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The idea, instigated by VeriFone Systems Inc., is to turn your cell phone into an electronic credit card wallet.
"A phone is a lot smarter than a card," said Doug Bergeron, VeriFone's chief executive, in an interview. "It opens the door to a rich experience at the point of sale that retailers really covet."
I'm not paranoid, but isn't this Google-backed system a little Big-Brother-creepy? (I refer to the George Orwell book and not the reality TV show.)
Here some app for for thought:
1) The VeriFone device will turn you into a walking litmus test for spending behavior. Unlike some other forms of advertising, the system would allow Google to generate ads targeted by
locales and past purchases.
2) Remember what happened with hummus purchases at Safeway? After 9/11, the government concocted a plan to chart excessive hummus purchases at Safeway -- being all terrorists love hummus.
3) Having your credit card activated by an app detaches you from spending in the same way FarmVille detaches you from reality.
4) It's easier to steal a cell phone than a credit card -- imagine the new breed of credit card criminal hierarchy that will be created; with foot soldiers doing the street level theft and hackers extracting the credit card information.
What's your opinion on cell phone credit card apps? Should we all hold out for the safe-and-secure retina scans -- promised to us in such sci-fi movies as Blade Runner?
4.Google To Let AdWords Advertisers Target Contextually By Category
Google has announced additional targeting capabilities for ads appearing on its Display Network, allowing advertisers to choose categories, rather than keywords, to trigger their ad’s appearance.
Given AdWords’ genesis as a search-oriented advertising system, keywords have always been the main mechanism for targeting ads, though additional refinements and options have long been available. Now, Google seems to be acknowledging that there are other good ways of contextually, especially for advertisers looking for awareness, rather than for immediate sales.
The new targeting capabilities will give advertisers the ability to select 1,750 topics and sub-topics that are mapped to the pages upon which Display Network ads appear. Google says its system looks at all the words on a page to determine the topic of the page, rather than being reliant on particular keywords. Advertisers can also exclude topics or sub-topics to refine targeting.
With so many Google Android smartphones flooding the market at the moment, it's becoming increasingly difficult to pick between the various models.
For many, the difference between the brands is often marginal, save for models such as Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play (the “PlayStation Phone”), which specifically targets the hardcore gamer niche.
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The Nexus S doesn't target any niche in particular but is highly suited to tech-savvy users who want super-fast web browsing, a solid camera and a clean user-interface uncluttered by telco or vendor apps.
It is the second Google-branded phone, following on from the Nexus One that was launched in January last year to show off Google's Android platform but never made it in significant quantities to Australia.
Manufactured by Samsung, the Nexus S is similar to the highly regarded Galaxy S but, instead of a custom Samsung user interface (UI) overlay, offers a pure Android experience. I much prefer this but it comes down to personal preference.
It is the first Android phone to hit Australia that runs Android version 2.3 (Gingerbread), which offers an updated UI, significantly improved on-screen keyboard and better power and application management than the previous version (Froyo).
The Nexus S is also the first phone on the market to include a near-field communication (NFC) chip, meaning it will support upcoming applications that allow people to, for instance, swipe their phone in order to pay for goods in a shop.
It's a pretty useless feature for now as NFC is very much in the trial phase in Australia at the moment. Earlier this month, Visa launched a trial of NFC technology in partnership with 20,000 retail stores; participants can pay by swiping an iPhone hooked up to an accessory that adds NFC support.
With the Nexus S all of the NFC smarts are built into the phone itself but I ended up turning the feature off as it kept picking up the electronic tags on my work security pass and cards in my wallet.
The Nexus S has a gorgeous 4-inch Super AMOLED display that is great for viewing video and web pages but while it supports common file formats like MP3 audio and MP4 video, it won't play DivX or XviD files out-of-the-box, which is a disappointment.
That said, although many basic users won't be aware of this, I'm told the Rockplayer app – found on the Android Market - adds playback support for a range of media files including DivX, XviD and AVI.
Files can be stored on the 16GB of built-in space but there's no microSD slot for further expansion. This was annoying as it was more difficult to port over the content from my previous phone.
There is also no HDMI connectivity for connecting the phone up to a TV display.
As you'd expect from a Google-branded phone, the Nexus S offers the speediest web browsing experience I've seen on a smartphone. The browser supports Adobe Flash, but it is both a blessing and a curse as pages that are loaded with Flash ads are often choppy to navigate.
There are five available home screens for users to customise with their widgets and apps. The phone doesn't come pre-loaded with reams of widgets and wallpapers like some other HTC and Samsung Android phones I've used but all of these are easily accessible in the Android market.
The phone is light at 129g grams (the iPhone 4 is 137 grams) and fits really nicely in the hand. I'm a fan of the clean, rounded design and the look of the phone but the plastic bezel doesn't offer the premium metallic feel of other devices like the iPhone 4 and HTC Desire HD.
One of my biggest gripes with earlier Android phones is that they offer poor cameras, especially compared with the stellar camera on the iPhone 4.
But this is a non-issue with the Nexus S, which offers a front-facing camera for video chat and a 5-megapixel rear camera that produces almost as good still shots as the iPhone 4. Video recording is passable but not HD like on other devices.
The battery will easily get you through the day on a single charge and part of the way into the following day, depending on how heavy a user you are. I'm more than satisfied with this after being disappointed with the HTC Desire HD, which often struggled to make it through half a day with auto-sync turned on.
There's much to love about the raw speed and clean design of the Nexus S and, save for a few missing features like a microSD slot, it is one of the better Android phones on the market today for power users.
Technology titans are racing to deliver music and other digital files from online storehouses, with Amazon.com Inc. grabbing the inside track over rivals such as Apple Inc. and Google Inc.
The competition comes amid a shift in the way digital songs, videos and other media are being purchased and played. For years, the marketplace has been dominated by Apple's iTunes store and a business model based around downloaded files.
But the proliferation of mobile gadgets—and fears of losing access to family photos, music or other valuable files on broken or lost devices—is expected to drive consumer interest in remote storage lockers for digital files that can be accessed anywhere.
Amazon has already developed a significant sideline that rents computing resources and data-storage capacity to companies over the Internet—or in the cloud, in industry jargon.
Amazon is starting an online service that lets people store digital music. But this cloud service is in a gray area until Amazon negotiates licenses with music publishers. Plus: can it compete with iTunes? Peter Kafka discusses with Ethan Smith and Stu Woo.
With its launch Tuesday of a service called Amazon Cloud Drive, the company is angling to build a comparable beachhead in the battle over consumers. Both Google and Apple have been developing similar Web-based offerings.
Amazon's service lets people store up to five gigabytes of music, photos, videos and documents on server systems operated by the company. The basic storage is free; additional space can be purchased for a yearly fee.
The approach is designed to let consumers play music they have purchased or access other data files from multiple computers—such as at the home or office—as well as smartphones and tablets running Google's Android software. Amazon's service doesn't work with Apple's iPhone.
"Five years from now, people will think of online services like Cloud Drive as the primary place for safe keeping of critical information, as opposed to a backup, which is how they think about it today," said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. "It is a big deal for Amazon to get into this."
While Amazon has built a sizeable business in selling MP3 music downloads, its sales remain far behind those of Apple—whose hit iPods, iPhones and iPads can sync files directly with iTunes, unlike competing hardware.
Apple's MobileMe service already lets users store and sync their email, calendar and contacts in a central location for $99 a year.
Other Clouds
* Flickr: Yahoo's service for uploading and sharing photos. Cost: Free with upload limits
* Mozy: EMC service to store music, photos and emails. Cost: Starts at $5.99 a month
* Dropbox: Store and sync files. Cost: 2GB of free storage; $9.99 a month for 50GB
* Google Docs: Create, upload and share documents, spreadsheets. Cost: Free for up to 1GB in uploaded files
* MobileMe: Apple's service to sync email, calendars and contacts. Cost: $99 a year
* Windows Live SkyDrive: Microsoft service to upload and share files. Cost: Free for up to 25GB of storage
* Unifi: RealNetworks's service to catalog and stream media to multiple devices. Cost: TBD
—Source: WSJ reporting
The Silicon Valley company also is working on a revamp of the service that would also expand to multimedia files such as music and videos, people familiar with the matter have said.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
"Apple certainly needs to push its own locker service on the market," said Aapo Markkanen, an analyst at ABI Research.
"It's a big advantage to Amazon's music store if you compare that to iTunes. It could cause a lot of iTunes customers to swap to Amazon," he said.
Google, by contrast, has been a major backer of online software, including email and word-processing programs Gmail and Google Docs.
Last fall, the company launched Google eBooks, which lets users buy digital books and access them from Internet-connected devices.
The company is negotiating similar deals with music labels, and it has pitched to news publishers a project to sell content through mobile devices, people familiar with the matter have said.
Google didn't respond to requests for comment.
The philosophy underlying such efforts is not new. Some well-known music services have offered alternatives to buying song downloads, including Rhapsody International Inc.—which offers subscription downloads and streaming music—and the Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc.
Such services can be tough to create, though, because of concerns among record labels and music publishers about how copyrighted material is handled.
For example, Spotify AB, a European online-music streaming service, has repeatedly set target dates for a U.S. launch, only to miss dates after failing to secure music rights.
Among the issues for Amazon, industry executives and analysts say, is whether consumer should be allowed to store music they may have downloaded illegally in addition to adding new songs they purchase legally.
A number of other companies have set up online storage services of various kinds that have so far not had public disputes with copyright holders.
Examples include Amazon's Web services, EMC Corp.'s Mozy service, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live SkyDrive, Dropbox Inc. and a new service from RealNetworks Inc. called Unifi.
For its new consumer offering, Amazon argued Tuesday it doesn't need to negotiate new licenses from the music industry because its Cloud Drive is akin to a user storing files on an external hard drive.
The company hopes to profit from the new services by encouraging users to buy from its online-music store, which is integrated with the Cloud Player companion software that catalogs and plays songs.
It also offers paid storage plans for people who want more than five gigabytes of storage, which Amazon says holds up to 1,000 songs.
For example, it will charge $20 a year for 20 gigabytes of storage. One current offer: users get upgraded to 20 gigabytes of storage if they buy a music album off Amazon.
Users can save music files in the MP3 format that Amazon and others sell as well as the AAC format, which is the standard for Apple's iTunes service. New music purchased from Amazon and saved directly into the Cloud Drive wouldn't count against the storage limit.
While Amazon's service will work with Android smartphones or tablets, it doesn't work with Apple devices like the iPhone or iPad or Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.
The new storage service is part of a bigger mobile push by Amazon, which opened an online store to sell software applications for devices running Google's Android software, putting it in direct competition with Google's own existing app store and Apple's App Store for its devices.
Mr. Markkanen, the ABI Research analyst, said Amazon's model may appeal to audiophiles with large music libraries.
He said other users may prefer online-radio models, such as Pandora, or subscription music services that offer users access to a large library, such as Rhapsody or Spotify.
"They are simply more convenient and offer better value for money than models that are still based on purchasing songs and albums one by one, even if you store those purchases in the cloud," he said.
Thanks to a hiring binge within the tech industry, California is starting to see signs of an economic turnaround.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the state added 96,500 jobs in February, the state's biggest one-month job gain in more than 20 years. In the Silicon Valley, 4,500 jobs were added and California's unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percentage point to 12.2 percent. Furthermore, this is the eighth straight month of job gains in the San Francisco metropolitan area.
"We're in growth mode. There's no question," said economist Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, fierce competition for talented engineers, designers, computer scientists, data crunchers and other technical employees has led much of this growth.
"Every company in the technology industry is growing," said Josh Persky, who landed a new job at Causes, a San Francisco start-up, after getting laid off two years ago.
Indeed, Internet search giant Google said it plans to grow to more than 30,000 employees, increasing its workforce by 25 percent. Although Google does not disclose information on hiring, it has been said that this will be biggest round of hiring the company has done since 2007, when it brought on nearly 6,200 new workers.
This summer, Facebook will be moving to a 57-acre campus in Menlo Park, which can house 3,600 employees. Currently, the company has more 2,000 employees and has been growing at a rate of approximately 50 percent a year.
San Francisco-based Twitter has also been on a hiring binge. A year ago, the company had just 140 employees. Now with more than 400 employees, it plans to grow to 3,000 by July 2013.
According to The New York Times, with hiring so competitive in Silicon Valley, many companies are offering more than the typical free meals, shuttles and stock options that tech companies are known for. Furthermore, with so many ambitious engineers who would prefer to "do their own thing", many companies are taking it one step further by promising to help new recruits start their own business. Redfin, for instance, offers twice-monthly classes on entrepreneurship, a perk that the company says has helped recruit and retain top talent.
"It helps people stay but it also helps them to go," said Glenn Kelman, Redfin's chief executive.
At Square, not only does every employee have access to the company's product plan and financials in order to learn how to build a business, but co-founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey, also gives employees 20-minute lessons on helpful topics such as how to raise venture capital.
However, despite the positive outlook and increased perks, San Jose Mercury News pointed out that California still has a long way to go. With 2.2 million still unemployed and most job gains concentrated on the coast, the state is still struggling.
"It's still a tale of two economies," said Levy. "The needle is moving for people with jobs in companies in the valley, with increases in wages and some hiring. The needle is not moving for the long-term unemployed."
James Gosling, the storied Sun Microsystems software guru known as the father of Java, announced Monday that he's starting a new job at Internet search giant Google.
Gosling parted ways with another Silicon Valley giant last April, resigning from Oracle just a few months after the commercial software maker bought Sun for $7.2 billion. Known in the industry as something of a free spirit, he later criticized the culture at Oracle, complaining to an interviewer that executives had cut his salary and micromanaged his work.
Oracle is now at odds with Google, charging in a lawsuit last summer that Google's Android software infringes on patents for the widely used Java development platform, which Oracle acquired when it bought Sun. In an Aug. 12 blog post, Gosling wrote: "During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle."
Both Oracle and Google declined to comment Monday on the hiring of Gosling. On his blog Monday, Gosling said of his new job: "I don't know what I'll be working on. I expect it'll be a bit of everything, seasoned with a large dose of grumpy curmudgeon."
A common criticism of Google Docs when it first launched was that it was primitive. Its word processor was barely better than WordPad, for example, which has been free with Windows since the 1980s.
In some ways this was part of Google's plan. Competing with Microsoft Office was desirable but only after they'd pulled the rug from under Microsoft's feet with Docs' killer feature: collaborative editing and document sharing. No need for an expensive Sharepoint server to work on docs with colleagues--all you need is a browser.
However, none of that stopped Google gradually introducing Office-like features as time has gone on. Recently it's added two features to the spreadsheet tool that--for me, at least--make the app a complete package.
The first feature is filtering. Sophisticated users shouldn't get their hopes up, however; the filtering is essentially AutoFiltering, as found in Excel, although a little easier to use. But it's not possible to filter via "greater than" or "lesser than" values, for example, or to apply additional sub-filters.
Those to whom spreadsheets are an undiscovered country should know that filtering provides the ability to sort data within tables, and also pick out data by row headings. Setting up a filter is automatic; once the filter button on the toolbar is clicked within a table (it's at the far right of the toolbar), Docs will work out the range of data the filter should be applied to, although filters can also be applied solely to selected columns.
For example, say you have a table in a spreadsheet displaying sales staff alongside the figures they've achieved for various regions. Applying a filter would allow you to hive off one or more individuals to examine their figures in isolation, or to sort the regional figures by smallest to largest (or vice versa) at a single-click. Crucially, none of the changes are permanent, allowing for flexibility, and the filter can be removed at any time; just click the Filter button again.
The second new feature lets you select non-contiguous ranges of data for graphs. Previously, it was only possible to create a graph by clicking and dragging to select a single range of data, or by specifying a range of cells that neighbored each other. However, it's now possible to create a graph containing data only at the top and bottom of a range of data, for example, or even to graph data in two separate areas of a spreadsheet, provided they're similar enough (meaning they have the same headings).
To do so, select the initial data and click the graphing button on the toolbar. Then click the Select Ranges link and, in the dialog box that appears, click the Add Another Range link. Then click and drag to select the new range. Repeat until all the data required is selected.
Now you can filter content in Google Spreadsheets.Now you can filter content in Google Spreadsheets. Also new to all Google Docs apps is the capability to convert older documents so they can be edited using the "new" Google Docs introduced this time last year, which allows real-time collaborative editing. The conversion button will appear as an option whenever any old document is opened, and there's a chance to preview the document to ensure the formatting remains intact. Google warns that there are some issues with how tables are handled, so previewing is probably a good idea.
Google describes the new spreadsheet features as being among their most requested, and it's not unreasonable to wonder why such essential functions have taken so long to arrive. After all, Google Docs' spreadsheets have been with us for five years now.
However, as the introduction of the new collaborative editing system this time last year proves, Google simply has different priorities for its Docs suite. There's nothing to be gained by recreating Microsoft Office online. Most people already have Office on their business computers and, even if they don't, they can get a compatible analog in the form of LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Instead, Google is introducing the power of the cloud to the office suite concept.
If you haven't taken a look recently, now's a good time to see what Google Docs can do for your business.
The Mountain View, California, company is working on a partnership with credit industry giants MasterCard and Citigroup that would allow you to make real-world purchases at stores using your smartphone, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
If the partnership materializes, buying groceries may require little more than a wave of your smartphone across an installed card reader at the checkout counter.
The partnership would allow for cardholders to pay for retail items after activating an app on Android NFC-enabled smartphones. The phones could then be swiped liked credit cards across card readers enabled with near field communication, or NFC, at participating retailers.
As Wired’s Epicenter blog reported earlier Monday morning, Google will begin testing the mobile payments service in key markets — New York and San Francisco — within the next four months. Other test markets include Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C., according to a report from Bloomberg.
Google would pay for the installation of thousands of NFC terminals in the major cities. The terminals will be built by VeriFone Systems, a manufacturer of point-of-sale electronic payment technologies.
As with many other Google experiments, the push into mobile payments would serve as a loss-leader for the company’s advertising business, sources told the Journal.
Google would be able to offer retailers more data about customers and purchasing habits, while tailoring its ad targeting and promotional offerings to smartphone users. The company isn’t expected to take a cut of the transactions.
The mobile payments initiative faces some challenges. Currently, only one NFC-enabled smartphone is on the market — Google’s Nexus S (above). Samsung’s successor to its popular Galaxy S smartphone, the Galaxy S II, boasts NFC capability, but isn’t slated for release until the summer of 2011.
Also, it’s been difficult to imagine a major disruption of a massive industry like that of the credit industry that’s already established. One big reason: companies like Visa rely on trunks — shared lines that provide network access to a series of endpoints rather than providing them individually — and leased lines to provide retailers with reliable credit card terminal service.
One attractive option to companies like Google and other mobile-payment startups would be to cut out the credit card companies completely. Instead of using the card companies’ private networks, mobile payment could be made over a given smartphone carrier network.
But any attempt to circumvent the credit card companies’ private networks over 3G or 4G access runs into the problem of network reliability. A wealth of frustrated customers unable to pay for a meal because of spotty network service is less than ideal for any mobile-payment initiative.
That’s most likely the reason why Google is teaming up with the major credit card companies, instead of trying to bypass them. And Google isn’t alone in doing so. Joint mobile payment venture ISIS — which finds AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile partnering up with Discover Financial Services — is Google’s main competition in the mobile payments arena. ISIS is reported to begin testing its payments network this year, according to Bloomberg.
How long does it take Google to correct an egregious error in its mapping program once it's brought to the company's attention?
We don't know, but it's longer than 48 hours.
On Friday, The Sun notified the company that its Google Maps program was directing drivers heading from Baltimore to Gaithersburg and other destinations in the Interstate 270 corridor of Montgomery County to get off Interstate 95 and take the Intercounty Connector (Route 200).
The catch is that the 10-mile stretch of the ICC between I-95 and Georgia Avenue won't open until late this year or early in 2012. Only the segment between Georgia Avenue and the Interstate 370 spur off I-270 is open.
A Google spokeswoman said Friday that the company hopes to have the error fixed by early this week.
It would appear that steering people onto a road that's a construction site wasn't seen as serious enough mistake to pay technicians weekend rates to make an emergency fix. Is this just Google being frugal?
What do Google, disco, and Apple's iPhone have in common? They're three words one wouldn't normally expect to find combined together, that's for sure. They also now represent Google's latest mobile launch: a group-texting service that allows one to mass-message one's friends from a mobile phone or Web interface.
Disco, in this case, refers to the service created by Google's in-house startup Slide, which the company acquired for $182 million this past August. Slide has been allowed to operate as an independent entity within Google proper, which perhaps sheds a little more light on why the mass-texting service has made its debut as an iPhone app instead of a piece of software for Google's Android OS.
So here's how it works: When you sign up for the service via Disco.com (which Google purchased for a cool $255,000 last year), you create an account based on your mobile phone number. The service verifies that you're the owner of the number by shooting you a text message to your device and, if you're good to go, it invites you to set up your first group for mass-texting.
Google Disco
Each group can be named whatever you want, and adding friends is as easy as typing in their mobile digits. The caveat, however, is that these numbers are instantly notified that you've placed them in a mass-texting group along with whatever name you've assigned to it—probably something to keep in mind if you're looking to create a "those jerks I work with" group chat.
Once you have your group list set up, Disco's Web interface makes correspondence look like an instant message chat. Anything you type into the chat window will be sent out to anyone in your group, and anything they respond with will near-instantly pop up in the site's chat window. If you don't have access to Disco's Web site, you can also start up (or reply to) a group conversation by texting the phone number that Disco assigns to each group you create.
The associated iPhone app basically allows you to perform the same administrative activities that you'd otherwise find on Disco's Web site. However, you can also use a Facebook integration to pull in numbers from your friends on that service. Although Google and Facebook don't get along, the fact that Slide—Disco's creator—serves as its own app shop within Google seems to make the pairing OK between both parties.
Or, at least, perhaps until Facebook launches a group-texting service of its very own, which is rumored to be in the works thanks to the company's recent acquisition of group-texting startup Beluga. Is group texting shaping up to be the next big battleground between the Web's social (or search) superstars?
Google might soon release its own iTunes competitor.
According to a CNet report, the company is using Google Music internally, which means it's readying the service for public launch.
Rumors of a Google music service have been circulating for a long time. They were last mentioned at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month when Motorola Mobility chief Sanjay Jha suggested that the benefit of having its upcoming Xoom tablet run on Android Honeycomb is that "it adds video services and music services."
"If you look at Google Mobile services [via Android] today, there's a video service, there's a music service – that is, there will be a music service," Jha said.
Before that, the service was discussed during the 2010 Google I/O conference. At that point, Google said a user could stream music on an Internet-connected PC to an Android phone, and also purchase music in the Android App Store and send it to the phone or another devices. When asked if that meant Google was prepping a music sevice, Vic Gundotra, the vice president of engineering for Google, said "we just focus on delivering better apps for the user. Over time, you'll see that strategy more broadly unfold."
In September, Billboard reported that Google was chatting with major record labels about the service. According to the report, Google's vice president of engineering had pitched the service to the labels directly. CNet says these negotiations are ongoing, and that the company is seeking cloud music rights.
Those types of rights are new territory for the music industry, and Apple is said to be engaged in similar conversations with labels. In Google's case, it's looking for the rights to users' existing libraries.
At this point, the Honeycomb platform includes a Google music app, but the company failed to mention a music-specific service at its Honeycomb event. Reps from Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This last week has been full of controversy — from the launch of Color, the photo-swapping app that raised $41 million pre-launch, to reports that Google is not planning to open-source the tablet version of Android any time soon. And, as you’d expect, MG and I have some differing opinions about what that means for Android’s status as “Open”. This week also brings the launch Amazon’s Appstore, which will face off with Google’s official Android Market.
Here are some posts relevant to this episode’s discussion:
* Color Looks To Reinvent Social Interaction With Its Mobile Photo App (And $41 Million In Funding)
* The Color Of Money
* “Open”
* Amazon’s Android App Store Launches: Test Drive Apps Directly From Your Browser
M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) BUYINS.NET / www.squeezetrigger.com is monitoring the performance of all stocks with earnings being released in the coming weeks and determining how the stocks have performed Before their last 12 quarterly, 6 quarterly and 6 Consecutive Days earnings reports. ULTIMATE SOFTWARE GROUP INC (NASDAQ:ULTI), BE AEROSPACE INC (NASDAQ:BEAV), WR BERKLEY CORP (NYSE:WRB), DOVER CORP (NYSE:DOV), L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS (NYSE:LLL), MKS INSTRUMENTS INC (NASDAQ:MKSI) are all expected to be Up Before their earnings are released Tuesday. The movement of stock prices in the days and weeks leading to and following these earnings announcements may follow a predictable pattern. Most companies stock price histories show random or unpredictable movements around earnings dates. But some seem to repeat the same pattern quarter after quarter, year after year. The # of Reports in the table below shows how many previous quarterly reports comprise the indicator that predicts how a stock will act after its earnings are released. The specific technology used to make these predictions is available for a low monthly fee at http://www.squeezetrigger.com/services/strat/mh.php . The following stocks are expected to go Up Before earnings are released Tuesday: Symbol Company # of Reports Quarter Release Date ULTI ULTIMATE SOFTWARE GROUP INC 6 Quarter Q1 04/26/2011 BEAV BE AEROSPACE INC 6 Quarter Q1 04/26/2011 WRB WR BERKLEY CORP 6 Quarter Q1 04/25/2011 DOV DOVER CORP 6 Quarter Q1 04/21/2011 LLL L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS April Earnings Q1 04/21/2011 MKSI MKS INSTRUMENTS INC April Earnings Q1 04/20/2011 This technology is designed to help the stock trader identify those companies that seem to have a consistent pattern of movement before or after the earnings release date, based on the history of earnings releases for that company. It combines a calendar of expected earnings releases with a history of past earnings releases in a way that lets you see if a pattern exists.
ULTIMATE SOFTWARE GROUP INC (NASDAQ:ULTI) - The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. designs, markets, implements, and supports unified human capital management (HCM) software-as-service (SaaS) solutions to businesses, providing a single source for comprehensive human resources, payroll, and talent management technology. It offers UltiPro, a HCM solution that is delivered through cloud-based SaaS with the functionality businesses need to manage the employment life cycle from recruitment to retirement. The companys solution includes feature sets for talent acquisition and onboarding; HR management and compliance; benefits management and online enrollment; payroll; performance management; learning management; salary planning and budgeting for compensation management; reporting and business intelligence; time and attendance; and role-based Web access for executives, managers, administrators, and employees. It provides UltiPro as solution suites, including UltiPro Enterprise for large companies and UltiPro Workplace for companies in the mid-market. The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. offers its products and services for various industries, including manufacturing, food services, sports, technology, finance, insurance, retail, real estate, transportation, communications, healthcare, and other services. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Weston, Florida.
BE AEROSPACE INC (NASDAQ:BEAV) - BE Aerospace, Inc. engages in the design, manufacture, sale, and service of commercial aircraft and business jet cabin interior products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Consumables Management, Commercial Aircraft, and Business Jet. The Consumables Management segment provides inventory management and replenishment, electronic data interchange, special packaging and bar-coding, parts kitting, quality assurance testing, and purchasing assistance services. This segment also distributes aerospace fasteners and consumables. The Commercial Aircraft segment manufactures seat frames, cushions, armrests, and tray table, as well as various optional features, such as adjustable lumbar supports, footrests, reading lights, head/neck supports, and other comfort amenities; oxygen storage and delivery systems for commercial and business jet aircraft; aircraft coffee and beverage makers, and coffee warmers and water boilers; a line of ovens, including convection ovens, steam ovens, and warming ovens; commercial aircraft refrigeration equipment; crew rest compartments; and vacuum waste water systems. This segment also offers engineering, design, integration, installation, and certification services for commercial aircraft passenger cabin interiors; and in-house capabilities to design, manage, integrate, test, and certify reconfigurations and modifications for commercial aircraft and to manufacture related products, including engineering kits and interface components. The Business Jet segment manufactures a line of furnishings for business jets, including seating and sofa products comprising electric fully berthing lie flat seats, direct and indirect lighting, air valves, and oxygen delivery systems, as well as sidewalls, bulkheads, credenzas, closets, galley structures, lavatories, and tables; and super first class cabin interior products for commercial wide-body aircraft. The company was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Wellington, Florida.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the ITEXPO East, February 2-4, 2011 Miami Beach Convention Center, FL.
WR BERKLEY CORP (NYSE:WRB) - W.R. Berkley Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates in the property casualty insurance business in the United States and internationally. The company operates in five segments: Specialty, Regional, Alternative Markets, Reinsurance, and International. The Specialty segment underwrites third-party liability risks, primarily excess and surplus lines, including premises operations, professional liability, commercial automobile, products liability, and property lines. The Regional segment provides commercial insurance products to small-to-mid-sized businesses, and state and local governmental entities in the United States. It sells its products through a network of non-exclusive independent agents. The Alternative Markets segment engages in developing, insuring, reinsuring, and administering self-insurance programs and other alternative risk transfer mechanisms to employers, employer groups, insurers, and other groups or entities seeking alternative ways to manage their exposure to risks. This segment also provides administrative and consulting services. The Reinsurance segment underwrites property casualty reinsurance on a treaty and facultative basis. It underwrites specialty lines of business, including professional liability, umbrella, workers compensation, commercial automobile, and trucking. The International segment offers personal and commercial property casualty insurance in South America; commercial insurance in the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, and Canada; and reinsurance in Australia and the Southeast Asia. The company was founded in 1967 and is based in Greenwich, Connecticut.
DOVER CORP (NYSE:DOV) - Dover Corporation and its subsidiaries manufacture industrial products and components, as well as provide related services and consumables in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Industrial Products, Engineered Systems, Fluid Management, and Electronic Technologies. The Industrial Products segment develops and manufactures material handling equipment, such as industrial and recreational winches; utility, construction, and demolition machinery attachments; hydraulic parts; industrial automation tools; four-wheel-drive and all-wheel drive powertrain systems; and other accessories for off-road vehicles. It also offers mobile equipment related products, including refuse truck bodies, tank trailers, compactors, balers, vehicle service lifts, car wash systems, internal engine components, fluid control assemblies, and various aerospace components. The Engineered Systems segment provides products and services for the refrigeration, storage, packaging, and preparation of food products, as well as industrial marking and coding systems for various markets. The Fluid Management segment manufactures polycrystalline diamond cutters used in drill bits for oil and gas wells; steel sucker rods, plunger lifts, and accessories used in artificial lift applications in oil and gas production; pressure, temperature, and flow monitoring equipment used in oil and gas exploration and production applications; and control valves and instrumentation for oil and gas production. This segment also manufactures pumps, compressors, and vehicle fuel dispensing products; and products for the transfer, monitoring, measuring, and protection of hazardous, liquid, and dry bulk commodities. The Electronic Technologies segment designs and manufactures electronic test, material deposition and manual soldering equipment, micro-acoustic components, and specialty electronic components. The company was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois.
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS (NYSE:LLL) - L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. provides command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C3ISR) systems; aircraft modernization and maintenance; and government services in the United States and internationally. Its C3ISR segment offers fleet management sustainment and support, such as procurement, systems integration, sensor development, modifications, and periodic depot maintenance for signals intelligence and ISR special mission aircraft, and airborne surveillance systems; strategic and tactical signals intelligence systems; secure data links; secure terminal and communication network equipment and encryption management; and communication systems. The companys Government Services segment provides communication software support, information technology services, and various engineering development services and integration support; engineering and information systems support services; teaching and training; human intelligence support services; aviation and maritime services; and technical and management services. L-3 Communications Aircraft Modernization and Maintenance segment offers modernization, upgrades and sustainment, maintenance, and logistics support services for military and various government aircraft and other platforms. Its Electronic Systems segment provides power and control systems, electro-optic/infrared products, microwave components, avionics and displays, simulation and training, precision engagement, security and detection, propulsion systems, telemetry and advanced technology, undersea warfare, and marine services. The company serves the U.S. Department of Defense and its prime contractors, the U.S. Government intelligence agencies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Justice, allied foreign governments, and other U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies. L-3 Communications was founded in 1997 and is based in New York, New York.
MKS INSTRUMENTS INC (NASDAQ:MKSI) - MKS Instruments, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides instruments, subsystems, and process control solutions that measure, control, power, monitor, and analyze parameters of manufacturing processes worldwide. It offers various instruments and control systems, including pressure measurement and control, materials delivery, gas composition analysis, electrostatic charge management, and control and information technology products. The company also provides power and reactive gas products, such as power delivery, reactive gas generation, processing thin films, and equipment cleaning products. In addition, it offers vacuum technology products comprising vacuum containment components, vacuum gauges, vacuum valves, effluent management subsystems and custom stainless steel chambers, vessels, and biopharmaceutical process equipment hardware and housings. Further, MKS Instruments provide maintenance and repair services, software maintenance, and installation services and training. The companys products are used in semiconductor processing steps, such as depositing thin films of material onto silicon wafer substrates, and etching and cleaning circuit patterns; manufacture of flat panel displays, data storage media, solar cells, and other coatings, including architectural glass; energy generation and environmental monitoring processes, such as nuclear fuel processing, fuel cell research, greenhouse gas monitoring, and chemical agent detection; medical instrument sterilization; consumable medical supply manufacturing; and biopharm applications. It serves semiconductor capital equipment and semiconductor devices, thin film capital equipment, industrial, medical, energy generation, environmental monitoring, and manufacturing companies, as well as university, government, and industrial research laboratories. The company was founded in 1961 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.
SqueezeTrigger.com has built a massive database that collects, analyzes and publishes multiple proprietary trading strategies that predict price moves in stocks, commodities and currencies. The data has then been integrated into an automated trading platform which can be used to connect to a live online broker and automate your trading of each of the strategies highlighted. It is extremely powerful with lightening fast execution at a very low price. Both the trading software and SqueezeTrigger data feed are available at http://www.squeezetrigger.com www.squeezetrigger.com monitors trading in all US stocks in real time and maintains massive databases of short sale and naked short sale time and sales data, short squeeze SqueezeTrigger prices, market maker price movements, shareholder data, statistical data on earnings, sector correlation, seasonality, hedge fund trading strategies, comparable valuations. Reports include: REGULATORY & COMPLIANCE NEWS Friction Factor -- market maker surveillance system tracking Level II market makers in all stocks to determine Price Friction and compliance with new "Fair Market Making Requirements".
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About SQUEEZETRIGGER.COM WWW.SQUEEZETRIGGER.COM is a service designed to help bonafide shareholders of publicly traded US companies fight short selling. SqueezeTrigger.com has built a proprietary database that uses Threshold list feeds and short sale time and sale data from NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE to generate detailed and useful information to combat the short selling problem. For the first time, actual trade by trade data is available to the public that shows the attempted size, actual size, price and average value of short sales in stocks that have been shorted. This information is valuable in determining the precise point at which short sellers go out-of-the-money and start losing on their short trades.
SQUEEZETRIGGER.COM has built a massive database that collects, analyzes and publishes a proprietary SqueezeTrigger for each stock that has been shorted. The SqueezeTrigger database of nearly 2.5 billion short sale transactions goes back to January 1, 2005 and calculates the exact price at which the Total Short Interest is short in each stock. This data was never before available prior to January 1, 2005 because the Self Regulatory Organizations (primary exchanges) guarded it aggressively. After the SEC passed Regulation SHO, exchanges were forced to allow data processors like SqueezeTrigger.com to access the data.
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Customers for Lockheed-Martin’s stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—among them Canada, Israel, Britain and Australia—are shifting their mood from anxiety to paranoia over increasingly unpredictable costs.
Foreign analysts now expect JSF prices to significantly exceed even the latest Pentagon estimate, putting government officials in fiscal and political jeopardy as they try to craft a rational purchase plan for the fifth-generation warplane.
Adding new concern was congressional testimony by Lt. Gen. Mark Shackleford, military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitons, who says that ”we currently expect up to a two-year delay” in fielding the first operational unit, which shifts the date to 2018. The delay is being triggered by the most recent program restructuring.
A new report by Canada’s Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that total program costs for the country’s 65 aircraft will be U.S. $29 billion which means a total program (through-life) unit price tag of about $450 million per aircraft in Fiscal 2009 dollars.
For Israel, a long, list of unique requirements from the Israeli air force (IAF) has almost disappeared for the first 19 JSFs. Options for installing Israeli weaponry produced a staggering price tag, while plans to fit the F-35 with Israeli electronic warfare systems were rejected for both technological and political reasons.
Britain is concerned about the cost of F-35 upgrades because of problems during earlier collaborations with the U.S. In its Lockheed Martin C-130J program the U.K. was forced to closely integrate upgrade plans with the U.S., rather than allowing indigenous modifications at a lower price as it did in the earlier C-130K buy. British army officers told Aviation Week that the computerized air-drop system was flawed, making cargo recovery in Afghanistan more difficult and dangerous. With the F-35, the situation is expected to be even more extreme, says a British government official.
Australia has also been the victim of U.S. miscalculations in an earlier cutting-edge project. Its Boeing/Northrop Grumman Wedgetail surveillance aircraft is more than four years behind schedule as Canberra considers the F-35. The airborne early warning and control aircraft’s software cost and schedule problems mirror those of the F-35.
Canada’s report—“An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter”—came out March 10. The report predicts that average unit production cost for its F-35s will be $148 million with an additional $15 million for the engine, which brings the total to $163 million per aircraft. Cost estimates given to Congress last week say the fourth low-rate initial production batch, with engines, will cost $127 million per aircraft for the F-35A, $141 million for the F-35B and $158 million for the F-35C.
Lockheed Martin is reviewing details of Canada’s F-35 cost estimates. Company officials contend their estimates are based on proprietary F-35 program data and predict that each Canadian aircraft will cost $70 to 75 million when deliveries begin in 2016.
“It is not immediately obvious, given the available evidence, how the cost can be reduced to estimates predicted by Lockheed Martin over 10 years ago,” the Canadian report says. “Overall, F-35 development is now five years behind the schedule set at the outset of the program, and total [development] overruns are projected to exceed $21 billion, or 60% above the original goal.Unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to see prices reducing to their original estimated level,” it concludes.
“It’s hard to do those sorts of calculations with confidence, so there’s a degree of uncertainty—which I think the report notes appropriately,” says Andrew Davies, program director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a member of the independent peer-review panel for the Canadian report. “But I think the estimates here are about as good as educated outsiders can get them using public source data.”
The Canadian study also lists a number of additional opportunities for cost escalation that could inflate Ottawa’s F-35 bill. Research, development, test and evaluation costs grew 40% between 2001 and 2009 while production cost increased 54%. Elimination of the F-35B that could drive up unit cost for Canada due to a smaller total buy, as could reductions in sales to the U.S. and other militaries. The integration of nation-specific weapons not cleared by Lockheed Martin and the Defense Department may lead to additional costs for Canada. The unique cost of operating and supporting a fifth-generation strike fighter is still a significant, unknown quantity. Changed circumstances at the time of mid-life upgrades and overhauls would make F-35s more expensive and dependent on availability of Lockheed Martin’s workforce and facilities.
Canada’s analysis goes on to contend that elimination of the alternative engine program would leave it with no competitive leverage to lower engine costs. Some U.S. lawmakers agree.
“For those who might ask the question regarding F-35 program cost, at what point does this program become unaffordable, I would respond that if you believe our nation needs a fifth-generation stealth fighter, you have no choice,” says Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R.-Md.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactial air and land forces. “Having no choice but to continue to pay for F-35 development and procurement cost increases is exactly why many of us do not believe it is wise to create the same monopoly situation [for the engine] by giving a decades-long, $110 billion, sole-source contract [to Pratt & Whitney].”
Short-term savings from abandoning the F136 engine will total $2-3 billion, Bartlett contends, while the manufacturer, General Electric, says these will be $1 billion. But savings from re-competing engine buys over 40 years would save more, Bartlett says.
U.S. analysts offer their own cautionary notes. “The program continues to lag [budget and schedule] predictions,” says Michael Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing for the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “It is not out of the woods yet.”
Software is another area of imperfect cost estimates. The early software development packages are projected to be two years late for each block, the result of underestimating the time and resources required, and the need for new code continues to grow. As software is rebuilt and added, “costs have grown by 40 percent,” Sullivan says.
Others point to earlier disappointments with buying into advanced U.S. technology. A senior Royal Australian Air Force officer with insight into the Boeing/Northrop Grumman Wedgetail aircraft, summed up the dilemma of foreign purchasers: “It’s great kit and just what we needed, but it would have been so helpful and caused us so much less pain [with the government] if we had been told up front how big that radar was going to be [3.5 tons], how long it actually was going to take [five years over schedule] and how much it was actually going to cost [more than $4 billion].”
Israel’s defense establishment is divided on the question of whether to go ahead with procurement of F-35s, despite expected delays, or to postpone the program until costs and schedules are clear. Jerusalem is expected to be the first international customer for the F-35A with deliveries to begin in 2015. But recent discussions with the F-35 program and Lockheed Martin officials made it clear that there will be delays in delivery, with Israeli estimates varying from two months to two years.
The IAF’s first squadron of F-35s will be almost identical to the international JSF, except for an indigenous C4I (command, control, computers, communications and intelligence) system. “The first aircraft will have the bare necessities required to go into combat,” a senior IAF official told Aviation Week. “We will gradually expand their capabilities.”
This is a sharp turn from the IAF’s initial vision of an F-35I, equipped with Rafael’s Python 5 and Spice missiles. “When we received the first F-16Is, they were almost bare as well,” says the official. Those limitations have not cooled the IAF’s enthusiasm for the new aircraft. The deployment of Russian-made SA-17 (Grizzly) and SA-22 (Greyhound) short-range air defense missiles by Syria is considered a genuine challenge for the IAF.
The cost to Israel will be $145 million each for 19 A-model aircraft. But there is talk of using near-term F-35 funding for other projects. “Despite the F-35’s advantages, it will not be the panacea for Israel’s problems and most of its tasks can be performed with similar effectiveness through existing planes with one upgrade or another,” claims a February report by the Institute for National Security Studies.
However, the IAF traditionally has the upper hand over other services and with the current volatility in the Middle East it is expected to request an increase in the number of its fighting platforms. But other services, as well as the defense ministry of defense, are less eager, saying that delaying the payments for F-35s in a year or two could provide the missing funds for missile defense programs and the new armored fighting vehicle for the army.
Lockheed Martin has warned that postponing the acquisition could result in greater delays and jeopardize a controversial offset package for Israeli industry. The defense ministry, Lockheed Martin and Israeli industries are denying news reports of a Lockheed Martin pledge for $4 billion in offsets, but Israeli and U.S. officials have confirmed the amount with Aviation Week.
The Canadian JSF audit also drew Britain’s attention. U.K. officials say its cost assumptions seem credible. As with Canada, they note that it has been difficult to properly assess underlying program costs. JSF concerns come as the British government is trying to adopt more realistic budget planning, with Defense Secretary Liam Fox vowing that only fully funded programs will proceed.
Looks like all these folks are "up a creek without a paddle".
