Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) : The decision to reconsider a sales ban gives Samsung time to breathe


The market for smartphones is undoubtedly one the most profitable ones, but it is also one of the most competent ones, with technology improving everyday, and the constant insecurity of technology being plagiarized by other smartphone makers. This is what has lead to the two biggest companies fighting tooth and nail, both within legal parameters, as well as through the slightly less respectable mud-slinging through advertisements. Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung have patent lawsuits against one another in over ten countries, and they are always slapping patent cases on one another, being as they are, the two biggest companies for smartphones.

The recent trial in the U.S, which had gone on for a month, had ended in favor of Apple, with the company successfully getting the court to impose a sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet 10.1. However, a U.S Appeal Court ruled in favour of the South Korean company on Friday, saying that the sales ban should be reconsidered, and that the company should be given time to prove itself in court. This ruling definitely gave Samsung breathing space, because of the upcoming holiday season. The sales ban on the tablet right before the holidays would have hit the company hard. Although Apple had won the patent violation claims against Samsung, the jury has been reconsidering their decision, and they are leaning more towards the idea that Samsung did not, indeed, violate patent basis for the tablet injunction.

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Lucy Koh, who had been the judge presiding over the case said that she could not lift the ban because Samsung had already had its change to appeal to the court. a U.S District Court Judge. She had decreed that the ban would have to remain, despite the doubts of the jury, and the pleas of Samsung. However, the Federal U.S Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Washington, advised Koh to reconsider her ruling on the sales ban.

This decision has surely been a sign for the positive for the South Korean company.  Their sales would have been seriously hampered, if the sales ban would not even have been reconsidered. The company is a month away from unveiling their new Note, which is equipped with a stylus. It is said that this is their most popular device so far. 
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s latest Move May push users towards Android


By removing Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps from it new operating system, Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) may have given Android, albeit unwittingly, more ammunition than it may have realised.

First off, is the undue publicity that Google Maps has received. of course everyone knew how useful and reliable Google Maps was.

But by substituting it with an inferior product of its own, Apple has made people realise that they could not possibly live without Google Maps.

Once taken for granted, it has made users sit, take notice and re-discover all the features of Google Maps. Google could not have achieved more in terms of attracting people's attention if it had wanted to.

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The slew of articles and analysis about Google Maps has also made even loyal fans of Apple start to wonder whether Android users could just possibly be having more functionalities on their phones than what is available on Apple's iOS.

The fact that Google has not made any undue noise about its absence in Apple's new operating system also has worked in its favour.

With Google Chairman Eric Schmidt openly declaring that his company and Apple were good partners, he has managed to garner a lot of sympathy also and cast Apple in the role of a villain who has dropped a loyal ally.

Then again removing the YouTube app also makes it seem as if Apple is deliberating distancing itself from Google.

YouTube is a favourite with users of all ages and demographics and messing around with it could give a serious negative bias towards Apple.

Users do not understand rivalries or patent disputes - all they want are their favourite applications that they are familiar with and which they use to connect with their friends and family.

Apple could just end up pushing some of its more loyal customers towards Android in its bid to pursue its own agenda against Google
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB): F-Commerce Now Set To Fight With E-Commerce? [Analysis]


With Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) slowly inching towards the magic figure of a billion in terms of users, the gift feature can turn out to be a major money-maker as it will be a powerful platform using both social media and online shopping. Analysts have come up with a brand new term, exclusively for the social network, called F-commerce.

Users don’t have to be satisfied with virtual gifts any more because now they can receive real gifts like stuffed animals, Starbucks gift cards, and cupcakes from their friends on special occasions. This is yet another attempt on Facebook’s part to improve their cash flow and give a boost to their stock price. The promo on Facebook’s official Gift Page looks promising and the best part is that gifts can be sent to friends even if their addresses are unknown.

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 The service will begin in the US and this is how it works – users click on the friend’s name that will come up in the birthdays news feed. A list of the hundreds of gift items available will appear on the screen from where they can select the gift. A card will also be attached along with it. A prompt for gifts will be displayed on the users’ Timeline on their birthdays as well.

The virtual equation still remains as the user gets a chance to virtually “unwrap” to sneak a preview of the gift and decide to keep it or politely refuse. Payment is flexible and can be done immediately or after the gift has been delivered. The choice of the delivery location depends on the user’s friend. Privacy issues have been addressed by leaving the choice of sharing this activity with other friends, to the user.

Rebecca Lieb of the Altimeter Group states that both F-commerce and mobile commerce will get a powerful surge if this new venture is successful. But a minor hiccup has to be dealt with – there are concerns about Facebook getting personal details of the recipient like an address and contact details and thus targeting them to increase the number of users on the social network.

Shares of FB soared 6.60% to $21.66 on Friday, but still down 5.25% for the week.
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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG): YouTube censored by the laws in Brazil!


Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) and the government of Brazil had an uncomfortable situation, when the Brazilian court demanded that the company take down a video from YouTube which showed a mayoral candidate from Brazil. When Google failed to comply initially, the Brazilian court ordered for arrest of the president of the Google operations in Brazil. Although Google finally complied and took down the “offensive” video, the company is still unhappy about the breach of free expression and free speech which was not allowed. 

The video which caused the tension and the controversy featured Alcides Bernal, a mayoral candidate for Campo Grande, a city in Brazil. According to the court, the video had to taken off YouTube because of the breach of the electoral code from 1965, which stated that campaigns which insulted the dignity or the decorum of a candidate would not be allowed. Although this did not quite qualify as a campaign, Google was stiff a little unnerved by the request from the Brazilian court.

On Tuesday, Flavio Peren, regional electoral court judge, ruled that as a result of the video offending the laws and the rules, it had to be removed, because it was contrary to the electoral policies held by the government in Brazil. When this request was not fulfilled by Google, Peren ordered for the arrest of the president of Brazil operations of Google, Fabio Coelho.

Although the police brought Fabio in for questioning, he was released soon after that, and the video was taken down and the account which had put up the video was deactivated by Google. The person who had put up the video had explained that the video was an ironical one, but the Brazil law-enforcers were not going to take a chance with it. The police, it is rumored, had been inquisitive about Google’s hesitance to take the video down, while questioning Coelho.

Brazil and the United States of America are the two countries which have demanded for such censorship, the most. The two countries, it is said, have made the maximum number of requests to Google to bring down certain kinds of content for various intents and purposes.  
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB): Are You Ready To Celebrate Your Friend’s Birthday On Facebook?


Want to send your friend real gifts on their birthday, instead of virtual gifts via Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)? It is simply inexcusable to just wish friends on their birthday and gift them a virtual present, when you can send a real one from a list comprising hundreds of them!

Facebook has launched Facebook Gifts, using which you can send real gifts through Interwebs. The news feed will flash birthday reminders and users can click on the link from the feed, use the service from a friend's Timeline via the "Give him/her a gift" link or click on the gift icon. Prompts for the gift can be sent to the recipient via a private message or on the friend’s Timeline.

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Payment options are flexible – you can pay in advance or after the delivery. An “unwrap” feature has been included that provides the friend with a preview of the gift that will be delivered to them a few days later. The location for delivery depends upon the recipient and they can also choose their favorite color size, or flavor. If your friend is not satisfied with the gift, Facebook offers suitable replacements of the same value.

The Gifts feature will be introduced in the US and slowly rolled out to other countries. Gift items on the list include gift cards from Starbucks, soft toys from Gund, and cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. Earlier, Facebook had ventured into the territory of virtual gifts on the Walls of friends, but it was stopped in August 2010, so that the social network could come up with something better. A Bday Gift Finder app is also available that lists gift suggestions for friends based on their preferences after analyzing a recipient’s “likes” and other information.

Shares of FB soared 6.60% to $21.66 on Friday, but still down 5.25% for the week.

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Tim Cook Admits about the Bugs in Mapping Tool


Criticism of Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)’s brand new mapping tool has been all over the place in spite of the iPhone 5 being a huge success. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook has admitted that they have indeed released a product that does not match up to standards, but a lot of effort is being put in to sort out the glitches and improve its functionality.

When Apple launched its iOS 6 update along with the iPhone 5 on September 21, it dumped Google Maps in favor of their in-house mapping tool. But users are not satisfied and have complained that surpassing Google Maps is a pipe dream, considering that the tool does not even come close in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

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The iPhone 5 was the first big launch under Tim Cook’s tutelage after co-founder Steve Jobs passed away last year. Since users are desperate for a quick replacement for Apple Maps, Cook has suggested numerous third-party mapping apps like Bing, MapQuest and Waze from App Store or the web versions of Google or Nokia maps, till they work out all the problems of their own mapping tool. However, some Apple loyalists have stuck to the Apple mapping app and Cook has insisted that the more searches are done, the better the app will become.

Steve Jobs was a perfectionist but he too made slip-ups. Buyers, who had bought the first iPhone at the original price, took offense when the price of the smartphone was slashed. Users were not too satisfied with iPhone 4 antenna as well. In spite of those mishaps, Jeff Macke feels that Jobs would never release a product that did not match the standards of Apple, especially when a strong mapping tool from Google was already incorporated into devices. Macke feels that Apple should not have rushed into developing their own mapping app, which has only got them criticism and humiliation.

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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is still very popular in China, despite the official ban


If you want proof of exactly how important Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) has become in the lives of people all over the world, and exactly how dependant people are on the social networking site, then all one needs to do is to look at China. Despite an official ban on the site, Facebook still has growing numbers of users in the country. The number of users of Facebook has reached a staggering 63.5 million, which shows growth by about seven million since the previous year.

GlobalWebIndex is a research firm based in London, and they revealed a survey on Thursday, which clearly showed how popular the site was, amongst the Chinese population. Facebook does not list China as one of the countries it provides its service to. In fact, this is categorically stated in the IPO proscepctus by Facebook. But despite the official claim, China seems to be getting more and more Facebook users by the day.

Will FB Rebound After The Recent Slump? Find Out Here

The surveys which lead to these figures were started during 2009, and they went on in seven ‘waves’. These surveys made were divided on the basis of age, occupation, education qualification, gender and other such divisions, in order to be able to represent the population as well as possible.

The internet laws in China are quite stringent, and a lot of things are not allowed to be showed to the Chinese population. But despite the site being blocked by local internet network providers, the people can still visit the site through Virtual Private Networks as well as Virtual Cloud Networks.

However, these figures have not been taken as facts, and many other organizations have questioned the originality, and the truth of these figures. Other organizations pointed out that the real figure, in this case, is about 80,000, which is barely representative of any division, considering China’s overwhelmingly large population. They also said that people would not really risk VPNs and bother to install them in their houses just so that they could access Facebook on a regular basis.

The nationwide Firewall, which China seems to be adamant on keeping at all times, seems to be too great a risk for most people to breach. 
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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Schmidt makes his disapproval of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)


Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman to Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), expressed his frustration, and blatant annoyance at the patent wars which mobile companies seem so eager to slap on one another at the drop of a hat. However, in stead of keeping it completely generic, he made it clear that he was slightly taken aback by Apple’s relentless attacks upon phone companies which used the Android Operating Services.

According to Schmidt, who was speaking at a news conference in Korea, patent lawsuits are useless, since the real grounds of fights between the phone-companies should always be the market where they can fight as fairly as possible. According to him, the patent wars hindered innovation as well as inventiveness and ultimately they did not achieve any real goals, apart from bringing one another down. It is a waste of resources as well as energy, which could be put to better use by the companies.

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Schmidt said that Google was against the idea of patent wars. He went on the elaborate that there were so many kinds of patent lawsuits that companies, through these patents, were able to shut down the distribution of the others’ products. The patents were especially existent in the mobile phone company world, were about twenty thousand odd patents could be twisted and tangled, to be held up against one another.

When referring to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), he said that there were many more prior arts in the market, and that he did not want to talk about this any further, but that he disapproved of Apple’s constant patent lawsuits. The lawsuits, however, may not just be directed at the mobile companies, but also at Google. This is what some sources are suggesting. While Google has been maintaining a very diplomatic stance, by saying that Apple is a good partner to have, and to work with, Apple is making it quite clear that they do not want their Google based apps anymore.

Google however, says that the ecosystem is developing, and that they are not taking stands, but are trying to help with this development, in any way they can. 
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB): F-Commerce to Soar with “Real Gifts” Service [Analysis]


With Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) slowly inching towards the magic figure of a billion in terms of users, the gift feature can turn out to be a major money-maker as it will be a powerful platform using both social media and online shopping. Analysts have come up with a brand new term, exclusively for the social network, called F-commerce.

Users don’t have to be satisfied with virtual gifts any more because now they can receive real gifts like stuffed animals, Starbucks gift cards, and cupcakes from their friends on special occasions. This is yet another attempt on Facebook’s part to improve their cash flow and give a boost to their stock price. The promo on Facebook’s official Gift Page looks promising and the best part is that gifts can be sent to friends even if their addresses are unknown.

Will FB Rebound After The Recent Slump? Find Out Here

 The service will begin in the US and this is how it works – users click on the friend’s name that will come up in the birthdays news feed. A list of the hundreds of gift items available will appear on the screen from where they can select the gift. A card will also be attached along with it. A prompt for gifts will be displayed on the users’ Timeline on their birthdays as well.

The virtual equation still remains as the user gets a chance to virtually “unwrap” to sneak a preview of the gift and decide to keep it or politely refuse. Payment is flexible and can be done immediately or after the gift has been delivered. The choice of the delivery location depends on the user’s friend. Privacy issues have been addressed by leaving the choice of sharing this activity with other friends, to the user.

Rebecca Lieb of the Altimeter Group states that both F-commerce and mobile commerce will get a powerful surge if this new venture is successful. But a minor hiccup has to be dealt with – there are concerns about Facebook getting personal details of the recipient like an address and contact details and thus targeting them to increase the number of users on the social network.

Shares of FB soared 6.60% to $21.66 on Friday, but still down 5.25% for the week.
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Shares Outperformed On New Revenue Stream Innovation


It is said that it’s the gesture that counts. But virtual chocolates can only take you so far. Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) has come up with a new service, which will let people send each other real gifts, without having to actually walk out of their homes, or without even logging off Facebook. The new service, is to be called, (surprise, surprise) Gifts. This service will allow people to send each other toys, chocolates, coffee packages, and other such things, through Facebook itself.

The service was launched on Thursday, although it was available only to a handful of users in the U.S, the service will slowly become available to many more. A few months, and it will trickle down to be applicable to all the people who have profiles over Facebook.

And the process is so simple, it makes one doubt why. One simply has to click on the icon which says ‘Gifts’, and the process will be underway. The facility is available over the website as well as on android phones, although the social-networking site is working towards introducing this facility to iPhones as well as iPads.

Will FB Rebound After The Recent Slump? Find Out Here

This icon will be situated on the right side of the homepage of a user’s profile, along with the notifications which tell people about the upcoming birthdays, events anniversaries, and other important social occasions. After the gift is chosen and directed to the recipient, the recipient will then have to confirm about receiving the gift, because he/she will have to type in the address to which the gift will be sent.

The facility will also offer some people the change of exchanging their gifts for other items, and in some cases they may even get to choose the kind of gifts they want to receive, such as chocolates they like, or which brand of coffee they would prefer.

This is Facebook’s introduction into the world of e-commerce. The company came up with this idea after they acquired the small San Francisco start-up called Karma. They bought the company on the 18th of May, after it went up for public offering. Karma used to run a mobile application which used to let people order gifts for one another over their phones.

Shares of FB recovered 7% in mid day session on Friday after slumping 11% earlier in the week. After, today’s gain the stock is on the way to post a decline of 5.50% for the week.
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s new ad tracking system has glitches


Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s new operating system iOS6 has a new ad tracking system that doesn't work for many users.

The Advertising Identifier that replaces the earlier Unique Device Identifier allows marketers to track the owners of phone and watch their activities so that they can deliver ads targeted towards them.

The feature does not work for those phones where the operating system has been updated via a wireless network instead of from iTunes on a desktop.

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Marketers and advertisers increasingly are looking at ways to deliver ads to consumers that coincide with their interest and have tied up with handset makers to track their activities online.

While this may sound creepy and there are privacy issues involved, it is a huge market. It is all the more so in the case of mobile devices such as the iPhones and iPads which are seen as rich channels for mobile marketing.

Forbes, which wrote about the problem, said that if advertisers are no able to identify and track users they will not be able to track whether those ds produced a sale.

“It’s crucial for the advertising market,” Ravi Kamran, CEO of the apps marketing platform Trademob, which discovered the problem, told Forbes.

 “It drives the whole ecosystem.”

This glitch could have a significant impact for Apple as advertisers may be discouraged from placing their ads on the platform.

According to Forbes, the Advertising Identifier shows numerical IDs that are zeroes instead of the usual sequence of numbers.

Those who do not want to be tracked may be happy about this development but marketers and advertisers are definitely not.

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Rumor: Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) may step into the world of mobile payment services


It has been rumored that Amazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) might bring out a mobile payments service sometime soon. This payment service, if the rumors are true, might give stiff competition to other online payment services such as Square, PayPal, Go Payment and Inuit. Apparently, Amazon will be targeting smaller chains of retailers, and the card processing fee will also be abnormally low. It is rumored to be about 1.9%, while the lowest of the current rates are around 2.7%. It is also said that Amazon will be giving out low card processing fees for merchants.

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This means that Amazon will soon be stepping in from online transactions as well as checkout, to the world of in-store transactions. Amazon, however, already has a payments service which is called Amazon Payments. This is one of the competitors for PayPal, although, to be fair, PayPal has a much larger exposure base, and is much more popular.

If, with this new mobile payment product, Amazon does indeed target the small merchants, and especially the individual ones, then the company will be cutting into a large chunk of Square’s client base. But apart from that, Amazon also wants to dip its fingers into the physical world of retail stores. The company, it is said, will be launching a chain of retail stores, which could, as its payment systems, have mobile payments, as well as credit card processors.

The technological reach is fast spreading beyond big companies and big business transactions. The importance of being connected on the go, and the importance of online transactions are being felt by most people, and especially by those in business. The opportunity to power mobile card payment systems as well as point of sale for merchants, in such situations is a huge one, and Amazon will do well if it does start up the mobile payments system. Although monetary transactions over smartphones or other gadgets is not quite as common with small scale businesses, it is on its way to catching on fast.  Most merchants want to buy tablets or smartphones in order to conduct more business through these devices.

Shares of AMZN are down 0.55% to $255.06. The stock has witnessed solid gain so far this year with a rise of 47% and had made an all time high of $264.11 earlier this month.
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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to transcend the world of Virtual Gifts, Shares Trim Weekly Loss


It is said that it’s the gesture that counts. But virtual chocolates can only take you so far. Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) has come up with a new service, which will let people send each other real gifts, without having to actually walk out of their homes, or without even logging off Facebook. The new service, is to be called, (surprise, surprise) Gifts. This service will allow people to send each other toys, chocolates, coffee packages, and other such things, through Facebook itself.

The service was launched on Thursday, although it was available only to a handful of users in the U.S, the service will slowly become available to many more. A few months, and it will trickle down to be applicable to all the people who have profiles over Facebook.

And the process is so simple, it makes one doubt why. One simply has to click on the icon which says ‘Gifts’, and the process will be underway. The facility is available over the website as well as on android phones, although the social-networking site is working towards introducing this facility to iPhones as well as iPads.

Will FB Rebound After The Recent Slump? Find Out Here

This icon will be situated on the right side of the homepage of a user’s profile, along with the notifications which tell people about the upcoming birthdays, events anniversaries, and other important social occasions. After the gift is chosen and directed to the recipient, the recipient will then have to confirm about receiving the gift, because he/she will have to type in the address to which the gift will be sent.

The facility will also offer some people the change of exchanging their gifts for other items, and in some cases they may even get to choose the kind of gifts they want to receive, such as chocolates they like, or which brand of coffee they would prefer.

This is Facebook’s introduction into the world of e-commerce. The company came up with this idea after they acquired the small San Francisco start-up called Karma. They bought the company on the 18thof May, after it went up for public offering. Karma used to run a mobile application which used to let people order gifts for one another over their phones. 

Shares of FB recovered 7% in mid day session on Friday after slumping 11% earlier in the week. After, today’s gain the stock is on the way to post a decline of 5.50% for the week.
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Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN) Rejig to Boost European Ops


In a bid to fix its struggling European operations, daily deals site Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN) is rejigging its top management around, Reuters reported on Friday.

According to an internal memo obtained by Reuters, Chris Muhr, SVP of sales, will now head the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, while Veit Dengler, SVP International, will be leaving the company.

The report said that the memo did not have any reason for Dengler's departure. Recently national sales head Lee Brown had also left the company.

The slowdown in Europe has impacted the company’s profitability as consumers are spending less.

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Fixing its European operations has become an imperative for Groupon after the second-quarter revealed big problems with that business, driving the company's already weak share price even lower, the report said.

Groupon was heralded with a lot of hype as a new-age Internet company with a sound business model.

The economic slowdown and cuts in spending all around has exposed the weakness of such companies that are not able to sustain themselves in recessive conditions.

The stock has depreciated about 75 percent since its market debut late last year.

"We've made great progress in the last few months, but we still have a lot of work to do, particularly in Europe," Groupon's operations chief Kal Raman said in the internal memo.

"While our challenges in Europe are no secret, after spending two weeks there, I am energized by the great team and clear opportunities to improve," he said.
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Stocks In News (STP, YUM, ENB, EGO, WMC)


Following are the notable news in Friday’s session:-

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR)(NYSE:STP) shares climbed 5.21% to $0.905 in the early hour. The company got an offer of support from the regional government in the Chinese city it’s based in after receiving a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange. The eastern city of Wuxi set up a task force led by Mayor Zhu Kejiang to help Suntech. The city will hold talks to ensure banks optimize credit support and provide financial services to Suntech.

Will STP Continue To Move Higher? Find out Here

Yum! Brands, Inc.(NYSE:YUM) company announced that Yum! China Division has recently opened its 4,000th KFC restaurant located in Dalian, China. Yum! has become the largest and fastest-growing restaurant company in China by pursuing a broad-based development program supported by a sophisticated supply chain infrastructure and more. shares declined 2.85% to $65.70.

Enbridge Inc (USA)(NYSE:ENB) the company announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement with Suncor Energy Oil Sands Limited Partnership (Suncor) to expand the existing infrastructure at the Enbridge Athabasca Terminal to accommodate the incremental bitumen volumes from Suncor's Firebag 3 and 4 developments. The approximately $150 million expansion is expected to be in-service in the second quarter 2013. The stock fell 0.99% to $39.06.

Eldorado Gold Corp (USA)(NYSE:EGO) stock gained 0.07% to $15.15. Paul N. Wright, Chief Executive Officer of Eldorado Gold yesterday announced that the Preliminary Environmental License (PEL) for the Tocantinzinho Project has been granted by the Environmental Council of Para State, Brazil (COEMA). The PEL confirms the environmental feasibility of the Project and allows the Company to apply for the Construction License, the final permit needed for construction of the Project to commence.

Western Asset Mortgage Capital Corp(NYSE:WMC) the company yesterday announced that it has commenced a public offering of 12,000,000 shares of common stock. Western Asset Mortgage Capital Corporation also plans to grant the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1,800,000 shares of common stock. The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the offering primarily to purchase Agency RMBS and may, at opportunistic times, also purchase its potential target assets. shares of the company declined 3.04% to $22.30.
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) could push users towards Android


By removingGoogle Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps from it new operating system, Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) may have given Android, albeit unwittingly, more ammunition than it may have realised.

First off, is the undue publicity that Google Maps has received. of course everyone knew how useful and reliable Google Maps was.

But by substituting it with an inferior product of its own, Apple has made people realise that they could not possibly live without Google Maps.

Once taken for granted, it has made users sit, take notice and re-discover all the features of Google Maps. Google could not have achieved more in terms of attracting people's attention if it had wanted to.

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The slew of articles and analysis about Google Maps has also made even loyal fans of Apple start to wonder whether Android users could just possibly be having more functionalities on their phones than what is available on Apple's iOS.

The fact that Google has not made any undue noise about its absence in Apple's new operating system also has worked in its favour.

With Google Chairman Eric Schmidt openly declaring that his company and Apple were good partners, he has managed to garner a lot of sympathy also and cast Apple in the role of a villain who has dropped a loyal ally.

Then again removing the YouTube app also makes it seem as if Apple is deliberating distancing itself from Google.

YouTube is a favourite with users of all ages and demographics and messing around with it could give a serious negative bias towards Apple.

Users do not understand rivalries or patent disputes - all they want are their favourite applications that they are familiar with and which they use to connect with their friends and family.

Apple could just end up pushing some of its more loyal customers towards Android in its bid to pursue its own agenda against Google
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Maps War: Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) Goes Gung-ho with Navteq - Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)


All the fuss being created over Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps being banished from Apple iOS6 and the terrible experiences with its replacement, Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) Maps, has brought to the fore the importance of navigational technologies.

Finnish handset maker Nokia Corporation (ADR)(NYSE:NOK), which bought mapping company Navteq for $8.1 billion in 2007, has announced a number of new initiatives with the service.

It has got into various tie-ups with different companies for the use of its navigation systems. It has signed deals with BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Hyundai for providing these services in their cars as a navigation device.

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It has also entered into agreements with in-car device makers such as Pioneer and personal navigation device maker Garmin.

The debacle with Apple Maps has made handset makers suddenly realise the importance of a navigation service, which was, so far merely an accessory or an add-on.

This also accounts for the fact that though Nokia acquired Navteq in 2007, it has not really utilised the expertise of that company to its fullest. At the time of the purchase, Nokia had said that it would herald a new era for the company n location services.

Apple's reason for replacing Google Maps with its own service is only partly to do with Google. The company obviously realises the huge potential that this area offers, especially with people becoming more mobile and travelling more and connectivity being more of an obsession than ever.

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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter are growing in China despite a ban on them


China has put a ban on social networking sites such as Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter, yet users of the sites are growing by leaps and bounds in the country, which is the world's largest Internet market.

A survey done by London’s GlobalWebIndex said that Facebook had 63.5 million users in China in the second quarter of 2012, compared to 7.9 million in 2009.

Micro blogging site Twitter users in the country tripled to 35.5 million in the same period.

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Sites which are blocked can be accessed via proxy servers which bypass filters and can connect to the sites.

It is these workarounds which has helped Facebook and Twitter get millions of users from the country that allows only local social networking sites to function.

The survey showed that Facebook and Twitter are providing stiff competition to local services in China such as Sina Weibo.

“It only takes a little bit of desk research to discover that what is called the Great Firewall is actually much more porous than the Chinese government would like to admit,” Tom Smith, founder of GlobalWebIndex said in the blog post where the results of the survey were put up.

However compared to social networks such as Qzone which has 286.3 million users, Facebook and Twitter users are still small in the country.

Shares of FB are soaring on Friday and rose 7.50% after the company announcedto enter into the e-commerce area with its gifting service.
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Tech: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Retreats, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Outperforms, Research In Motion Off Session High – ADTN, FNSR, CIEN, FSLR, STP


The tech sector is not performing well today as the broader market retreated as investors preferred to book some profit at the close of a robust third quarter for equities and amid uncertainty ahead of the results of stress tests on Spanish banks. Yesterday, the sector closed sharply higher with wider market rally after Spain's budget and reform plans had sparked a bullish note. Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) and Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) are moving in the positive direction today. NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) fell.48 -11.12 (-0.35%) at 3,125.

Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) resumed downtrend after yesterday’s 2% gain. The stock is now 1.30% to $672.90, on track to post a 4% fall for the week. The stock has been showing selling pressure ever since it had reported lower than estimated weekend sales for its much hyped iPhone5 on Monday. Although numbers were quite good and hit another record level, but it didn’t meet analysts’ target, hence the stock discounted the news immediately.

Also, AAPL had been showing selling pressure on concerns that hat the company may not be able to meet the user’s demand for its latest launched iPhone5. 

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Also, this morning, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Mapping App A serious Drawback to the iPhone 5, this morning the company’s Chief Executive Tim Cook, on Friday, apologized to users of the iPhone 5 who have to contend with its flawed mapping application that contained grave errors.

There is no doubt that Apple as a popular carries heavy burden of high expectations from investors’ community, but that’s not the company fault. It’s just high expectations making investors easy.
Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) is the big outperformer in today’s and moved back above its 50-day Moving Average. The company has now got into the e-commerce area with its gifting service.

Probably with an eye to the gifting-giving season that is round the corner, the social networking site launched the Gifts service on Friday. The feature is built upon and run by Karma, the company that Facebook had acquired in May.

Robert Hof, Forbes contributor, who was one of the privileged few to get the service (it is being offered to a select few) says that while the service looks good (in terms of the process), he may not really use it much due to the limited gifting options that it offers.

"A lot of the most prominent gifts are pretty vanilla–teddy bears, spa appointments, flowers, cupcakes," he says.

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Research In Motion Limited (USA)(NASDAQ:RIMM) posted a second-quarter loss of $235 million, or 45 cents a share; a year ago, the company earned $329 million, or 63 cents a share.

On an adjusted basis, the loss was 27 cents a share, and although it was the company’s third straight quarterly loss, it was far narrower than Street estimates of an adjusted loss of 46 cents a share. Shares spiked after the report hit the market.

RIM closed up 1.16 percent after it had soared 17 percent to $8.37 i intra-day deals.

Revenue fell 31% to $2.9 billion from $4.2 billion a year ago.

Shares of RIMM jumped 7%, well off session high of $8.20.

Telecom equipment and optical component names slump as ADTRAN, Inc.(NASDAQ:ADTN) estimated third-quarter results below analyst expectations. The networking and communications equipment company said it has been hurt by a challenging spending environment stemming from macroeconomic and regulatory concerns.

Ciena Corporation(NASDAQ:CIEN) fell 3.40%, Finisar Corporation(NASDAQ:FNSR) slumped 6% and Juniper Networks, Inc.(NYSE:JNPR) lost 2.50%.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR)(NYSE:STP) jumped 6%  following a report banks in the company's home town of Wuxi have extended $31.7M in in new loans. But shares are still trading at a mere $0.90 in the wake of a fraud scandal involving an affiliated investment firm. 

Also, First Solar, Inc.(NASDAQ:FSLR) retreated 3.50% after yesterday’s solid up move. This morning, r Maxim Group, which has issued plenty of bearish commentary about the company, declares speculation Fist Solar will be tapped to build out NextEra Energy 1GW Blythe solar project to be unfounded. Maxim argues a recent NextEra filing merely named First Solar, which has struck deals with NextEra in the past, as a potential partner. and that the utility only plans to build out 250MW of capacity by 2016-17.
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Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) May Face a stiff penalty from EU


A technical error could Microsoft Corporation(NASDAQ:MSFT) dear and could end up in its becoming liable to pay up to $7.4 billion in fines levied by the European Union for breach of agreement.

European Union anti-trust laws are pretty stringent and software giant Microsoft has often found itself on the wrong side of the regulators there, who have already fined it in the past for an amount of $1.28 billion.

But this will seem like small change if the current violation is brought on to the company.

In 2009, Microsoft, acting under the orders of the EU offered its Windows users in Europe a wide choice in browsers after allegations surfaced that the Windows operating environment did not allow other browsers (other than Internet Explorer) to be downloaded.
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This was known as browser ballot and gave users the freedom to choose their own browsers, according to their needs.

However earlier this personal computers shipped to Europe were found not to have this functionality. It affected those PCs which were operating Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.

When the error was brought to the notice of Microsoft it said that it was a technical error and admitted that around 28 million PCs did not have the browser ballot. Those operating the original Windows 7 and other versions of the operating system did not have this problem.

However the EU regulators have taken a different view of this matter and are looking at it as a serious violation and a breach of agreement that cold have potential serious consequences for the world’s largest software company.

"The next step is to open a formal proceeding into the company's breach of an agreement. We are working on this," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia reportedly told reporters at a conference in Warsaw. "It should not be a long investigation because the company itself explicitly recognized its breach of the agreement."

That sounds rather ominous.
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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chairman Expresses Frustration with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and its Patent Wars


Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday had quite a bit to say about Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)’s penchant for filing legal suits against rivals to protect its intellectual property rights.

In a news conference to launch Google's Nexus 7 tablet, Schmidt made it apparent that he was against patent wars in the mobile industry and expressed his frustration with Apple and its recent rash of legal suits against companies which run on Google's Android operating system.

"Literally patent wars prevent choice, prevent innovation and I think that is very bad. We are obviously working through that and trying to make sure we stay on the right side of these issues. So ultimately Google stands for innovation as opposed to patent wars," Schmidt said, according to the Korean Times which reported on the event.

Samsung, which is one of the biggest users of Android, is engaged in a bitter battle with Apple over patent infringements and the Korean handset maker faces the prospect of a ban on the sale of its products in the United States if Apple has its way.

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In an obvious reference to that, Schmidt said, ""I think one of the worst things that happened in the last few years has been the belief that somehow there are so many patents in the mobile phone world, an estimated 200,000 that are overlapping and complicated and so forth, that one vendor can stop the sale of another vendor's phones or devices."

When asked if Google would support the equipment makers it partners with, he said, "all I want to say publicly (is that) we fully intend to support the ecosystem as it evolves. The Android ecosystem is really central, in my view, to the successful moving forward of the market."

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