Archive for July 2nd, 2008
msw writes to tell us that nanoelectronics researchers have discovered a new molecule that could act as a state-manipulable atom due to its one-of-a-kind shape and properties. “Imagine a tiny arsenic atom embedded in a tiny strip of silicon atoms. An electric current is applied. Something strange arises on the surface — an exotic molecule. On one end is the spherical submerged arsenic atom; on the other end is an “artificial” flat atom, seemingly 2D, created as an artifact. The pair form an exotic molecule, which has a shared electron, which can be manipulated to be at either end, or in an intermediate quantum say.”
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jamie pointed out a story about the current problems Amazon’s EC2 service has been having with malware and spam. “EC2 space is now actively blocked by Outblaze, and has been listed by Spamhaus in their PBL list […] However as Seth Breidbart noted in the comments, ‘note that Amazon will terminate the instance. That means that the spammer just creates another instance, which gets a new IP address, and continues spamming.’ True enough - as described, instance termination simply isn’t good enough.”
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Atlasite writes “The WSJ is reporting on a EU project called Milepost aimed at integrating AI inside GCC. The team partners, which include include IBM, the University of Edinburgh and the French research institute, INRIA, announced their preliminary results at the current GCC Summit, being able to increase the performance of GCC by 10% in just one month’s work. GCC Summit paper is provided [PDF].”
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Filed under: Good news, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, General Motors (GM)
General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) investors, as well as auto industry trackers, will want to read Jonathan Rauch’s “Electro-Shock Therapy” in the July 2008 issue of Atlantic Magazine. Mr. Rauch was given unprecedented access to all personnel involved in GM’s company-wide commitment to have a market-ready electric automobile by late 2010. GM personnel note the Chevy VOLT, as the car is named, will not be a hybrid per se, but will be the first mass market electric vehicle with a range of 40 miles per charge, enough to cover the daily commute of 75% of American workers. The car’s small gasoline engine will be used to recharge the battery, while only electricity will be used to power the wheels. GM is trying to wow consumers by manufacturing an inexpensive electric vehicle that’ll sever the connection between driving and the gas pump.
GM lost the engineering and publicity wars on electric cars to Toyota’s Prius years ago. Toyota has been eating GM’s lunch ever sense. According to GM’s VP Bob Lutz, it’s payback time. Using the same rhetoric President Kennedy used to launch the Apollo space program and race to land on the moon, GM has sectioned off the Volt division and given it complete decision-making and spending authority to reinvent not only the electric automobile, but also the company itself. In one Volt engineer’s words: “Go huge or go home.”
Yes, there are problems with the weight to power ratio in the battery. And yes, production of both the battery and the vehicle body are being rushed towards production without the normal period of evaluation. But GM has staked its future on the Volt, and unlike my colleague Michael Rainey who isn’t that positive on the Volt, there’s reason for at least cautious optimism, a quality currently in short supply coming out of Detroit.
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Filed under: Forecasts, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Ford Motor (F), Motorola (MOT), Research in Motion (RIMM), Washington Mutual (WM), Economic data, JetBlue Airways (JBLU)
 The weak market conditions have caused many stock prices to fall under $10. Not only smaller — and perhaps lesser known — stocks trade under $10 these days, but also some massive and famous names such as Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) and Del Monte Foods (NYSE: DLM), as well as many airline companies like Northwest Airlines (NYSE: NWA) and JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU).
While those names could sound tempting for investors who may think they are cheap, BusinessWeek’s Karyn McCormack reminds us that not everything that’s cheap is a good bargain, and there are some risks that need to be taken into account.
One common problem for most of these stocks is that they trade under $10 for a reason. That reason is usually hardly any earnings growth, if any at all. And with a weak economy, these companies would have an even harder time to stimulate growth. Add to the mix the fact that institutional investors don’t like to touch stocks under $10 and the potential for recovery is not good.
In addition, for companies like Ford and Motorola, the problems compound as they find it difficult to address changing customer demands and needs. After they each focused on one business model such as Ford’s focus on sport-utility automobiles and trucks and Motorola’s focus on the RAZR wireless handset, they both have lost considerable market share to competitors as they have both failed to respond to changing demands.
But there are still some hopes for these stocks. If we take a look in the past, even Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was under $10 in the summer of 2003 and is currently trading over $170, while Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) dropped under $10 between 2001 to 2003, and now trades for $118.
As a last piece of advice, the article reminds us that there is always a reason for single-digit stocks to be priced at such a low level and it is not something that should pass unobserved for investors. With so much turmoil in the market, it might not be the wisest move to add smaller, riskier stocks.
Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.
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Filed under: Bad news, Products and services, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Oil
 It probably should come as no surprise, but June was a tough month for automakers, and all signs are pointing to more troubles out on the horizon.
All but one major automaker saw their sales drop last month, with Honda Motor (NYSE: HMC) being the sole exception. For the month, Honda actually had a 1% year-over-year sales growth, which given the current market place was an exceptional feat.
So just how bad was June for the automakers? Pretty bad. During the month, combined auto sales fell to 1.19 million cars sold, a 266,000 decline from the same period last year. This just continues the trend that we have been seeing all year, amounting to roughly a 10% sales decline during the first half of the year.
Consumers are definitely reacting to the record high gasoline prices, moving as far away from SUVs as possible. In the wake of the shift, the major automakers found that they were unable to keep up with demand for the smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. Typically you would think Japanese automaker Toyota (NYSE: TM) would have flourished under these circumstances, but it too suffered sales declines, mainly a result of not being able to keep up with demand for their its cars, in particular its fuel-efficient Prius, Corolla and Yaris automobiles.
General Motors (NYSE: GM) was able to put up better total sales than Toyota, by selling 262,000 during the month, edging out its Japanese rival by about 69,000 automobiles. But this was mainly accomplished by offering last minute no-interest financing to bring buyers onto its lots. GM was able to keep the #1 slot for for the month, which does not cancel out the fact that it had a 21% drop in its car sales and a 16% decline in its truck sales.
America’s other major automaker, Ford Motor (NYSE: F) also felt the pain last month. During the month, Ford’s sales shrunk by a mind-boggling 28%. The company is scrambling to shift its focus away from its heavy-duty trucks and SUVs, but the transition is just not coming fast enough. Ford, as well as GM — which have both announced that new, smaller cars are in the pipeline — will continue to face pressure since in both companies’ case the new subcompacts are not expected to roll off the production floor for at least another couple of years.
So yet another disappointing month for auto sales, and with gasoline prices continuing to remain at record levels, most analysts concur that the hard times are here to stay, at least for a while.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.
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Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL), Verizon Communications (VZ)
 Sometimes a major CEO seems like a foolish child more than a competitive leader. And sometimes the head of Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Ivan Seidenberg, has stated things that make many of us scratch our collective heads. With Apple, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) 3G iPhone about to hit the street (but not the Verizon network), Seidenberg must have been driven by jealousy to state something silly.
In response to the impending release of the 3G iPhone, Seidenberg said: “There goes the conspiracy again. You’re declaring them a winner before they’ve earned it on the field.” This in response to a reporter’s question about the new iPhone achieving mass market appeal due to the lower entry price of $199. The iPhone does not have a large market share when all sold phones are considered, but the new $199 price tag could sure put the Cupertino company in a position to ramp up that share pretty fast. This apparently concerns Seidenberg.
Sometimes waiting out the competition is a strategy that doesn’t involve much R&D. Seidenberg went on to say, “Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances.” Instead of trying to find some innovation to provide to the Verizon customer, maybe Verizon (along with all the other wireless carriers) will just try to wait out Apple’s wireless offerings until Steve Jobs retires. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success to me. But then again, Seidenberg has said some pretty clueless things before. Maybe this is just another example of a corporate leader who’s out of touch with his industry.
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Posted by: in Rights Online
Techdirt is reporting that while we all know privacy policies may not matter much in the grand scheme of things, a recent study shows that it might be even worse than originally surmised. It seems that the real issue is with who has access to personal data and what they’re able to do with it. “of course, it’s not just the people reading the policies that don’t seem to understand them — it’s those in charge of living up to and enforcing the policies. A new study surveyed a bunch of executives, including both marketing execs and those in charge of enforcing the privacy policy, and quickly discovered that marketers have a very different concept of ‘privacy’ than privacy officers. Not surprisingly, they don’t see anything wrong with sharing all sorts of data that seems to horrify privacy officers.”
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Posted by: in Rights Online
JohnnyNapalm writes “In some shocking news out of Texas, Computer repair will now require a PI License. Surely this stands to have a substantial impact on small repair shops around the state if upheld. Never fear, however, as the first counter-suit has already been filed.”
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