think a wireless doorbell would be convenient enough, but not Roo Reynolds. His tweeting doorbell transforms an everyday wireless doorbell and ringer into an internet-connected chatterbox that gets two alerts for the price of one. The doorbell works like any other, but the ringer mechanism--squeezed into an Altoids can carefully cut to expose the ringer’s wireless antenna--sports a tiny circuit board that’s attached by a USB cable to a nearby computer. When visitors drop by and ring the doorbell, the computer tweets a simultaneous alert. Now that’s a curiously refreshing idea!5. Just the Cats, Ma'am When the neighborhood critters started sneaking through Ioan Ghip’s cat door for free meals, he took matters into his own hands, DIY-style, to make a tweeting cat door. First he outfitted the collars of his cats Gus and Penny with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags. Then he added an RFID reader and computer-controlled servo to the cat door so it would recognize only his two cats--no squirrels, raccoons, or bears allowed. Now when the spare laptop that monitors the cat door detects the lucky kitties nearby, it opens the door and tweets an update, while a webcam snaps a shot of them coming or going. Say cheese, guys!4. And We Thought Kernel Panics Were Scary Who says all automated homes have to be convenient and relaxing? Not automation contractor Jeffrey Lehman. Years ago he teamed with Halloween Park, a haunted-house attraction in Strinestown, Pennsylvania, to turn the spook show into a fully interactive, living videogame. Fiendishly clever use of motion detectors and other sensors guides victi… er, visitors through 26 rooms of creepy interactive puzzles that must be solved to escape the park… alive! Doors creak, lights flicker, and the terrifying Dead Fred leaps out of nowhere--all in response to people’s actions. Amazing what you can do with the right gear, ingenuity, and a healthy desire to scare the crap out of folks.3. "Incoming Romulan Ship! Fire Blu-ray!" Maybe it’s the big screen, but doesn’t it seem natural to mix Star Trek with a home theater? Yet that’s only half of what’s so cool about Gary Reighn’s entertainment command station, The Bridge. Sure, it’s packed with a starfleet of gear: a video projector, media players, and X10-powered lights--all under remote control. But what makes The Bridge so appealing isn’t its slick final-frontier technology--it’s that it looks like a fun place to hang out, just like the original Enterprise. Gary didn’t forget the home when he set out to build himself the ultimate home entertainment center on a budget, and it sure looks like he got his money’s worth.2. Now U Can Automate Cheezburger? The problem: feeding Mathew Newton’s cats Frankie and Elmo while he’s away. The solution: the internet-controlled cat feeder. A cereal dispenser stores the cat food, and a motor turns a flap to drop food into a splitter that sends the kibble to each kitty’s bowl in roughly the same portions. Here’s the trick: The feeder is controlled by the port status lights in an old Ethernet switch. Remote commands from a browser activate the lights, and their signals tell the feeder when to let Frankie and Elmo get their nom-nom on. Wow. No one can say these cats don’t have a well-trained owner.1. Push-Button Party Palace Each Wonder uses home automation in cool, creative ways, but the sheer excess of Zack Anderson’s MIDAS--ahem… that’s a Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System--deserves special notice. Made from a mini ITX motherboard and a battery of X10-controlled sensors, appliances, and displays, MIDAS transforms the room with the tap of a touchscreen (or even voice commands). There’s a work mode for studying and a relax mode for chilling, but when it’s time to party, swatting a big red panic button dims the lights, draws shades that serve as projection screens, and kicks out the techno jams. Sound-activated strobes, laser lights, and a fog machine do the rest. Surveillance cameras and a fingerprint-scanning security system keep everything safe while Zack’s away, but we have to wonder--why leave?
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
New proposals to rein in banks. With its healthcare reform under siege, the White House is once again taking aim at the banking sector. Obama will propose new rules today to limit the size of financial firms and their trading activities, specifically addressing firms' proprietary trading in order to reduce excessive risk-taking. Sources say the new regulations will be reminiscent of Depression-era curbs, and could significantly impact big banks' bottom lines. JPMorgan edges in on RBS Sempra. JPMorgan (JPM) is reportedly in exclusive talks to buy the RBS Sempra (RBS, SRE) commodities joint venture. JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank (DB) and Australia's Macquarie (MQBKY.PK) had all submitted bids of around $4B, but JPMorgan was reportedly willing to pay the most and RBS is looking for a transaction that can close quickly. A deal would make JPMorgan the fourth key bank in commodities trading, along with Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Barclays (BCS). Sun shines on Oracle deal. EU antitrust regulators unanimously approved Oracle's (ORCL) purchase of Sun Microsystems (JAVA) this morning, saying they're "satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned" and "Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products." Premarket: ORCL +1%, JAVA +0.2% (7:00 ET). More on AIG's data non-disclosure. New details continue to surface about AIG's (AIG) non-disclosure of counterparty payments. Apparently, the insurer submitted four rounds of regulatory filings over the course of six months, with more than 1,000 redactions, as the New York Federal Reserve pushed AIG to withhold data. The final version included more than 400 redactions, with the omitted data sealed until 2018. Meanwhile, the New York Fed has provided over 250,000 pages of documents in response to a subpoena, but lawmakers say the submission is "incomplete" and is missing key documents on AIG's credit-default swaps. Alcon fights back on Novartis deal. Alcon's (ACL) directors publicly slammed Novartis' (NVS) offer to acquire remaining Alcon shares, calling the proposal "grossly inadequate" and "offensive." Under the terms of the offer, Novartis would pay Nestle (NSRGY.PK) 20% more for its Alcon stake than minority shareholders would receive for theirs. A prolonged battle will likely ensue. Gen Re pays up for AIG fraud. The SEC charged reinsurer General Re (BRK.A) for its role in accounting frauds by AIG (AIG) and Prudential Financial (PRU). General Re will pay $12.2M to settle the charges, $19.5M to a fraud fund as part of a non-prosecution agreement and $60.5M to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of injured AIG shareholders. General Re will also forfeit $5M in fees it received for helping AIG falsify its financial statements. Buffett unhappy with Cadbury deal. Warren Buffett came out staunchly against Kraft's (KFT) $19.6B acquisition of Cadbury (CBY), calling it a "bad deal" and raising questions about how Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld planned to pay for it. Buffett plans to maintain Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) 9.4% stake in Kraft, but said Kraft's recent moves have left him feeling "poorer." Pension fund takes aim at corporate governance failures. A pension fund that campaigns against corporate governance failures is taking aim at some high profile companies, including Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS) and IBM (IBM). All told, the pension fund will attend the upcoming annual shareholder meetings of 33 firms and has submitted proxy proposals on issues including bank bonuses, splitting the chairman and CEO positions and giving shareholders a "say on pay" for executives. World Bank sees mixed forecast. In its latest report (.pdf), the World Bank acknowledged that the global economy is recovering more quickly than anticipated but warned a double-dip recession is possible "if the private sector continues to save in order to restore balance sheets." The global growth forecast for 2010 was raised to 2.7% from 2%, with the 2011 forecast left unchanged at 3.2%. Estimates of the contraction in 2009 were lowered to 2.2% from 2.9%. NYT: No longer free. The New York Times (NYT) unveiled a plan to start charging readers for online content using a metered model, in which readers can access several free articles per month but must pay a monthly or annual fee for additional access. The plan, which will go into effect in 2011, is potentially risky, as a rise in subscription revenue may be overshadowed by a fall in viewers and, by extension, a fall in advertising revenue. China's economy boils and bubbles. China's economy grew 10.7% in Q4 from the year before, while consumer prices accelerated rapidly, rising 1.9% in December Y/Y vs. a 0.6% increase in November. Overall, the economy grew 8.7% in 2009, beating the 8% target Beijing had set. The new data points make it more likely that Chinese officials will crack down to keep the economy from overheating. iPhone may dump Google for MSFT. Apple (AAPL) is reportedly in talks with Microsoft (MSFT) to replace Google (GOOG) as the default search engine on the iPhone. Sources say the two firms have been negotiating for weeks, a reflection of the growing rivalry between Apple and Google. Icahn bets on Las Vegas. Activist investor Carl Icahn made the winning bid to purchase the bankrupt and unfinished Fontainebleau Las Vegas Resort. Icahn offered $156.5M, betting that the Las Vegas Strip will eventually experience a turnaround. Exxon deal raises concerns. Exxon Mobil (XOM) has come under fire for its planned $30B purchase of XTO Energy (XTO). Lawmakers are concerned about reduced-competition issues and a possible increase in the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, a method that would be central to the combined company's efforts. Nokia: Never get lost again. Taking a cue from Google (GOOG), Nokia (NOK) will begin offering free maps on its cellphones, including turn-by-turn directions covering 74 countries in 46 languages. The move is bad news for makers of personal navigation devices, but a Nokia executive said simply that "having this as a free functionality is inevitable for the industry." MGM mulls bankruptcy. MGM has received several first-round bids to sell itself, but is considering a prepackaged bankruptcy along with the sale to help clean up a balance sheet weighed down by $3.7B in debt. Initial bids, which are non-binding, have come in under $2B. Russia diversifies into Canadian dollar. Russia's central bank announced yesterday that it has begun buying Canadian dollars and securities as part of its efforts to diversify its foreign exchange reserves. Analysts believe other emerging market central banks may follow suit in diversifying away from the U.S. dollar and into other commodity-linked currencies and assets, including the Australian dollar. As of December, Russia's forex reserves stood at $439B and were evenly split between dollars and euros. Housing starts decline. Housing Starts fell 4% in December to 557K, short of the 573K expected and the 574K registered last month. Permits rose 10.9% to 653K vs. 590K expected and 589K last month. Producer prices inch up. The Producer Price Index rose 0.2% in December vs. 0% expected and +1.8% in November. The Core PPI was flat vs. +0.1% expected and +0.5% last month. Earnings: Thursday Before Open Continental (CAL): Q4 EPS of -$0.03 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $3.2B (-8%) in-line. Shares +0.6% premarket (7:00 ET). (PR) Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB): Q4 EPS of -$0.20, may not be comparable to first call consensus of -$0.31. Tangible common equity ratio of 6.45%. Tier 1 common ratio of 7%. (PR) Knight Capital Group (NITE): Q4 EPS of $0.33 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $302M (-4%) vs. $293M. (PR) UnitedHealth (UNH): Q4 EPS of $0.81 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $21.7B (+6.5%) in-line. (PR) Earnings: Wednesday After Close eBay (EBAY): Q4 EPS of $0.44 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $2.4B (+16%) vs. $2.3B. Payments business unit grows revenue 28%; Marketplaces unit +15%. Sees 2010 EPS of $1.63-1.68 vs. $1.60. (PR) Logitech (LOGI): FQ3 EPS of $0.32 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $617M (-2%) vs. $603M. "Improved sell-through in all of our retail regions ... We are also very pleased with our return to year-over-year profitability growth in Q3, driven by the substantial improvement in gross margin." (PR) Seagate Technology (STX): FQ2 EPS of $1.03 beats by $0.38. Revenue of $3B (+33%) vs. $2.85B. (PR) Skyworks Solutions (SWKS): FQ1 EPS of $0.27 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $245M (+17%) vs. $241M. Sees FQ2 EPS of $0.21 vs. $0.19, on revenue of $225M vs. $215M. (PR) SLM (SLM): Q4 EPS of $0.60 may not be comparable to estimate of $0.44. Net interest income after provision for loan losses of $320M (+99%). (8-K) Starbucks (SBUX): Q4 EPS of $0.32 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $2.7B (+4%) vs. $2.6B. Raises 2010 EPS outlook to $1.05-1.08. “Solid comparable store sales growth, combined with our continuing focus on controlling operating costs, drove significant operating margin improvement in both our U.S. and International business segments.” (PR) Total System Services (TSS): Q4 EPS of $0.31 beats by $0.01. Revenue of $431M (flat) vs. $435.5M. Sees FY10 EPS of $0.95-0.97 vs. $1.21, on revenues of $1.61B-1.65B vs. $1.76B. (PR) Xilinx (XLNX): FQ3 EPS of $0.38 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $513M (+12%) vs. $492M. Sees Q4 revenue up 3% to down 1%. (PR) Today's Markets In Asia, Nikkei +1.2% to 10,868. Hang Seng -2% to 20,863. Shanghai +0.2% to 3,159. BSE -2.4% to 17,051. In Europe at midday, London +0.1%. Paris +0.5%. Frankfurt +0.3%. Futures: Dow -0.1%. S&P flat. Nasdaq -0.15%. Crude -0.05% to $77.70. Gold -0.8% to $1,103.10. Thursday's Economic Calendar 8:30 Jobless Claims 10:00 Leading Indicators 10:00 Philly Fed Business Outlook 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory 11:00 EIA Petroleum Inventories 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet 4:30 PM Money Supply Notable earnings before Thursday's open: APH, CAL, CMA, ESI, FCS, FITB, FNFG, GS, KEY, LM, LUV, NITE, PCP, PNC, PPG, SBIB, TCB, UNH, UNP, XRX Notable earnings after Thursday's close: ACS, AMD, AXP, BNI, BXS, COF, ED, ELX, GOOG, IGT, ISRG, PBCT, WDC Seeking Alpha editors Eli Hoffmann and Jason Aycock contributed to this post.
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
Even more firms may gain access to TARP. Sources say the Treasury may use some of its $700B rescue fund to buy stakes in financing companies such as GE's (GE) GE Capital and CIT Group (CIT). Presently the program only includes publicly-traded banks and insurers, although the Treasury is already mulling opening the door to some privately-held firms. The U.S. government could eventually own even more of the American financial system than first envisioned. Yahoo, Google tone down ad tie-up. Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) submitted a revised version of their search-ad pact to the Justice Department in the hope gaining approval. New provisions limit the scope of the deal, including shortening the agreement to two years from ten, and capping Yahoo's revenue from the deal to 25% of its search revenue total; previously there was no cap. The revised plan also gives Google advertisers the ability to opt out of having their ads displayed on Yahoo sites. It's unclear whether the changes will suffice to appease regulators who worry the deal will allow Google (GOOG) to monopolize online advertising. Separately, Yahoo said Monday Microsoft (MSFT) executive Jeff Dossett will take the lead position in its online media properties after veteran Scott Moore left "for other opportunities." UBS posts earnings, warnings. UBS (UBS) confirmed a Q3 profit of 296M Swiss francs ($256.3M) helped by credit and tax gains, with outflows of 49.3B francs from its wealth management unit and 34.4B francs from its asset management unit. The world's largest wealth manager, UBS had already reported much of its Q3 results last month when it announced a capital injection of 6B franc from the Swiss government and said it would unload $60B of risky assets into a central bank fund. UBS noted some positive client money flows in October, but warned 'difficult' market conditions would hurt fee-earning businesses and Q4 results would be weighed down by the accounting effects of transferring risky assets. Shares -2.6% premarket. Outlook sours for RBS. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) abandoned its full-year profit forecast after it wrote-down £1B in October against assets connected to Lehman Brothers and Icelandic banks and as bad loans rose. It also posted £1.4B of markdowns in Q3 before new accounting rules allowed it to claim back £1.2B. CEO Stephen Hester said the latest writedowns, coming in addition to £5.9B in H1, show the bank has too much risk and could face a full-year loss. RBS is in line for a U.K. bailout, and the government could own up to 60% of the bank unless investors buy some of the £20B of stock to be issued later this year. Shares -14.9% premarket. Goldman hedge fund down $1B. A flagship Goldman Sachs (GS) hedge fund - Goldman Sachs Investment Partners - has lost almost $1B of its $6B since its launch in January, further evidence of the crisis facing the industry. "We anticipate that these results will lead to net outflows from the hedge fund industry," managers said, although GSIC itself imposed a two-year lock-in at inception. More than half of its 13% Q3 loss was on positions in commodities, basic materials, metals, mining, energy and agriculture. Tough 2009 for JPMorgan. JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon told employees the firm faces "highly challenging conditions" in 2009, but sees a possible "strong recovery" in 2010. JPM's recent acquisitions of Bear Stearns and WaMu will improve performance in the "longer term," he said. Dimon warned Asia is "going to get worse than you think" as the tidal wave that began with a collapse of the U.S. mortgage market washes over it. Still, longer-term, he sees "very substantial natural growth" in the region. iPod master leaves Apple. Tony Fadell, one of the fathers of the iPod, is leaving Apple (AAPL) for personal reasons, sources say. Former IBM (IBM) executive Mark Papermaster will take his place. During Fadell's tenure, the iPod grew from a curiosity into a major cash cow; Apple sold 54.7M iPods during its most recent fiscal year. But growth has cooled off as saturation becomes a factor in many countries. Still, Apple shows no signs of giving up any of its 70% U.S. market share. Dismal October for automakers. General Motors (GM) said October was likely the auto industry's worst month since WWII after its sales plunged 45%, Ford's (F) fell 30%, Nissan's (NSANY) declined 33%, Honda's (HMC) dropped 25%, while Toyota's (TM) declined by 23%. GM marketing chief Mark LaNeve said he believes there's plenty of pent-up demand, "but until the credit markets open up and consumer confidence improves, the entire U.S. economy, and any industry like autos that relies on financing, will suffer." U.S. auto sales are now down 14.6% YTD. "It's weaker than we were anticipating," J.D. Power's Bob Schnorbus said, warning leaders should take heed: "The auto industry is important to the economy and it should not be taken too lightly." Manufacturing paints bleak picture. The ISM's Manufacturing index fell to 38.9 in October, its lowest level since 1982, and worse than the expected 41.5. The only industries reporting growth were apparel and leather & allied products. Petroleum & coal and nonmetallic mineral products led the laggards. The weaker than expected data increases the risk the current slump will outdo the recessions of 2001 and 1991. Companies are cutting back on investments and hiring as Q3 consumer spending plunged by 3.1% - the biggest decline in 28 years. The survey "indicates a significantly faster rate of decline in manufacturing when comparing October to September," ISM director Norbert Ore said. "It appears that manufacturing is experiencing significant demand destruction as a result of recent events." Prices also rose at a much slower rate: the price index plunged to 37 from 53.5 in September - the lowest level since December 2001. Export orders dropped for the first time in 70 months. September Construction Spending fell 0.3% from August's revised numbers, better than the expected 0.8% drop. Residential private construction -1.3%; non-residential +1.2%. Earnings: Before Open Ameren (AEE): Q3 EPS of $1.17 misses by $0.08. Revenue of $2.06B (+3.2%) vs. $2.29B. Sees full-year EPS of $2.80-3.00 vs. $3.01. Shares -5.3%. (PR) Archer Daniels Midland (ADM): FQ1 EPS of $1.63 vs. consensus of $0.69. Revenue of $21.16B (+65%) vs. $15.98B. (PR) Autodesk (ADSK): Sees Q3 EPS of $0.53-0.55 vs. $0.55 consensus and revenue of $604-607M vs $624M. "The sharp downturn of the global economy is substantially impacting our business... Demand for our products fell dramatically in October in all geographies as the financial crisis worsened. (PR) Cimarex Energy (XEC): Q3 EPS of $2.19 misses by $0.07. Revenue of $576.5M (+67.7%) vs. $568M. (PR) Dean Foods (DF): Q3 EPS of $0.28 misses by $0.03. Revenue of $3.19B (+2.5%) in-line. (PR) Emerson Electric (EMR): FQ4 EPS of $0.88 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $6.7B (+11.1%) in-line. (PR) GrafTech (GTI): Q3 EPS of $0.55 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $316M (+25.7%) vs. $303M. Shares +6.7%. (PR) HCP Inc. (HCP): Q3 FFO of $0.71/share beats by $0.05. Revenue of $270M vs. $242M. Sees full-year FFO of $2.38-2.42 vs. $2.29. (PR) Holly (HOC): Q3 EPS of $1.00 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $1.72B (+42.3%) in-line. (PR) Louisiana-Pacific (LPX): Q3 EPS of -$0.38 misses by $0.08. Revenue of $390M (-17.5%) in-line. (PR) Magna International (MGA): Q3 EPS of $0.17 vs. consensus of $0.90. Revenue of $5.53B (-9%) in-line. (PR) Marvel Entertainment (MVL): Q3 EPS of $0.64 beats by $0.19. Revenue of $182.5M (+47.7%) vs. $146M. Sees full-year EPS of $2.45-2.65 vs. $1.93 and 2009 EPS of $1.00-1.35 vs. $1.94. (PR) Myriad Genetics (MYGN): FQ1 EPS of $0.30 beats by $0.16. Revenue of $74M (+52.4%) vs. $70M. (PR) NiSource (NI): Q3 EPS of $0.03 in-line. Revenue of $1.42B (+11.8%) vs. $1.36B. (PR) PPL Corp. (PPL): Q3 EPS of $0.45 misses by $0.15. Sees full-year EPS of $2.00-2.05 vs. $2.29, and 2009 EPS of $1.60-1.90 vs. $2.17. "Many of the pressures that affected our results in 2008 also are expected to continue into 2009..." (PR) Rowan (RDC): Q3 EPS of $1.00 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $527M (+5%) vs. $540M. "Continuing weakness in capital markets and commodity prices will, eventually, affect customer demand for our products and services, though we have experienced little impact thus far." (PR) St. Joe (JOE): Q3 EPS of -$0.12 misses by $0.12. Revenue of $32.8M (-57.6%) vs. $47.3M. (PR) Talisman Energy (TLM): Q3 EPS of $0.72 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $2.82B (+50.9%) vs. $2.89B. (PR) Tenneco (TEN): Q3 EPS of $0.01 misses by $0.22. Revenue of $1.5B (-3.8%) in-line. (PR) Tenet Healthcare (THC): Q3 EPS of -$0.06 misses by $0.03. Revenue of $2.14B (+5.2%) vs. $2.21B. Shares +14.1%. (PR) W&T Offshore (WTI): Q3 EPS of $0.79 misses by $0.03. Revenue of $290M (+13.6%) vs. $276M. (PR) Earnings: Monday After Close Automatic Data Processing (ADP): FQ1 EPS of $0.54 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $2.18B (+9.5%) in-line. Shares -2.5%. (PR) Coldwater Creek (CWTR): Sees Q3 sales of $225M vs. $265M consensus, and EPS of -$0.07 to -$0.09 vs. $0.03 consensus. "The overall macro-economic environment has proven to be substantially more challenging than anticipated." Shares -5.9%. (PR) Comstock Resources (CRK): Q3 EPS of $1.20 beats by $0.20. Revenue of $169M (+103.7%) vs. $158M. (PR) Embraer (ERJ): Q3 EPS of $0.32 misses by $0.07. Revenue of $1.55B (+8.1%) vs. $1.63B. (PR) EOG Resources (EOG): Q3 EPS of $2.34 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $3.22B (+226.5%). Shares +1.9%. (PR) Forest Oil (FST): Q3 EPS of $1.26 misses by $0.12. Revenue of $474M (+51.5%) vs. $465M. (PR) Herbalife (HLF): Q3 EPS of $0.89 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $M in-line. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.65-0.70 vs. $0.91, and 2009 EPS of $3.50-3.55 vs. $3.71. Shares -13.5%. (PR) MasterCard (MA): Q3 EPS of $2.47 beats by $0.22. Revenue of $1.34B (+23.7%) vs. $1.27B. Gross dollar volume rose 12.3%. "As we are not immune from the long-term effects of the current economic environment, we have significantly accelerated the focus on our cost structure..." Shares +8%. (PR) Mohawk Industries (MHK): Q3 EPS of $1.10 misses by $0.02. Revenue of $1.76B (-9%) in-line. (PR) Open Text (OTEX): Q3 EPS of $0.53 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $183M (+11.4%) vs. $179M. Shares -1.1%. (PR) Pepco Holdings (POM): Q3 EPS of $0.59 misses by $0.11. Revenue of $3.06B (+10.4%) vs. $2.73B. (PR) Pitney Bowes (PBI): Q3 EPS of $0.67 misses by $0.03. Revenue of $1.55B (+2.6%) vs. $1.6B. Sees full-year EPS of $2.75-2.82 vs. $2.85. (PR) St. Mary Land (SM): Q3 EPS of $1.20 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $324M (+31.4%) vs. $329M. Shares +1.2%. (PR) Viacom (VIA): Q3 EPS of $0.62 beats by $0.07. Revenue of $3.41B (+4.2%) vs. $3.32B. Shares +1.5%. (PR) Today's Markets Asia closed mixed Tuesday. Tokyo was the standout, +6.27% to 9,115. Shanghai -0.76% to 1,707. Hang Seng +0.28% to 14,384. BSE Sensex +2.84% to 10,631. European markets posted strong morning gains. London +1.75%. Paris +2.1%. Frankfurt +2%. U.S. futures are markedly higher at 7:00 AM. Dow +1.88% to 9506. S&P +1.96% to 988.50. Nasdaq +2.18%. Crude +1.16% to $64.65. Gold +1.49% to $737.60. Tuesday's Economic Calendar 7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales8:55 Redbook10:00 Factory Orders5:00 PM ABC Consumer Confidence Index Notable earnings before Tuesday's open: ADM, AEE, AMSC, DF, DNR, EMR, ENTG, EXPD, FE, GTI, HCP, HL, HNT, HOC, JEC, JOE, LPX, MAC, MGA, MYGN, NI, NNN, NXG, PPL, PQ, RDC, TDC, TEN, THC, TLM, VNO, WTI, XEC Notable earnings after Tuesday's close: AMMD, BRE, CBL, DCT, FCH, HRP, JKHY, ME, NHP, PXD, UPL, USU, VTR Seeking Alpha editor Rachael Granby contributed to this post. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up. After you finish reading Wall Street BreakfastSeeking Alpha's Market Currentswill keep you current all day long.
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
Paulson: No GSE rescue planned. Treasury secretary Paulson says he has no plans to use congressional authority to inject Treasury capital into government-sponsored mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) - despite last week's dismal earnings reports, which he says were no surprise. "Given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are solely involved in housing, that’s their sole business, and given the magnitude of the housing correction we’ve had, it’s not a surprise to me to see those losses." Paulson also downplayed the need for a second stimulus package. Private equity soaks up $8B of RBS's LBO debt. Sources say Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is dishing off up to $8B in LBO loans to private-equity firms, who are becoming increasingly aggressive in their pursuit of cheap debt. The buyers - Apollo (AINV), GSO Capital, Blackstone (BX) and TPG - stand to make returns of up to 30%. GSO is also lending money to Blackstone to help it complete LBOs such as its joint acquisition of The Weather Channel, prompting rivals KKR and TPG to seek out their own debt-market partners. "Purchasing debt at big discounts is a terrific one-off opportunity," Morgan Stanley's Mark Bradley says. "But firms like GSO, with their ability to provide all the debt to buy-outs, are going to change private equity in a lasting way." Credit unions: next shoe? Five of the largest U.S. credit unions are reporting big paper losses on mortgage-related securities - a sign housing-market distress is spreading to even the most risk-averse participants. The federal regulator of credit unions thinks losses are likely to be reversed when mortgage markets stabilize, and says the institutions are adequately capitalized. Some worry they're underestimating the depth of their mortgage-market problems. After you finish reading Wall Street BreakfastSeeking Alpha's Market Currentswill keep you current all day long. iPhone apps hot seller - Jobs. Users have downloaded over 60 million iPhone programs from Apple's (AAPL) AppStore, CEO Steve Jobs told the WSJ in an interview. If sales keep up, Apple could bag at least $360M/year in new revenue. Mind you, Jobs thinks bigger than that: "This thing's going to crest a half a billion, soon. Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time - I've never seen anything like this in my career for software." UPS downplays TNT deal talk. UPS (UPS) is in initial talks for a €10B buyout of Dutch logistics firm TNT, after recent talk of a FedEx bid (FDX) fizzled. Morgan Stanley (MS) is advising UPS; Goldman Sachs (GS) is advising TNT. A deal would vastly enhance UPS's Europe reach. In a Monday interview with Reuters, UPS downplayed the chatter, saying a deal would devalue its shares. Shares of TNT initially leapt more than 6% Monday, but fell back on UPS's lack of enthusiasm. Naked shorts rule about to expire. The emergency measure that protects a select group of 19 financial stocks from abusive short-selling expires Tuesday. At least two-month is likely to pass before a similar rule under consideration may be imposed. Some say traders may not pick up where they left off: "A message has been sent and I don’t think we’ll see a return to that." Others are less sure: "We remain concerned that during this interim time period our members will continue to be exposed to these 'distort and short'" games, ABA's Sarah Miller says. Waste Management to boost bid for Republic. Sources say Waste Management (WMI) will raise its bid for rival Republic Services (RSG) by about 10% to $6.73B - or $37/share from $34/share. That would be a 33% premium to RSG's share price before the initial bid. Despite initial pessimism, it seems a deal would pass regulatory muster. Republic, meanwhile, is attempting to buy rival Allied Waste Industries (AW) for $6.24B in stock - a move a raised bid from WMI could thwart. Though Republic is smaller than both Waste and Allied, it is considered the top waste-hauler in the country. Update: Confirmed. NBC finds winning combo with TV-Internet Olympic coverage. NBC's (GE) decision to air the Olympics on both TV and the web seems to be paying off. Friday night's taped opening ceremony reached 34.2M viewers, a jump of 35% from the last summer games, and Saturday's network coverage attracted 24.1M viewers, the highest audience for the Summer Olympics in a decade. The NBC webcasts scored high too, with a record 4.8M people watching streaming Olympic video on Saturday. Despite fears that offering Olympic content online would lead to internet piracy and erosion of the television audience, "the early numbers suggest that all of this is fueling more interest," said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. Inflation expectations dive. TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) traders think the commodities top is in, as inflation expectations fall to a 10-year low. "The bottom line is you've seen a significant turn in commodity prices," RBC's Thomas Tucci says. "Going forward you're more likely to see inflation erode." If I'm the Fed, Cantor Fitzgerald's Brian Edmonds muses, "I feel pretty good about my statement that we expect inflation to moderate over time." American, BA, Iberia pushing for closer ties. American Airlines (AMR), British Airways (BAIRY.PK), and Iberia are seeking permission from the U.S. government to cooperate more closely on trans-Atlantic flights. Antitrust immunity would allow the airlines to cooperate internationally on pricing, scheduling, and marketing. Coming amidst rising fuel costs and stiff industry competition, the airlines see the move as cost-saving and say it will allow travellers a greater choice of destinations and flight connections. However, not all are pleased with the idea of greater airline cooperation; critics argue it will lead to less competition, higher prices and fewer choices. GATX deals for GE Freight. Freight car lessor GATX (GMT) is offering about $3.5B for GE's (GE) rail services unit, sources say. GATX CEO Brian Kenney recently told investors he's looking to invest more aggressively during the economic downturn. JDA Software to buy i2. JDA Software (JDAS) announces a $346M merger agreement to acquire i2 Technologies (ITWO)- a 5% premium on ITWO's Friday close. The merger will create a global leader in the supply chain planning and optimization market. China trade surplus jumps. China's trade surplus widened to $25.3B (+4%) in July, beating analyst estimates by more than $5B. Exports rose 26.9%. The strong numbers are likely to rekindle talk of Beijing allowing yuan gains to accelerate. Stocks plunged 5.2% to an 18-month low, as China overtook Vietnam as the world's worst performer this year. A Goldman note said the Olympics will slow the economy. Earnings: Monday Before Open Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO): Q2 EPS of $0.23 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $915M (+9.3%) vs. $864M. [PR] Today's Markets Asian markets closed mixed on Monday: Nikkei +1.99% to 13,431. Hang Seng -0.12% to 21,859. Shanghai -5.21% to 2,470. BSE +2.22% to 15,504. European markets at midday: London +0.81%. Paris +0.47%. Frankfurt +0.35%. U.S. futures are slightly higher at 7:15 AM. Dow +0.08%. S&P +0.08%. Nasdaq +0.23%. Crude +0.89% to $116.22. Gold +0.56% to $862.60. Monday's economic calendar: 6:00 Fed Survey on Bank Lending Notable pre-open earnings: CNO, HYGS, LINTA, PEIX, RDN, RTK, SYY, VRX Notable post-close earnings: AOB, BE, EXM, FLR, HPT, LDK, MDR, NUAN, POM, SONS, TWTC Seeking Alpha editor Rachael Granby contributed to this post. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up.
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50 Killer Mac Apps For Under $50
Who doesn't need more for less? We present 50 Mac|Life-approved applications--many free, all under $50--that'll guarantee you get the most from your Mac without traumatizing your wallet.The Internet is full of noise--countless different applications for every occasion, with reviews everywhere that love and hate them at the same time. While that’s hardly news, it’s still a hassle that isn’t going away. Say you picked up a spiffy new MacBook Pro, and it’s time to kit it out with the leanest, meanest software. After all, Macs have that rich history of garage-roots development, of a few folks in a basement brewing up quality software that smokes the big-name stuff. So you’ve got a feeling there’s great, affordable software just waiting for you to find it--and you’re right. But how do you sift through the zillion calendar apps and jillion media players to find the gems worthy of your hard drive space? And more importantly, your time and money?We’re here to help with a compendium of essential software. It didn’t come easily--we debated, argued, haggled, and even pleaded to secure a prized position on this list for our favorite, most useful applications. But by limiting the software we’re highlighting to 50, we’ve guaranteed you the best of the best--no Internet spew here. And by capping the cost of the software we’ve selected at $50, we’ve made sure you can reasonably buy what you need. You may love your Mac already, but you’re not gonna believe how much it can do once you load up even a few of these choice applications. EntertainmentSure, iPods and iTunes make music and movies easier to enjoy, but they're not without headaches of their own. That's where these awesome apps come in. They take the pain out of kicking back with your favorite flicks and tunes.Simplify MediaShare & stream your iTunes library over the Internet.The iPod has made several portable music formats obsolete, and we sure don’t miss schlepping around fragile cassette tapes or heavy wallets full of CDs. But even the mighty iPod has its limits--namely capacity. That’s where Simplify Media (free, Simplify Media, simplifymedia.com) comes in handy. It guarantees that the size of your music library doesn’t matter by letting you stream music between computers via the Internet. Yup, this app will play your entire library on any computer (as long as the one that has your library is powered up and online).Stream your tunes from home or the next cube.Once installed, a simple login fires up your music. Simplify Media works with iTunes just like the built-in LAN sharing does, and the remote libraries appear under Shared, alongside any local shared libraries. Even better, you can add up to 30 friends’ shared libraries, and an iPhone app ($5.99) lets you pipe your music to your iPhone or iPod touch.SuperSyncSuperSync keeps multiple iTunes collections in sync.Speaking of iTunes libraries--streaming is great, but what if you want to sync libraries across multiple Macs? SuperSync ($22, SuperSync, supersync.com) makes it so. Sure, Apple introduced limited music-transfer capabilities with Home Sharing in iTunes 9, but that feature requires computers to be on the same local network. SuperSync one-ups iTunes by syncing iTunes libraries over the Internet. It’s perfect for anyone who uses multiple Macs, and SuperSync also has a bunch of other tricked-out features. In deference to the record companies, Apple makes transferring music from an iPod to a computer unnecessarily difficult. SuperSync handles the task with ease, making it a bacon-saver when the hard drive in your Mac kicks the bucket. SuperSync will even allow you to sync libraries cross-platform.SuperSync's color-coded interface helps you synchronize your iTunes tracks across multiple Macs.VLC Media PlayerNever worry about video file types again. If most of your Mac video-watching happens in the form of DVDs or QuickTime movies, you probably don’t think too much about player software. But move beyond the most basic video types, and you’re asking for trouble. With the myriad formats, containers, and encoding parameters available, the simple act of playing back a cat video can become incredibly frustrating. VLC Media Player (free, VideoLAN, www.videolan.org) is like a Swiss Army knife for digital media. It’s open source and cross-platform, and the app will play back practically any audio or video file you throw at it. VLC also handles file conversions with ease, so you can use it to convert audio and video for use online or on portable devices.It plays, it converts, it makes toast (okay, maybe not that last one.)RipItBackup & convert DVDs with RipIt.There are plenty of legit reasons to rip a DVD. Backup copies of kids’ movies for the minivan, watching Glee on your iPod touch while you’re on the bus, or even just saving battery power on your laptop (playing back a file from a hard drive is much more efficient than spinning a DVD).RipIt's simple interface makes ripping DVDs seamless and easy.Once the domain of übernerds, DVD ripping is a one-click affair thanks to RipIt ($19.95, The Little App Factory, ripitapp.com). And since it makes full rips, all of the menus, bonus features, and subtitles remain intact. You can play back the resulting files with DVD Player on your Mac or use a freeware tool like Handbrake to convert your rips into iPod-friendly formats. Delicious LibraryWe love the iTunes Store, but we still end up accumulating books, DVDs, console games, and, yes, even CDs. Delicious Library ($40, Delicious Monster Software, www.delicious-monster.com) helps catalog your collections by--get this--taking snaps of UPCs via your webcam and then automatically organizing your meatspace content onto virtual shelves for easy sorting and browsing. You can track loans to friends, post items for sale on Amazon, and publish Web catalogs formatted for your iPhone. That way, you can avoid buying another copy of John Hodgman’s More Information Than You Require. Connect360We’re Apple-faithful, but that doesn’t stop us from engaging in a little Modern Warfare 2 on our Xbox 360. And since the 360 is much more than a simple gaming machine, we also use it to stream iTunes tracks to our entertainment center and view pictures from our iPhoto library on our HDTV--with the help of Connect360 ($20, Nullriver Inc, www.nullriver.com), that is. It works over wired or wireless networks, and it even streams H.264 video straight from our MacBook. Sweet! PeelPack rats, beware: Peel ($14.95, Hjalti Jakobsson, www.getpeel.com) can get really overwhelming, really fast. But if you’re an avid follower of music blogs, Peel can automagically grab new tracks as they’re posted. So forget all that pesky right-clicking and manually adding to iTunes. Just feed Peel a list of your favorite music blogs, and then kick back as tons of new, free tunes get downloaded straight to your Mac. You may never have to buy (or pirate) music again. CoverScoutCover Flow is one of those features that looks great in a demo but doesn’t quite translate at home. iTunes can attempt to find the album art that makes Cover Flow actually useful, but it’s limited in scope and can’t make fuzzy matches. CoverScout ($39.95, equinox USA, www.equinux.com) scours the Internet to find your missing album art and presents you with multiple options to let you choose the best images. Don’t Cover Flow without it. TuneUpFor all of those untitled and mistitled tracks in your music library, there’s TuneUp ($19.95/one year, $29.95/lifetime; TuneUp Media; www.tuneupmedia.com). Like CoverScout, TuneUp can find and download missing album art, but its best trick is cleaning up your ID3 tags--the artist, title, and album info displayed in iTunes. A quick search is all it takes to clear up all those Track 1s and Unknown Artists in your library. It sure beats cleaning up metadata by hand.Next Page: Productivity Apps >> ProductivityTakin' care of business, every day. Takin' care of business, every way. Workin' on a Mac, it's all right. This productivity software is workin' overtime.WriteRoomBlocks distractions so you can write in peace.Proving the tired adage that “less is more,” WriteRoom ($24.95, Hog Bay Software, www.hogbaysoftware.com) is a light text editor with a full-screen mode. Start a new document, and everything else fades away--your Dock, your menubar, and other windows on your Desktop. You’re left with a black screen and friendly green text for a clutter- and distraction-free experience. The Escape key toggles between full-screen mode and windowed mode, which resembles TextEdit with a live word count.WriteRoom can save your work as plain text, rich text, or Microsoft Word’s .doc format. The preferences offer tons of customization: auto-save, character counts, the appearance of text in full-screen mode, and more. But WriteRoom’s real magic is how it gets out of your way and lets you focus on what you’re doing.BusyCalOne calendar application to rule them all.BusyCal ($40, BusyMac, www.busymac.com) is iCal on steroids. It dances circles around iCal, chanting, “Everything you can do, I can do better.” And it’s right. Sharing is a snap: You can set up two-way syncing with your Google Calendar or with other BusyCal calendars on your local network or the wide-open Internet. But even aside from sharing, BusyCal offers tons of calendaring bells and whistles: customizable views, sticky notes, weather forecasts, moon phases, graphical icons, a to-do list, notes, tags, and much more. And since it uses the Sync Services built into Mac OS X, your BusyCal calendars can sync with MobileMe and your iPhone. You can even switch back to iCal anytime without losing any of the events or to-dos you entered in BusyCal.So what if iCal is free? BusyCal is better.ThingsFlexible to-do list syncs with iCal and the iPhone. For busy people like us, a good to-do list is beyond essential. But some that we’ve tried are so complicated that just managing your tasks becomes a chore in itself. So the light, easy-to-understand Things ($49.95, Cultured Code, www.culturedcode.com) is a breath of fresh air. You can go the full Getting Things Done route, adding contexts, priority levels, a tickler file, and so on. Or you can keep it simple, with one-off and repeating tasks and multistep projects. iCal syncing can get your deadlines on your calendar, and Things on the Mac can sync wirelessly with Things on the iPhone ($9.99 in the App Store). We’ve tried multiple task-managment systems, from Web-based ToodleDo to iPhone apps like ToDo to Mail’s built-in To-Do list to good old paper and pencil. Things is the cream of the crop for its good looks, quick entry, and easy syncing.Things uses tags to organize your projects in a million ways--or you can ignore the tags altogether and just work.Express ScribeTranscriptions made easy... well, easier.Transcribing an interview, lecture, or other recording is hard enough, just with the listening and typing. Toss in the extra arm movement as you frantically click from your text editor to your audio-playback application every time you want to pause the recording or rewind a few seconds, and your transcribing job just got tougher and more frustrating. Express Scribe (free, NCH Software, www.nch.com.au/scribe) lets you set system-wide hotkeys for audio playback so you can stay in your text editor, fully control the audio, and never need to reach for your mouse.Express Scribe can also slow down your audio without changing the pitch, supports video, works with lots of file types, loads recordings from analog or digital audio recorders, and more. Plus, it’s completely free. Wahoo!NoteBookThe Mac is silly with note-taking applications (Evernote, Yojimbo, ShoveBox, MacJournal…shall we go on?), but Circus Ponies’ NoteBook ($49.95, Circus Ponies, www.circusponies.com) is a standout. If you subscribe to “a place for everything, and everything in its place,” NoteBook can be the place for notes, Web clippings, bookmarks, documents, voice memos, photos, and more. It struts its flexibility with ready-made templates for planning a trip, writing a research paper, collecting recipes, keeping a journal, and so on, while its fun spiral-notebook interface is a nice touch. TextExpanderA thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters could produce Hamlet a lot faster if they knew how to use TextExpander ($29.95, SmileOnMyMac, www.smileonmymac.com). This wonder app installs as a System Preferences pane and lets you define shortcuts for your most commonly used words and phrases. Abbreviate long URLs, your email signoff, even your own photo or scanned signature file. Then as you type those shortcuts, they’re automagically expanded to what you really wanted to say. Brilliant. iFinance 3Sure, Quicken is popular and Mint.com is free, but iFinance 3 ($29, Synium Software GmbH, www.synium.de) was built from the ground up just for Macs, and it shows. The intuitive interface makes it a cinch--dare we say a pleasure?--to track your accounts, keep an eye on your cash flow, set up a budget, and graph your expenses. It can also import from CSV and QIF files for easier data entry. Plus, a companion iPhone app lets you enter transactions on the go.FlexTimeThis charming timer app ($18.95, Red Sweater Software, www.red-sweater.com) lets you set up multistep routines that run once or repeat ad nauseam. Each step can be marked by a sound, spoken text, or even running a script. Once your routine is perfect, you can export the audio to iTunes--great for following a recipe’s carefully timed steps or taking your favorite yoga routines on the road. DEVONthink PersonalAnother great catch-all for storing, sorting, organizing, and searching information, DEVONthink ($49.95, DEVONtechnologies, www.devon-technologies.com) can take almost anything you can throw at it. Documents, PDFs, photos, multimedia files, bookmarks, webpages, iChat logs--all of those can be imported, sorted, and read right in DEVONthink. Searching is easy, and you can cobble together a brand-new document from items in your DEVONthink database and export it to your favorite text editor for printing or as HTML for posting. Next Page: Internet Apps >> InternetIt's a wild place, that Interweb, so there's nothing like a few primo apps to tame everything from blogging to FTPs to Twitter and Flash banners.TransmitTraveling the two-lane FTP highway.FTP has been around forever. Social networking and cloud computing may come and go, but FTP is in it for the long hall. Fortunately, there are a wealth of great FTP clients for the Mac, and the best of those is Transmit ($29.95, Panic, www.panic.com/transmit). The client utilizes a split directory window that shows the path on your computer and the path on the FTP site. With in-app search and the ability to sync folders on your Mac and on the FTP site, Transmit helps alleviate the search and drag-and-drop blues of other clients. The sync feature is especially helpful for Web developers and designers. You can even create desktop droplets for quick uploads to heavily used sites.Two-window FTP FTW.Mac-JournalWeb-based apps suck.Blogging about your life is a faux pas. Blogging about anything else that people actually care about is the proper way of utilizing of the blogging systems available out there. The ongoing problem is that most blogging platforms are bit of a pain to use because they’re Web-based. Plus, if you’re somewhere without Internet access, you can’t start laying out your blog posts for your site. MacJournal ($39.95, Mariner Software, www.marinersoftware.com) solves that problem with an easy-to-use multiplatform blogging client. Lay out your articles offline with images, video, and audio, then save them for later posting. The app includes the ability to both write in full-screen mode so you won’t be interrupted by your Twitter friends, and to record an audio podcast in the client.Create blog posts quickly and without browser issues.TweetieMulti-account Twitter action.After wowing the world with its iPhone Twitter app, atebits decided to release a desktop version of Tweetie ($19.95, atebits, www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/). The app can handle multiple Twitter accounts, compose tweets in a separate window, allow you to change the account you’re sending a tweet from on the fly, and let you drag and drop pics and videos right into the Compose window. Don’t have the perfect media on your Mac for a tweet? Record a video or shoot a pic from your iSight camera directly in Tweetie. And since Twitter conversations can be difficult to follow, Tweetie displays the conversation you’re having in a timeline if you just double-click one of the pertinent tweets. The Tweetie bookmarklet in Safari also allows you to share links quickly from your browser.Have an actual conversation on Twitter with Tweetie.DropboxStop, drop, and roll on home.Transferring large files can be a huge pain. Where the hell did you leave that thumb drive? External hard drives leave an unsightly bulge in your pocket, and all those cables are always getting tangled in your shoes. That’s a safety hazard, son. Dropbox (2GB storage for free, 50GB for $9.99/month; Dropbox; www.dropbox.com) is a cloud-based storage drive that you can access from any computer or iPhone. Just pop files into the Dropbox folder on your Mac, and it automatically syncs up with the online disk (which you can view on Dropbox’s website) and with any other machines you have the application installed on. You can even share folders and files with other Dropbox users. If the free 2GB box doesn’t cut it, you can upgrade to 50GB for $10 a month.Access your files from anywhere in the universe (with an Internet connection).LogMeInIf you need to remotely access a Mac or (gasp) a PC with Windows on it, LogMeIn (free, LogMeIn, logmein.com) allows you to peer into your remote computer from anywhere. You can launch apps, move files, and adjust your preferences via a Web-based interface, as if you were sitting at that computer. For $29.99, you can get your iPhone in on the action too. TweetDeckIf you’re a Twitter power user, TweetDeck (free, TweetDeck, www.tweetdeck.com) should be in your arsenal of Twitter apps. The interface is a series of columns that displays info like your friends’ feeds, saved searches, mentions, direct mentions, and Facebook updates. You can also keep up with trending topics with just a quick glance. If there’s something you need to track on Twitter, TweetDeck can make a column for it. VuzeAllegedly, BitTorrent steals medication from senior citizens, but isn’t it time to forget about all the evil things it supposedly does? Instead, focus on the greatness of Vuze (free, Vuze, www.vuze.com) and its ability to download legally available video files. After you’ve done the downloading, Vuze can convert your files for use on the iPhone, Apple TV, iPod, Xbox 360, TiVo, and PlayStation 3. It’ll even stream videos to your set-top boxes. Nice! BannerZestCreating Flash banners is difficult, especially when you don’t know or own Flash. BannerZest ($49, Aquafadas, www.aquafadas.com) takes the pain out the process and gives you a simple way to create quick, beautiful Flash banners. From a standard gallery to an interactive experience, BannerZest comes with a collection of themes for different uses, and it uploads your banners to your FTP or MobileMe disk. FileChuteSending large files over email can result in the dreaded bounced email. FileChute ($17.95, Yellow Mug Software, www.yellowmug.com) works with your MobileMe-, FTP-, or WebDAV-accessible Web server. Drop your file into the app, and it uploads it to your online server of choice and then creates a URL to add to your email. If you drop more than one file, you get an archive uploaded to your server. Adios, bounced emails! Next Page: Content Creation Apps >>Content CreationSure, Adobe's stuff is the gold standard, but you don't want to have to count on a good night at the poker table to pay for it, right? Cue these killer applications, which let you effectively draw, edit photos, render, animate, and even scratch for a very fair price.djay 3Budgeted beats to grow on.You want to spin phat beats, but your slim bank keeps you from purchasing the high-end DJ equipment and software. That’s okay, young DJ-in-training, djay 3 ($49.95, algoriddim, www.djay-software.com) gives you everything you need to rock the house without losing your shirt. This surprisingly robust audio-mixing software integrates with your iTunes library and puts all the usual mixing and scratching right on your desktop. The application supports multitouch trackpad scratching and fading between tracks, so it’s especially perfect for the last few generations of MacBooks. And as you grow as a DJ, the application will grow with you thanks to its support for MIDI controllers. That means when you get the cash for those fancy digital mixers and turntables, djay will be right there with you.With your iTunes catalog at your fingertips, you'll find some pretty interesting mashups.AudacityFree audio editor extraordinaire.Audio editing seems simple at first. Then suddenly, you’re knee-deep in samples, frequencies, and bitrates. Sound editing really is part science, part black magic, so we’re thankful that Audacity (free, SourceForge, audacity.sourceforge.net) removes one of the biggest obstacles: choosing a quality application and figuring out how you’re going to pay for it. Audacity is both terrific and free, which is kinda hard to beat. An audio-recording and -editing application, it captures up to 16 channels at once from multiple sources, features noise removal, includes a metadata editor, and supplies unlimited undos. It can handle most of the audio files out there, and it’ll work with multiple files types in the same project. Audacity is also is cross-platform, so if you’re a recent Mac arrival, you may already know about its awesome power.So many features, you'll second-guess the price: free.SketchUp3D for you and me.Maya, 3D Studio Max, and SketchUp--all of these will let you create magical 3D worlds. Only one will do it for free, and you probably nailed it in one--it’s Google’s SketchUp software (free, Google, sketchup.google.com) that brings the world of 3D to the average Joe. You can create your own items or utilize Google’s 3D warehouse to find models created by other SketchUp users. With all those models at your fingertips, you can create floor plans for your home, build a level for your favorite FPS, or export the files to animation software or Photoshop. The application includes tutorials that’ll get you up and rendering in no time at all… so now nothing stands between you and virtual-world domination!Build a virtual man-cave for you and your stuff.RingerWham-bam ringtone, ma'am.We get tons of people asking us, “How do I make a ringtone for my iPhone?” Until recently, we told them to launch GarageBand, cut a ringtone, and export it to iTunes. Now we recommend Ringer ($15, Pixel Research Labs, pixelresearchlabs.com/ringer) as the quickest and easiest way to create ringtones from your favorite songs and audio files. Ringer has access to your entire iTunes library and works with MP3, AAC, MOV, MP4, M4V, and QuickTime files. Yeah, you can make a ringtone from a video file. A super-simple editor with waveform information makes it a snap to select the perfect section of audio, and you can fade in and out of the file and preview the ringtone before cropping it and sending it to iTunes for a sync with your iPhone. AcornUsing an image editor doesn’t have to cost you hundreds of dollars. In fact, with Acorn ($49.95, Flying Meat, www.flyingmeat.com/acorn), you’ll get features like layers, AppleScript support, 64-bit support, drawing, and filters in a package that’s easy on the wallet. This easy-to-use software strips away most of the features most people don’t use and gives you a clean image-editing tool. InkscapeWhile raster-based image editors like Photoshop are great at pushing pixels around, the vector-based drawing programs are where all the real action happens. The open-source application Inkscape (free, Inkscape, www.inkscape.org) is similar to powerhouses like Illustrator and CorelDraw, but with one important difference--it’s free. The app utilizes the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format and includes a nice 3D drawing tool that allows you to set your vanishing points. ScreenflickWith Snow Leopard, Apple introduced screen-capture into QuickTime, and it’s a nice feature if you’re looking to make a quick full-screen screencast. But if you want something that has features like fixed location output at up to 60 fps, Screenflick ($25, Araelium Group, www.araelium.com/screenflick) is an application you can get behind. It’ll highlight mouse clicks and keyboard events, adding a nifty visual cue into your screencasts that highlights what you’re doing. BracketeerWhile your eye can take in an amazing range of light to dark, your camera cannot. In order to help create images that include a tonal range that the average camera can’t capture, HDR applications and plug-ins have appeared on the market. These applications take a series of images that have been bracketed from dark to light and combine them to include the darkest darks to the lightest lights in one HDR image. Bracketeer ($29.95, Pangea Software, pangeasoft.net/pano/bracketeer) is a standalone application that does just that. Adjust the saturation, the contrast, and exposure from within the application. The application will even auto-align your images in case you got the hiccups while taking your pics. iStopMotion 2 HomeMost animators’ first animation was probably a stop-motion piece with Star Wars action figures. And whether those childhood lightsaber battles have you hoping to become the next Brad Bird, or you just love the look of stop-motion, iStopMotion ($49, Boinx Software, www.boinx.com/istopmotion/overview) is a quick, easy way to create simple stop-motion animations. Use your iSight or connect a camera to your Mac and start making your own Wallace and Gromit short. You’ll feel the Force, Lu… sorry. Next Page: Utility Apps >>UtilitiesSlick utilities can add crucial functionality to your Mac, so we've selected the best options for everything from secure password managers and system-troubleshooting tools to an app that will let you play Windows games on your Mac... without Windows!AppZapperCompletely trash applications.Unlike using Windoze, installing and uninstalling apps on a Mac is painless. Drag an application’s icon into your Applications folder, and you’re pretty much good to go. Deleting them is just as simple--just grab them and toss them into the Trash. But if you’ve ever dug around Library or System folders on your Mac, you’ll see that even after you Trash an app, many of them leave crumbs in different parts of your machine. For cleaning up those last little bits, AppZapper ($12.95, Austin Sarner and Brian Ball, www.appzapper.com) is a must-have utility that’s also great for troubleshooting problems. Wiping out all of an application’s preferences and other random files can often turn a troublesome app into a perfectly behaved one after a clean reinstall. Completely remove unwanted applications with a simple drag and drop.HazelClean and organize your Mac--automatically.Hazel ($21.95, NoodleSoft, www.noodlesoft.com) is kind of like Rosie the Robot for your Mac. Or it’s like OS X’s Folder Actions… if they were super-awesome, easy to use, and perfect for helping you keep your Mac’s folders and files organized. Hazel installs as a pane in System Preferences, monitoring locations that you choose, and performs actions on files based on your criteria. By creating simple rules, you can delegate repetitive and annoying file-management tasks to Hazel--for example, automatically add downloaded MP3s to iTunes or move DMGs to an archive on an external drive. Hazel can delve deep into metadata for complex actions like copying images into subfolders by ISO settings or reorganizing music files according to bitrate. You can even set up simple rules for auto-deleting items that have been in the Trash longer than a certain amount of time.1PasswordKeep all your confidential info on lockdown.You’ve heard it before--secure, unique passwords are the way to go. Yet there you are, still using the same password for everything from your maclife.com login to your Gmail and your bank account. Do we even have to tell you again why that’s a colossally bad idea? 1Password ($39.95, Agile Web Solutions, agilewebsolutions.com) can help clean up your online act, creating and managing complex passwords for every online account and then logging you in with a keyboard shortcut. The app can also be used to securely store personal information like credit card numbers and addresses for use in Web forms. And since all of your passwords are unique, you won’t have to worry about your banking info being compromised because of a data breach at that sketchy Russian website you used to download MP3s for a penny.1Password securely stores Web passwords, logins, software licenses, and other important information.iPhone ExplorerStore & browse files on your iPhone.Breaking tradition with the iPods of yore, Apple doesn’t provide the ability to use your iPhone as a USB drive. iPhone Explorer (free, myPod Apps, www.mypodapps.com) is a simple app that will let you drag and drop files onto your phone for easy portability. The app itself is lightweight, and all it takes is a USB cable to view your iPhone’s folder structure. In addition to storing files, iPhone Explorer can be used to restore iTunes tracks from your iPod to a Mac or to rescue photographs from the depths of your iPhone’s memory. No jailbreaking is required, but more adventurous users with jailbroken phones can also recover contacts, messages, email, and other data. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s simple to use for the careful novice.AppleJackAppleJack (free, The Apotek, applejack.sourceforge.net) is one of those things you’ll install once and never think about again—if everything goes right. But if, god forbid, your Mac starts acting weird one day--or stops acting, period--it’ll be AppleJack to the rescue. It’s a command-line utility for diagnosing and repairing problems with your computer. Use the menu-driven system to repair permissions, validate preferences files, and remove screwy cache files.SuperDuperWith Time Machine built into OS X, there’s really no good reason not to have an automatic backup. But Time Machine has its limits--a big one being the lack of bootable backups. SuperDuper ($27.95, Shirt Pocket, www.shirt-pocket.com) easily handles creating and updating bootable clones of your Mac’s hard drive so you’ll be ready to go when disaster strikes. Just plug in your clone, restart, and you’re up and running again. CrossOver GamesPC fanboys like to slag the Mac for having fewer games, but with CrossOver Games ($39.95, CodeWeavers, www.codeweavers.com), Mac users--and Linux fans too--can easily play games coded for Windows machines. The list of officially supported games is hundreds deep, and since CrossOver is based on Wine, you don’t even need a copy of Windows just to play Team Fortress 2. Clean My MacHard drives are never big enough. Whether you have a MacBook Air or a Mac Pro, there always comes a point when there’s just not enough space on your internal disks. Clean My Mac ($29.95, MacPaw, macpaw.com) can help with that problem, scouring your Mac’s drive and tossing out all sorts of gunk you don’t need. Use it to toss unneeded language files, scrub extraneous code from universal binaries, and thoroughly clean up after deleted applications. rooSwitchOS X’s Fast User Switching is handy for juggling multiple user accounts and their corresponding settings, but rooSwitch ($19, Rocket, rooswitch.com) allows you to maintain different settings on a per-application basis. Use it to manage Home and Work browser profiles, for example, or to have different profiles in your word processor for writing or editing documents. rooSwitch works with nearly any application, and it supports Automator and AppleScript for the ultimate in customizability. Next Page: Wild Card Apps & Staff Picks >> Wild CardsNot all Mac apps fall into your neat little categories. These five break the mold and completely deserve a place on your hard drive.BricksmithVirtual bricks you can't lose or step on? Sold!Legos are the official plastic brick of Mac|Life--we’ve had many discussions about the empires we built in our childhood bedrooms and how much we miss “playing Legos” as the soulless adults we are today. Bricksmith (free, donations accepted; Allen Smith; bricksmith.sourceforge.net) lets you recapture the magic in a highly geeky way. It’s a 3D Lego-model creator, offering drag-and-drop construction using thousands of parts in every color of Lego’s rainbow. Tutorials and the one finished model that’s included show you the ropes, and once you’re done with your virtual creation, you can export step-by-step instructions to build it for real. There’s even a mini figure generator where you can design and outfit a matching Lego man and insert him into your model. This software couldn’t be cooler.We can't believe an application this sweet is donationware.CameraBag DesktopGive your photos a new identity or some old-timey charm.We named the iPhone version of CameraBag one of our “101 Essential Apps for 2008,” and now the same fun can be had on your Mac, thanks to CameraBag Desktop ($19, Nevercenter, www.nevercenter.com). You drag in a digital image, and the app re-creates the look of a real film photograph--choose from Helga, Lolo, Mono, 1962, 1974, Instant, Magazine, Cinema, or Colorcross.For more variations, click the Reprocess button, and all the options will change their look and coloring just slightly. Or check the Multi-filter box and experiment with adding multiple filters to a single photo. Of course, you can export your altered images back to your hard drive without affecting the original file. The novelty of taking an everyday digital snapshot and making it look like a Polaroid image or washed-out 1974 photograph never gets old.Your digital photos, plus extra personality.SousChefRecipe database + shopping list + cooking assistant = one kitchen lifesaver.SousChef ($30, Acacia Tree Software, acaciatreesoftware.com) edges out MacGourmet ($49.95, www.marinersoftware.com) in the cooking-assistant category for its cloud database of recipes. Every time a SousChef user enters a recipe (133,000-plus at press time), it’s synced to the cloud, and you can search those and import them into your own library. You can also opt out of sharing your own recipes so Aunt Erma’s secret matzo ball soup stays in the family.Once a recipe’s in your library, you can edit, print, email, or blog it--or even add its ingredients to your grocery list. Click the Cook button for a full-screen view of the instructions that you can read from across the room, keeping your Mac out of the splatter zone. The Mac’s built-in speech recognition lets you advance the recipe’s steps with your own voice, or you can use the Apple Remote or a Keyspan Front Row Remote.TemporisAttractive, drag-and-drop timelines make it easy to "show, don't tell."Everyone loves a good infographic, or at least geeky types like us do. (And the geeks shall inherit the earth, don’cha know?) Temporis ($24.99, Bartas Technologies, www.bartastechnologies.com) makes it easy to create neat-looking timelines on your Mac, which you can then print or export as PDF or TIFF files that are ready for importing into your presentation software, word processor, or page-layout app.Adding new events is just a Command-click away, and it’s a snap to drag the start and end dates around on the timeline. The Arrange button will automatically stagger your timeline’s events into the most logical and easy-to-read order, and the Inspector lets you tweak fonts, colors, titles, labels, and your timeline’s span and intervals. You can even export the event data separately as an XML or CSV file.Manga Studio Debut 4Create your own comics and manga, and even manga-fy your photos.Manga Studio Debut 4 ($49.99, Smith Micro, my.smithmicro.com) is a must-have for fans of Japanese manga or anyone who wants to make their own comic books. Its ingenious Beginner’s Assistant groups together the tools by processes so you can intuitively wind your way through a typical manga workflow: sketch, panel, draw, tone, and add character dialogue.You can scan or draw your own art (graphics tablets supported, natch), play with the included samples, purchase manga content from www.contentparadise.com, or even import your own digital photos and watch Manga Studio make them all comicky-looking. Draw speed lines, add dialogue bubbles, move your pages around, and then print or export your finished comic book. Manga Studio Debut 4 is the younger brother to professional-level Manga Studio EX 4 ($299.99), but Debut has plenty of advanced features too, including layers, templates, customizable patterns, and more.Mac|Life Staff PicksBass TunerI’m a beginning bass player--like, very beginning. So it’s a huge help that I don’t have to worry about staying in key. This terrific, simple, and streamlined little app ($9, www.rustykat.com) lets me quickly get in tune in front of my MacBook using the built-in mic. With that necessity sorted, I can fire up some tracks and tablature and focus on struggling to play along.MultiwiniaMultiwinia ($19, www.ambrosiasw.com) offers crazy replayability. You devise a strategy for your stick-figure army, then watch them take on up to four other teams in six game types on 40 vector-graphic maps. Online multiplayer against Mac and Windows players works flawlessly and keeps me coming back for more. No Napoleon complex necessary. MetaXIf you need to tag a large amount of MP4 files, you could use iTunes’ painfully slow process. Instead I found MetaX (free, www.kerstetter.net) for all my tagging needs. The app will search the IMDB catalog and plug the information into the appropriate fields, then share that info via tagChimp. You can even scan DVD barcodes via iSight! BeanFor a word dork like me, word processors are a big deal. Bean (free, www.bean-osx.com) is a lightweight, open-source word processor. It’s missing many of the blinky lights and thingamajigs of the big boys, and that’s exactly the point. Fewer distractions equals better writing, faster. And for anyone who needs to hit a certain length, the live word count rocks. FluidI often find that Firefox has the tendency to crash when I have too many Web applications running. But Fluid (free, fluidapp.com) lets me create a site-specific browser out of my most essential websites, like Google Docs and Flickr. Simply plug in the URL, and voilà! You have a separate application running that won’t go down if something else does. Next Page: More Gaming Bang for 50 Bucks >> More Bang for 50 BucksSome of the Mac's best games are also its cheapest? Sweet!Fifty bones won’t buy you even one new Xbox 360 or PS3 game, but on the Mac, you can snap up a stack of premier games for less than that. Or at least, that was our theory when we gave Florence, our new associate online editor, 50 whole American dollars and asked her to max out her Mac with the best gaming that short stack of money could buy. Man, did she score--check out the results of her diligent “research.”Plants Vs. Zombies$16, amazon.comLine up perilous peashooters and sun-soaking sunflowers against an abominable horde of zombies in Plants vs. Zombies.This animated tower-defense favorite pits you against a horde of zombies with one thing on their (decaying) minds--invading your home for brains! Pit your arsenal of zombie-fighting plants, each with their own spectacular organic weaponry, against 26 zombies and 50 levels of adventure. Fair warning: Once you start playing this excellent game, it’s incredibly hard to stop. World of Goo$10, amazon.comStack up adorable globs of goo to build structures and watch them band together as you help transport them across various levels.World of Goo is another addictive and totally adorable puzzle game. Created around the idea that circular goo balls make adequate building materials (naturally), the game has you solving puzzles by dragging and dropping goo to create all kinds of crazy structures that enable you to transport your goo across the level. The oh-so-cute googly-eyed blobs pack the game with charm, and you can also connect online and play against other Goo architects around the world.Braid$15, playgreenhouse.comBraid's aesthetically appealing backdrop and profound storyline will keep you engrossed until the very end.Some games defy description, and Braid might be easy to pass over because it appears to be just a mix of platforming and time control set against a gorgeous backdrop. But it subverts and transcends those two well-worn clichés with brilliant design and an absorbing story that packs a twist that you’ll never see coming. Watch the YouTube videos if you need help solving its puzzles, but just make sure you see this masterpiece through to the end.Balcassa$8, openplanetsoftware.comBalcassa has a mountain of exciting brainteasers for the puzzle fiend.Balcassa feeds off those nightmares you still have about attempting to master that archaic, rainbow-colored Rubik’s cube. And while most of you probably never cracked the damn thing (we didn’t!), Balcassa gives you a second chance. The objective of the game is to slide the cubes into a specific sequence, pattern, or orientation. It may sound like a simple task, but much like fiddling with a Rubik’s cube, figuring it all out is the real reward.Freeware FunIf you’re interested in first-person shooters and MMORPGs, Quake Live and Second Life can give you hours of entertainment at our favorite price: $0.00. Both games perform smoothly on Mac OS 10.4 or later. Quake Live doesn’t require beefy hardware because it runs through your Web browser. But that doesn’t stop it from delivering all the fast-paced action of the classic first-person shooter. Second Life, while not as packed with storyline as World of Warcraft, offers a similar massively multiplayer world where you can meet people, customize your character’s look, and participate in a virtual world that’s just like our own. You don’t even have to watch the clock to make sure you’re on time for a player-versus-player raid!You don't need fancy computer hardware to frag your way through this beloved shooter.Vital Statistics on Our 50 Killer AppsTotal cost if you bought all 50 apps: $1219.83Number of apps that are free: 13Apps that have an iPhone counterpart: 15Whaddaya waiting for? (apps that have a free demo): 39Number of countries these apps were born in: 7Apps named "iSomething": shockingly... just 3!Apps that require Snow Leopard: 1Apps that require Leopard: 14Apps that promise "iLife integration!": 9
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Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News
Apple: What recession? Apple (AAPL) customers continued to buy up iPhones and Mac computers, seemingly ignoring the recession and helping the company's Q4 results shine. "We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter," Steve Jobs said. Apple easily exceeded analysts' Q4 earnings expectations as back-to-school promotions drove sales: revenue grew 25% to $9.87B versus last year's quarter, while net income surged 47% to $1.67B (see more numbers below). Apple shares rose 7.2% to $203.43 in after-hours trading; the stock has more than doubled this year. Read Apple's earnings call. Lehman's Europe unit readies $90B claim. Lehman's European arm, now managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, is preparing a new $90B claim against the U.S. parent of the failed bank - bringing the unit's total claims against various Lehman entities globally to $208B. PwC fees for managing the wind-down so far: €168M ($253M). Icahn targets CIT. Corporate raider Carl Icahn turned up the heat on CIT Group (CIT) Monday, slamming the company for unfairly favoring large bondholders with its revised debt exchange offer and saying he was prepared to offer a better deal by lending the company $6B and saving it $150M in fees. In a letter to CIT's board, Icahn said the proposed alternative $6B loan package is "the latest example of incompetent and unconscionable behavior" from CIT's board. Prospective lenders, he says, would get well in excess of what the current syndicated loan market should dictate, in exchange for voting their debt in favor of the company's reorganization plan. Morgan confirms Van Kampen sale to Invesco. Morgan Stanley (MS) confirmed Monday that it's selling its retail asset-management business, including the Van Kampen fund unit, to Invesco (IVZ), for $1.5B in stock and cash, including a 9.4% stake in Invesco. "By taking a minority interest in Invesco, Morgan Stanley will be able to realize significant value in partnership with a world-class player," co-president James Gorman said. The deal, rumored for months and expected to close in mid-2010, will remove some sales limits that Van Kampen managers faced since Morgan's JV with Smith Barney closed. Bernanke warns U.S., Asia to mind the gap. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke called on U.S. and Asian leaders to "avoid ever-increasing and unsustainable imbalances in trade and capital flows," saying the U.S. financial system is currently "overwhelmed" by an inflow of capital. Speaking Monday at a San Fran. Fed conference on Asia, Bernanke warned that while the U.S. trade deficits with developing countries are not as onerous as they were two years ago, they are still a threat to the global economy. World leaders believe global economic growth must begin to depend less on the U.S. consumer. Fed tests exit tool... As global central banks begin to weigh inflation risks, the Fed confirmed Monday it has begun experimenting with "triparty" reverse repo agreements, but says their actual use is not imminent. In a reverse repo, the Fed pledges mortgage-backed securities and Treasurys it bought as collateral for short-term loans, thereby draining cash from the financial system. Reverse repos are normally the domain of the 18 primary dealers; the experiment involves extending that to deals with the $2.5T money-market mutual fund business. ... while Australia says inflation risk looms. The Reserve Bank of Australia believes that the risk to global economic growth is passing, and that the bigger threat is now inflation. "Keeping interest rates at very low levels for an extended period could therefore threaten the achievement of the inflation target over the medium term," according to minutes from its Oct. 6 meeting, released Tuesday. At the meeting, the RBA unexpectedly raised its policy rate by 0.25% to 3.25% - its first such hike since March 2008, and the first in a major developed economy since the start of the financial crisis last year. Galleon faces massive withdrawals. Clients of hedge-fund giant Galleon jumped ship Monday after Friday's arrest of co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, forcing Galleon to unload some of its holdings, including tech stocks. So far, investors have requested $1.3B of the total $3.7B Galleon manages, and two of its brokerage firms - Bank of America (BAC) and Barclays (BCS) - have cut off relations with the firm. In a letter to investors and employees Monday evening, Rajaratnam said the charges "are, without exception, entirely baseless," and vowed to defend the firm. Financial sector fraud on the rise. Fraud is increasing twice as fast in the financial sector as in other sectors, according to Kroll's annual Global Fraud Report, released Monday. In a survey, senior executives said North America had been particularly hit hard by the financial crisis: the average financial services company lost over $15M to fraud over the past three years. The report comes as sources say investigators plan to charge 10 more securities dealers with insider trading, some linked to Galleon Group, which is at the center of one of the biggest-ever undercover operations into illegal trading (see above). Bair speaks up for small banks. FDIC head Sheila Bair warned Monday small community banks are struggling to compete against their too-big-to-fail rivals. "Too big to fail has become worse," she said, "it's become explicit when it was implicit before." Bair contends government guarantees create competitive disparities between large and small banks, because "everybody knows small institutions can fail," making it more expensive for them to raise capital and secure funding. China fires new salvo in trade tussle. In the latest in a series of China-U.S. trade disputes, China's Ministry of Commerce took preliminary measures Monday to impose tariffs of as much as 36% on certain nylon imports from the U.S., saying the imports have damaged the domestic industry. The ruling affects imports of Nylon 6, used to manufacture a variety of products, including toothpaste and chiffon. Affected U.S. firms include BASF's (BASFY.PK) U.S. arm and Honeywell (HON). Group support for Microsoft/Yahoo tie-up. In an open letter, advertising industry heavyweights urged the Department of Justice to fast-track approval of a Microsoft (MSFT) / Yahoo (YHOO) tie-up, saying the potential benefits for advertisers, marketing services agencies, Web site publishers and consumers are "too important to wait for." Google (GOOG) remained more circumspect, perhaps because it doesn't want to alienate customers. Earnings: Before Open Bank of New York Mellon (BK): Q3 EPS of $0.54 beats by $0.06. Revenue of $3.33B (+3.7%) vs. $3.18B. Provision for credit losses goes to $147M from $61M last quarter. (PR) Biogen Idec (BIIB): Q3 EPS of $1.12 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $1.12B (+2.8%) in-line. Shares -1.9% premarket. (PR) BlackRock (BLK): Q3 EPS of $2.10 beats by $0.17. Revenue of $1.14B (-13.2%) in-line. "Improving investor sentiment was the most important factor in third quarter results. Clients are putting money back to work in the markets, driving inflows in equities and bonds, and outflows in money market funds industry-wide." Shares +0.9% premarket. (PR) Brinker International (EAT): FQ1 EPS of $0.17 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $778M (-20.9%) vs. $766M. Cost of sales fell to 28.2% from 28.4% last quarter. (PR) Caterpillar (CAT): Q3 EPS of $0.64 beats by $0.58. Revenue of $7.29B vs. $7.49B. "We believe the third quarter marked the low point for Caterpillar sales and revenues in what has been the toughest recession since the 1930s. We are seeing encouraging signs that indicate a recovery may be underway." Shares +4.4% premarket. (PR) China Mobile (CHL): Q3 net profit of 28.6B yuan ($4.2B), up 2.6% from 27.9B last year, short of consensus of 29.2B. Sales rose 9% to 114.1B yuan. Ebitda rose 5% to 57.8B yuan, short of 58.1B consensus. (Bloomberg) China Telecom (CHA): Q3 profit of 2.39B yuan ($350M), down from 4.6B last year, and well short of consensus of 3.68B. Ebitda profit margin slipped to 41.1% from 42.3%. (Reuters) Coach (COH): FQ1 EPS of $0.44 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $761M (+1.1%) vs. $754M. (PR) Coca-Cola (KO): Q3 EPS of $0.82 in-line. Revenue of $8.04B (-4.2%) vs. $8.11B. "We expect the consumer to continue facing economic uncertainties into 2010 and for consumer sentiment to recover slowly.: Shares -1.2% premarket. (PR) Comerica (CMA): Q3 EPS of -$0.10 beats by $0.43. $311M provision for loan losses, unchanged from Q2. (PR) Diamondrock Hospitality (DRH): Q3 FFO of $0.19 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $138M (-14.6%) vs. $134M. (PR) DuPont (DD): Q3 EPS of $0.45 beats by $0.12. Revenue of $5.96B (-18.3%) vs. $6.14B. Sees full-year EPS of $1.95-2.05 vs. $1.83. "We see overall sequential improvement in our industrial businesses as market conditions begin to firm." (PR) Forest Laboratories (FRX): FQ2 EPS of $0.85 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $963M (+4%) vs. $1B. (PR) Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (GAP): FQ2 EPS of -$1.18 misses by $0.47. Revenue of $2.06B (-5.4%) vs. $2.13B. "The current challenging economy continues to impact our business. The macro headwinds including rising unemployment, intensifying price competition and now also deflation are creating an even more difficult short-term economic environment." Shares -9.7% premarket. (PR) Illinois Tool Works (ITW): Q3 EPS of $0.60 beats by $0.07. Revenue of $3.58B (-19.8%) in-line. Operating margin 13.5% up from 9.9% last quarter. (PR) Invesco (IVZ): Q3 EPS of $0.24 in-line. Revenue of $706M vs. $687M. Shares +3.6% premarket. IVZ announced yesterday it would acquire Morgan Stanley's (MS) retail asset management business, including Van Kampen Investments." (PR) Jefferies Group (JEF): Q3 EPS of $0.42 beats by $0.14. Revenue of $M (+154.5%) in-line. Shares +6.1% premarket. (PR) Journal Communications (JRN): Q3 EPS of $0.02 misses by $0.06. Revenue of $105M (-22.9%) vs. $108M. (PR) LaBranche (LAB): Q3 EPS of -$0.22 misses by $0.27. Revenue of $M in-line. Shares -4.9% premarket. (PR) Lockheed Martin (LMT): Q3 EPS of $2.07 vs. consensus of $1.83. Revenue of $11.06B (+4.5%) vs. $11.4B. (PR) Lexmark (LXK): Q3 EPS of $0.65 beats by $0.20. Revenue of $958M (+6%) vs. $901M. Gross margin 32.7% vs. 32.5%. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.50-0.60 vs. $0.47, revenue "up slightly." Stronger than expected customer demand drove better than expected growth. (PR) Marshall & Ilsley (MI): Q3 EPS of -$0.68 in-line. Average loans and leases fell 6% to $47.1B. "There are some encouraging early signs that credit quality is improving, but we realize it will take a few more quarters to fully address our problem loans." Announces $775M common stock offering. (PR) Parker-Hannifin (PH): FQ1 EPS of $0.45 beats by $0.28. Revenue of $2.24B (-27%) vs. $2.17B. Shares +4.9% premarket. (PR) Pfizer (PFE): Q3 EPS of $0.51 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $11.62B (-2.9%) vs. $11.41B. Sees full-year EPS of $2.00-2.05 vs. $1.98. (PR) Precision Castparts (PCP): FQ2 EPS of $1.54 misses by $0.09. Revenue of $1.3B (-27.6%) vs. $1.4B. "From a top-line perspective, overall sales declines seem to be bottoming out in the second quarter." (PR) Regions Financial (RF): Q3 EPS of -$0.37 misses by $0.12. Revenue of $1.62B (-20.3%) vs. $1.58B. Allowance for credit losses +2.9% to $1.025B. Shares +0.35% premarket. (PR) Sherwin Williams (SHW): Q3 EPS of $1.51 beats by $0.16. Revenue of $2B (-12%) in-line. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.35-0.55 vs. $0.61, and revenue down 8-12% Y/Y. (PR) State Street (STT): Q3 EPS of $1.05 beats by $0.01. Revenue of $2.24B (-19.3%) in-line. Shares -0.75% premarket. (PR) UAL (UAUA): Q3 EPS of -$0.43 beats by $0.51. Revenue of $4.43B (-20.3%) in-line. Shares +8.1% premarket. (PR) UnitedHealth (UNH): Q3 EPS of $0.89 beats by $0.12. Revenue of $21.7B (+7.6%) vs. $21.56B. (PR) United Technologies (UTX): Q3 EPS of $1.14 beats by $0.02. Revenue of $13.38B (-11.3%) in-line. "Order rates for most of our businesses have largely stabilized, although the shape of recovery is still uncertain." (PR) Western Union (WU): Q3 EPS of $0.33 beats by $0.01. Revenue of $1.31B (-4.6%) in-line. Says recent stabilization trends are encouraging. (PR) Earnings: Mon. After Close Apple (AAPL): FQ4 EPS of $1.82 beats by $0.40. Sales of $9.87B vs. $9.2B. Sees FQ1 EPS of $1.70-1.87 vs. consensus of $1.91 on sales of $11.3-11.6B, in line. Sold 3.05M Macs, 10.2M iPods, and 7.4M iPhones during quarter. Gross margin 36.6%. Shares +5.9% AH. (PR) Atheros Communications (ATHR): Q3 EPS of $0.46 beats by $0.08. Revenue of $157M (+13%) vs. $147M. Shares +2.1% AH. (PR) Boston Scientific (BSX): Q3 EPS of $0.19 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $2.03B (+3%) vs. $2.04B. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.17-0.21 vs. $0.17. Expects full-year adjusted EPS of $0.75-0.79 vs. $0.56. Shares -7% AH. (PR) JDA Software Group (JDAS): Q3 EPS of $0.40 beats by $0.04. Revenue of $96M (-3%) vs. $92M. Shares -2.8% AH. (PR) Lincare (LNCR): Q3 EPS of $0.53 beats by $0.01. Revenue of $393M (-3%) vs. $391M. Shares -0.8% AH. (PR) Packaging Corp. of America (PKG): Q3 EPS of $0.25 in-line. Revenue of $554M (-11%) vs. $549M. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.13 vs. $0.17. Shares -7.4% AH. (PR) Steel Dynamics (STLD): Q3 EPS of $0.30 beats by $0.07. Revenue of $1.2B (-54%) vs. $1.1B. Shares +2.6% AH. (PR) Texas Instruments (TXN): Q3 EPS of $0.42 beats by $0.03. Revenue of $2.9B (-15%) vs. $2.8B. Sees Q4 EPS of $0.42-0.50 vs. $0.40. "Our balance sheet is strong and has allowed us to opportunistically make investments in Analog and Embedded Processing throughout this downturn that should provide returns for years to come." Shares +2% AH. (PR) UDR Inc. (UDR): Q3 FFO of $0.31 beats by $0.01. Rental income of $150M (+2%) vs. $149M. Lowers full-year FFO guidance to $1.14-1.20 from $1.23-1.35, vs. consensus of $1.27. Shares -0.5% AH. (PR) Volterra Semiconductor (VLTR): Q3 EPS of $0.19 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $29.7M (-3%) in-line. Shares -10.3% AH. (PR) Werner (WERN): Q3 EPS of $0.26 beats by $0.06. Revenue of $429M (-27%) vs. $428M. Shares +3.3% AH. (PR) Zions Bancorp (ZION): Q3 EPS of -$1.41 misses by $0.17. Revenue of $753M (+29%) vs. $633M. Shares -1.1% AH. (PR) Today's MarketsAsian markets were mostly higher Tuesday, while Europe stocks were mostly lower. Nasdaq futures are well higher on the strength of Apple's (AAPL) blowout Q4; other indexes are flat.