These are ten of the top analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street research calls this Tuesday morning:
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) Started as Hold at Jefferies.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) Cut to Neutral at HSBC.
Dell Inc.(NASDAQ: DELL) Raised to Buy at UBS.
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) Cut to Sell at Goldman Sachs.
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL) Raised to Buy at Lazard.
Millipore Inc. (NYSE: MIL) Cutto Neutral at UBS.
OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSIP) Cut to Hold at Canaccord.
Riverbed Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RVBD) Cut to Neutral at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) Raised to Neutral at UBS.
Shanda Games (NASDAQ: GAME) Cut to Hold at Citigroup
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The market for affordable laptops has grown in the last few years, and consumers today have a wide selection to choose from. But with so many models to choose from, sometimes it’s not so easy to know which laptop to buy. It is true that some consumers will narrow their choices based on the brand, and Dell is one of the top brand names to consider. But is the Dell Inspiron 1545 a computer you should get? This Dell Inspiron 1545 review will examine the benefits and features of this popular computer.
This laptop is a full size laptop with a 15.6 inch screen. Yet, it is a pretty compact laptop as well, which is not too weighty and can be taken just about anywhere. One of the cool features of this laptop is that is has a 1.3 megapixel webcam and even includes facial recognition software. In addition, the computer comes with Windows 7 preinstalled, and has a very clear LCD display which is well suited for multimedia entertainment.
The true merit of this laptop rests in the fact that it offers very good specs for its relatively low price. Memory is more than sufficient, with 4 GB of RAM enabling you to run just about any application. The CPU is the ever popular pentium dual core with 2.1 Ghz, and excellent processor capable of running the most advanced programs. Provided that you are not hoping to run the most resource-intense applications or play major video games on the laptop, this computer should more than suit your daily needs.
Other features making the Dell Inspiron 1545 a nice laptop include a 250 GB hard drive, plenty of USB drives (3 in fact), an 8x DVD drive, and an Intel graphics accelerator.
Budget minded consumers will have a hard time finding a nicer computer than this highly popular Dell model with rich features and nice specs. It seems users would agree, as the reviews for this computer have been very good. If you are interested in this model, the best prices can generally be found by buying online. For more information and recommended vendors for this model, visit the Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop review page at Laptop Examiner.
If you are still reviewing and researching which laptop to buy, another model we recommend is the HP G60 Laptop.
While the Apple iPad Tablet announcement last month was disappointing for augmented reality developers and enthusiasts, the details about the upcoming Dell Tablet will make you salivate.
The Mini 5 will have a five inch touchscreen with both front and user facing cameras allowing full augmented reality capabilities. WiFi and 3G connectivity allow enough bandwidth and the 1.0 GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm processor will give the Mini 5 the juice it needs to power resource-expensive AR apps. It’ll run the latest version of the Android OS which gives it AR credentials right away since there are many apps already made for that system.
The price plan will affect the market that it’s trying to fill, though Dell says they will price it “competitively”. But I don’t think I could have asked for better features from a tablet for augmented reality. The weight of the device might impact AR since holding it up will be harder than a smartphone and since it’s a touchscreen, will you want to hold it with one hand and navigate with the other? I hope some AR developers can incorporate voice commands into their games and products.
And while the screen might be too small in this version, they have eluded to a suite of tablet products so maybe a larger iPad sized version might come out in the future. Personally, I already have a free smartphone from work, so a tablet that does different things on a bigger screen would be appealing to me.
Will this be a killer device for AR? Probably not. But it’ll give developers a bigger landscape to play on and increase the number of AR devices on the market. The front facing camera certainly makes is a no-brainer for video conferencing. Just add some facial recognition and you can talk to your kids while out on the road with bunny ears attached to your head.
My name is Mythily and I am a self confessed cribber. I love cribbing about work, unreasonable deadlines, annoying clients, having a boring routine, the heat, about Nemo being cranky in the mornings, about Memoll being too loving in the mornings, about my sister being away, about the geyser not working, about not having much to do in Bangalore, about how my parents aren’t around, how my friends stay in different places, that my new green dress is missing and I am sure the dhobhi stole it and so many other things. It feels good to crib and get sulky. There is some joy in making yourself miserable and feeling sorry for yourself. But then this morning I stumbled across the whistler.
I woke up early this morning and broke all norms of normalcy. Nemo and Memoll were shocked into silence that their mom woke up at 6 am. I could see the questions like “Are we dreaming?”, “Is she sick?”, and “Is the world coming to an end?” flit across their faces. So I tried telling them not to fear, it was only because I expected a client call that I was up so early. So I set up my laptop and waited for the call to come.
I walked over the balcony as I waited and looked down from my balcony. The sun light was flickering through the tree leaves and the morning buzz was different from the late morning buzz I normally hear. There was no blaring horns and vendors screaming out about their goods, and kids crying at being dragged to school and the neighbor telling her husband off for all the million mistakes he seems capable of making everyday. It wasn’t quiet, but at the same time it was too. And then I saw him; the whistler.
There is an unfortunate spot at the end of my street where the garbage is dumped and the lorry picks it up everyday. But it isn’t a well organized spot. It usually buzzed with flies and the stench of the garbage always wafted through the air. It looked grimy and smelt ripe of all the disgusting things people seem to be capable of producing to throw away. And on top of this pile of vile sat a little boy, about 8 or 9, whistling away as he picked out all the plastic; our very own desi recycler doing the work we could have made easier for him if we all took the effort to separate our garbage. No complaints about how people make work harder, or that they disregarded him, or that they found him as disgusting as the garbage, or that he had to smell of it everyday, or all the other worries I am sure he has in life. All he did was do his work, and do it with sheer joy and whistle while at it.
And I thought about my life; and everything fit and looked good. The heat I complained about was more warmth than heat, the clients and work was responsible for paying all my bills, Nemo and Memoll were free enough to show me emotions and let me show mine, my sister was getting a great education being away, the geyser not working made me appreciate the coolness of water on a hot day, Bangalore has given me friends and an easy life, I am closer to my friends coz now we make an effort to keep in touch since we are away from each other, that my parents are healthy and happy together, that if the green dress is missing I am lucky enough to afford another one , and that things were suddenly looking up for me and that I had a feeling that the road ahead was going to be a lot of fun. So here I am, whistling while I write. Pucker up people and whistle away too.
Engagdet has an interesting article on their first impressions of the Dell Mini 5 prototype.
Dell’s puzzled the world for quite some time with its outlandish Mini 5 — at first glance it’s just another Android-based MID, but a quick fiddle with it reveals the full-fledged 3G phone inside.
The MID (Mobile Internet Device) is a form factor that has been tried before, but the MID as a modern concept was announced by Intel in 2007. They are mid way between a smartphone and a fully functional laptop or Tablet PC.
They are designed to provide entertainment, information, location based services, communication and sharing. In this day of social networking, twitter, facebook; they are aimed at individual for personal use rather than corporate use.
This of course doesn’t stop learners using them for learning.
So what of the Dell Mini 5? According to Engadget, the Andorid powered device will include:
…a five-inch 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, Snapdragon QSD8250 chipset (with CPU clocked at 1GHz), Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and WCDMA radio.
WCDMA means that it can use internet on the move (read 3G). At this time, no idea if the Dell Mini 5 will have phone capabilities.
It also comes with a camera:
The main camera offers five-megapixel pictures of reasonable quality, along with decent 640 x 480 video capture but with slight rolling shutter effect (aka “jelly motion”). The accompanying camera app has a wealth of settings for both modes: scene, white balance, brightness, contrast, and resolution. Extra settings for photo mode include flash, self-timer, multi-shot, shutter sound, GPS location and flicker adjustment, whereas video mode has options for video format (MPEG-4 and H.263).
The device has a on screen keyboard for text entry, though as it has Bluetooth, you probably can use a Bluetooth keyboard for dedicated text entry (as you can do with a Nokia N95).
This device allows for both content consumption and content creation. Two key features of any device that learners use for learning. With WiFi and 3G this means that the learner will have the connectivity to access learning resources on the move or in college (if you have a student wireless network). It will also allow for real-time communication via the VLE or a social networking service of some kind, eg Ning or Twitter.
So will learners actually buy a device like this?
Hmmm, well you can ask the same question of Apple’s iPad that has a lot less capability.
Learners (especially in FE Colleges) have not really bought into devices such as the iPhone; though I am surprised by how many have the N95 and N86. They prefer full size laptops over micro-laptops. Having shown and tried devices such as the Nokia N810 with learners, they thought it was “okay” but preferred other mobile devices and “proper” laptops for serious text entry.
The Dell Mini 5 sounds like an exciting innovative device, however I am not sure if these MID devices will be taken up and used by learners in large numbers.
The world’s largest mobile phone carriers say they’re joining forces to make it easier for software developers to write apps that will run on as many phones as possible. The Wholesale Applications Community announced Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is an attempt to retake the initiative from phone makers like Apple and Nokia, which have applications stores of their own.
Together, they have signed a memorandum of understanding with the aim of building an environment or ’wholesale applications community’ where innovative applications can be developed irrespective of device or technology. The members include América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, Mobilkom Austria Group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, Telia Sonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind, as well as Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson device manufacturers.
The new alliance, which represents more than three billion customers worldwide is inviting players from across the ICT industry, not only operators and developers, but also handset manufacturers and internet players to join forces to create an initiative based on openness and transparency. We believe this model presents the most compelling format on the market where developers will thrive and customers will reap the benefits of greater choice. Furthermore, the GSMA is supporting this initiative.
Guessing that the carriers didn’t like how Apple or Google are doing things their own way (and reaping all of the profits too).
