Tag Archives: request

Bad News, Butterfingers: Future iPhone Could Sport All-Glass Design

In what could be a boon for makers of protective smartphone cases, next year’s iPhone is rumored to feature an all-glass design. In a report, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple ( AAPL ) will switch from its aluminum casing to an all-glass enclosure with an AMOLED screen for the iPhone in 2017, 9to5Mac reported Sunday . Current iPhones use a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. AMOLED, short for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode, allows for thinner, more power-efficient displays with richer colors. Kuo believes Apple is switching to the glass enclosure to give the iPhone a fresh new look. The upcoming iPhone 7, due out in September, reportedly will sport a look similar to the current iPhone 6S series. But the iPhone 7 will eliminate the home button and standard headphone jack in favor of newer technologies, according to media reports. Also, a high-end version of the iPhone 7 likely will come with a dual-camera system. Last week, Apple reportedly reached a $2.6 billion agreement with Samsung to supply OLED panels for iPhone displays starting in 2017. The pact calls for Samsung to supply 100 million 5.5-inch OLED displays, 9to5Mac said. Universal Display ( OLED ), a provider of OLED materials and technology, spiked to five-year high on Monday. Shares of the corporation, aka UDC, were up 6.5% in afternoon trading on the stock market today . In intraday trading, UDC hit 61.90. It reached an all-time high of 63.58 in April 2011.  Universal Display holds an IBD Composite Rating of 98 out of a possible 99. Apple was down 2.3% to above 107 in afternoon trading. IBD’s Take: How does Apple stock rate? Objective analysis at IBD Stock Checkup RELATED: Apple Slices Below 200-Day On iPhone Production Cuts Report How Much Will Apple Increase Its Dividend, Stock Buybacks? Apple iPhone Sales Could Fall For 3 Straight Quarters, Analyst Says

IBM Showcases Video Streaming At NAB Show; More Competition For Akamai?

IBM ( IBM ) pushed further into online and cloud-based video services, unveiling streaming products at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas on Monday. IBM downplayed possible competition with Akamai Technologies ( AKAM ), the leader in content delivery network services. IBM, though, seems to be moving onto Akamai’s turf, says Oppenheimer analyst Tim Horan. At the NAB show, IBM took the wraps off Aspera FASPStream , software that IBM says streams live broadcast video over “commodity Internet networks.”  IBM also unveiled an enterprise CDN product that lets companies broadcast live streaming video within their corporate firewalls. IBM’s initial clients for the video streaming products include AOL, part of Verizon Communications ( VZ ); the Canadian Broadcasting Co., Comic-Con and Mazda. “We’re not in the CDN business like Akamai,” Braxton Jarratt, who leads IBM’s cloud video unit, told TechCrunch . He added, though, that IBM has substantial cloud and software resources. IBM has made a few video streaming-related acquisitions. At NAB, Akamai announced the opening of a  broadcast operations control center to support customers’ over-the-top (OTT) video streaming. Cable TV firm Comcast ( CMCSA ) also looms as a new rival of Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai. Comcast launched a commercial CDN offering in May, 2015. Akamai’s global CDN speeds up video streaming, e-commerce transactions and business software downloads over the Internet. Akamai competes with Level 3 Communications ( LVLT ) and Limelight Networks ( LLNW ) as well as startups Fastly and CloudFlare.

Medivation Rises On Cancer Drug Data, AstraZeneca Buyout Rumor

Shares of drugmaker Medivation ( MDVN ) hit an eight-month high Monday after it reported successful early-stage cancer data as buyout rumors continued to circle the company. On Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, Medivation said that its drug candidate talazoparib, combined with low-dose chemotherapy, produced a clinical benefit in 23 of 40 patients with heavily pretreated cancers. The company noted that four of seven patients with ovarian cancer showed objective responses, or tumor shrinkage. At the same time, the Times of London reported that big British pharma AstraZeneca ( AZN ) is said to be preparing a bid for Medivation , which currently holds a stellar IBD Composite Rating of 97 thanks to strong growth of its sole marketed product, prostate-cancer drug Xtandi. Late last month, Medivation reportedly hired bankers to deal with buyout attempts, and last week it was said to have rebuffed a bid from Sanofi ( SNY ). Medivation stock rose 4%, above 53, near midday trading on the stock market today . It hit 54.55 intraday. The last time it cracked 54 was back in early August, before biotech stocks crashed. IBD’s Take: How healthy is Medivation’s stock, and how does it stack up vs. rivals? Stifel analyst Thomas Shrader wrote that the latest cancer data will likely make Medivation play even harder to get. “It’s hard to draw too much out of such a small data set from a single center — but these data will only make the company less interested in being acquired without very significant upside to the current value of the Xtandi franchise and at least conditional upside to the current value of the talazoparib franchise,” Shrader wrote in a research note.