Wall Street Analyst Says ‘Buy the Dip’ After Apple’s Stock Price Steadily Declines in September

Since hitting an all-time high of $164.94 on September 1, Apple’s stock price has steadily declined throughout the month. Apple’s closing price of $150.55 on Monday represents a nearly nine percent decline in just under four weeks.

Despite some negativity surrounding the stock, one Wall Street analyst believes the recent skid is a buying opportunity.

“We believe concerns around the strength of this cycle are misplaced and we would be aggressive buyers of the stock during this correction,” said Brian White, a longtime Apple analyst at investment banking firm Drexel Hamilton.

White believes the staggered launch of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X is confusing industry observers, who are perhaps worried by reports of shorter lines at Apple retail stores and lower adoption rates of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

“We believe more consumers in the developed parts of the world will pass on the iPhone 8/8 Plus and buy the iPhone X,” added White, in a research note obtained by MacRumors. “Those that are on the fence will likely wait to see the iPhone X.”

White is one of the most bullish Apple analysts, with a lofty $208 price target for the iPhone maker. If the price were to rise that high, Apple would be over a trillion dollar company based on market capitalization.

Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt also said Apple’s recent pullback is a “trading opportunity.” His survey indicated there could be higher demand for the iPhone X than the firm initially anticipated.

Apple’s slide has held back the Dow Jones, which is still up around 1.5 percent since the start of September. But it’s not the only tech stock in the red, as Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix all declined Monday.

By comparison, Apple’s stock price was up nearly 5 percent over this same period in each of the past two years.

Apple is up over 1 percent in early market trading today.

Tags: Brian White, AAPL
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Apple TV 4K Listing Appears on Amazon as Prime Video Launch Nears

Nearly two years after Amazon stopped selling the Apple TV, a listing for the Apple TV 4K has been spotted on the website by 9to5Mac.

The Apple TV 4K is currently listed as out of stock, but the fact that it has been added back is fueling speculation that Amazon may be prepared to launch its Prime Video app on the tvOS App Store imminently.

At its Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple confirmed that Amazon Prime Video is coming to Apple TV later this year. At its iPhone X event earlier this month, it reiterated that release date.

An unverified rumor earlier this week claimed Amazon Prime Video may launch on the Apple TV alongside the debut of the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games on the online retailer’s streaming video service this week.

Amazon Video allows Prime members to instantly stream tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, with hundreds of thousands of titles available to buy or rent, including many that are 4K and HDR.

Amazon removed all Apple TV and Chromecast product listings from its website in October 2015 because the devices did not offer Prime Video, which it said may cause confusion for customers.

Of course, the Apple TV and Chromecast also compete with Amazon’s own Fire TV streaming media players.

Apple said Amazon had never submitted a Prime Video app for the tvOS App Store, or else it would have been happy to offer it. The app has been available for iPhone and iPad and several other platforms for many years.

Whatever the case may be, it appears Prime Video for Apple TV might finally be just around the corner.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Tags: Amazon, Amazon Prime Video
Buyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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Firefox Announces New ‘Quantum’ Browser With 2X Faster Speeds, Coming November 14

Firefox today announced that the latest version of its web browsing software — which it’s calling “Firefox Quantum” instead of “Firefox 57” — will be available as an update for users beginning November 14, with a beta of the browser hitting iOS, Android, and desktop today.

The company said that the biggest advantage of Quantum is its speed, which is twice as fast as Firefox 52 when measured using Speedometer 2.0, a benchmark that simulates modern web applications. Firefox said that Quantum takes advantage of multiple CPU cores offered by today’s desktop and mobile devices, instead of running on just one core, resulting in a “dramatically faster” web browser.

The company updated a few other features so that Quantum runs smoothly, including making sure that the tab open on the browser downloads and runs prior to other tabs in the background. When compared to Chrome — which Firefox directly compared itself to in a new video — Quantum is said to be faster than Google’s browser, “while consuming roughly 30 percent less RAM.”

The user experience of Quantum has also been overhauled and enhanced through the company’s Photon project, which tasked Firefox’s design team to research and understand “how users perceive web browsers.” The team’s findings have resulted in a more “modern” design that’s built for “task focused” users. Quantum also comes with more direct integration with read-it-later app Pocket, which Mozilla acquired last year.

The new, minimalist design introduces square tabs, smooth animations, and a Library, which provides quick access to your saved stuff: bookmarks, Pocket, history, downloads, tabs, and screenshots. Firefox Quantum feels right at home with today’s mouse and touch-driven operating systems: Windows 10, macOS High Sierra, Android Oreo, and iOS 11.

Quantum will also continue to support Firefox’s “Tracking Protection” privacy technology, which the company found to mitigate invasive tracking of online activity throughout various studies. Specifically, Firefox’s technology demonstrated a 67.5 percent reduction in the number of cookies set to a user’s browsing habits during a visit to 200 websites. These improvements also allow for performance enhancements, according to Firefox, reducing page load times by as much as 44 percent and lowering mobile data usage by 39 percent on the sites visited in the study.

Firefox encourages users to sign up to be notified regarding news about the new Quantum browser, which can be done on the company’s website right here. Ahead of the November 14 public launch, developers can also download the Firefox Quantum: Developer Edition starting today.

Tag: Firefox
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Microsoft’s new coding language is made for quantum computers

When one of the first personal computers, the Altair 8800 came along in 1976, Microsoft was ready with a programming language, Altair BASIC. It wants to be equally prepared when quantum computers go mainstream, so it has unveiled a ne programming language and other tools for the futuristic tech at its Ignite conference. You’ll still need to understand Qubits and other weird concepts, but by integrating traditional languages like C# and Python, Microsoft will make it easier to do mainstream computing on the complex machines.

Quantum computing is famously difficult to grasp — even IBM’s “Beginner’s Guide” is laughingly opaque. In discussing Microsoft’s new initiatives, Bill Gates called the physics “hieroglyphics,” and when asked if he could describe it in one sentence, Satya Nadella said “I don’t think so. I wish I could.”

So, let’s just talk about what it can do, then. By taking advantage of the principals of superposition and entanglement, quantum computers can solve certain types of problems exponentially faster than the best supercomputers. “It would allow scientists to do computations in minutes or hours that would take the lifetime of the universe on even the most advanced classical computers,” Microsoft explains. “That, in turn, would mean that people could find answers to scientific questions previously thought unanswerable.”

Microsoft is effectively building a language for computers that don’t really exist yet. The most advanced experimental machine, a 16/17 qubit model, was built by IBM and has run over 300,000 experiments. It’s far from being ready for commercial applications, though. Big Blue recently unveiled an initiative to build commercial quantum computers called IBM Q, and has already released its own programming tools via an API called the IBM Quantum Experience.

Microsoft’s programming language doesn’t have a name yet, but the company already has plans for quantum computing in AI. In particular, it thinks that the machines could be used to train its Cortana digital assistant in days instead of months. “Even if everything else was the same, Cortana would improve 30 times faster,” Microsoft’s research chief Craig Mundie says.

To get quantum computing working more quickly, Microsoft’s star theoretical researcher, Michael Freedman (below), is trying to build both the hardware and software for a “topological quantum computer” (I’m not even going to try to explain that). To that aim, he has recruited “some of the world’s preeminent condensed-matter and theoretical physicists, materials scientists, mathematicians and computer scientists,” Microsoft says.

Microsoft is also working on the computer itself, but to get programmers up to speed, it’s releasing the programming tools for developers and computer scientists. “The same code that you’re running today in simulation you can run tomorrow on our quantum computer,” says quantum computing software lead Krysta Svore.

Individual users can simulate problems that require up to 30 logical qubits, while enterprise customers get 40 qubits of power (the more qubits, the faster the machine). “Developers without quantum expertise can actually call quantum subroutines, or write sequences of programming instructions, working up to writing a complete quantum program,” Microsoft says.

It might be awhile before commercials computers are ready, as they currently require near-absolute zero temperatures to remain in a stable state. Considering how tough it is to wrap your head around the concepts, however, you may need the time. If you’re interested in trying the new quantum computing language, you can sign up here.

Via: Ars Technical

Source: Microsoft

Facebook scoops NFL video highlights and in-depth recaps

With its recently launched Watch video section still fresh, Facebook is wasting no time in expanding its line-up. This time it’s ditching original shows in favor of football. The company just announced that it’s teaming up with the NFL to bring highlights for all 256 regular season games, as well as the playoffs and Super Bowl, to its social network. On top of that, it’s getting three in-depth segments in the form of NFL Game Recaps, NFL Turning Point, and Sound FX for its Watch tab. Those outside of the US can catch the video blitz by following the NFL Facebook page or any of the league’s 32 clubs. The shows will each be available globally via their respective pages as well.

Food clips may be more popular online, yet this latest deal is more proof that social media’s pivot to video still banks heavily on sports. Both Facebook and Twitter have struck respective high-profile deals to secure video rights for tennis, golf, college football, and soccer in the past. But, both firms suffered a loss earlier this year when Amazon snagged the rights to select NFL livestreams. Twitter, the original social media home of Thursday Night Football, was left without the centrepiece to its burgeoning video strategy. And Facebook, with all its might and money, was humbled by Jeff Bezos and co. at the bidding table. Not content with its current video line-up, the social network (like Twitter before it) has gone running back to the NFL to prop up its Watch tab with recognizable programming.

Still, this is far from Facebook’s last hurrah. The company has already (unsuccessfully) tried to grab the online rights to Indian Premier League cricket — the blockbuster format of the game. And, it could even come up against Amazon once more when the time comes to duke it out for broadcasting duties for the English Premier League.

For football fans, it’s just another way to watch the action online. If you can’t view the main attraction on Amazon, you can switch between Twitter and Facebook’s NFL shows for a refresher.

Live Nation’s Messenger bot finds concerts you won’t want to miss

Entertainment company Live Nation is making it easier to find concerts you’ll actually be interested in with a tailor-made gig-finding experience that learns your location and musical preferences. Open the Concert Finder bot through Messenger, search your favorite artists or musical genre and over time it’ll learn your preferences, so you can consult the bot about upcoming shows that you might actually want to go to, rather than sifting through thousands of maybes. The more you use it, the smarter it gets. And once you’ve found a show you’re interested in you can pull friends into the interface to chat about logistics and tickets, which you can then purchase directly through Messenger (if you’ve already got a Live Nation account you can link it up for faster check out). There are dozens of Facebook Messenger bots out there that claim to make your life easier, but if you’re a live-music fan, this one could prove genuinely useful.

Plex News launches to keep cord-cutters informed for free

Plex has continued to grow beyond its simple media playback roots, and today it adds another new feature that brings something extra to your library of video, music and pictures: news. Plex News builds on the acquisition of Watchup earlier this year by using a machine learning-powered system for finding news from 190+ publisher partners (including CNN, CBS and Al Jazeera) that it presents to you — for free. The ad-supported service is ready for you to personalize, but it can also use that AI brain to monitor what you like and get smarter about finding related content — which may be linked to recent privacy policy changes.

According to Plex, its sources include local news feeds covering over 80 percent of US markets. This means if you’re cutting cable and don’t want to put up an antenna, it can probably help you stay abreast of local issues like kids falling down wells or whatever.

Along with a feature like Plex Live TV & DVR, it makes it easier to live in the ecosystem as a full-on media replacement without losing much compared to a traditional cable setup. The feature is rolling out to all Plex users (whether or not they pay for Plex Pass access) on Android TV, Apple TV, Roku, Android Mobile, and iOS, with other platforms set to follow.

Source: Plex Blog

Amazon finally adds Alexa support to its Music app

If Alexa can make it a cinch to find songs on Amazon’s screen-less Echo speakers, then it can also work its magic on the retail giant’s Music app. The tech titan has finally integrated its famous voice assistant into the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android, perhaps as a way to entice more people to sign up. You don’t need to say “OK, Alexa” anymore when you want to summon the assistant through the apps: just tap the new push-to-talk button marked “Alexa” on the applications’ updated interface and voice out your command.

What’s great about finding songs with the assistant’s help is that you don’t have to browse the app for a title or an artist, which you might not always know. You could, say, ask Alexa to “play that new single by” a particular artist or play that song with so-and-so lyrics. Alexa will also play sets depending on what you need them for, whether it’s for a road trip, to get you in the mood to run or to help you relax at night. The voice assistant is now live for both iOS and Android — just update your app to get access to Alexa on your phone.

Source: Amazon

Rapper Post Malone Breaks Apple Music Record With Over 25M Streams of ‘Rockstar’ in One Week

Rapper Post Malone has broken a new record on Apple Music, releasing a song — “Rockstar” feat. 21 Savage — that was streamed over 25 million times in a single week. Apple Music confirmed to The Verge that this officially beats the service’s worldwide single week streaming record previously set by DJ Khaled’s song “I’m the One.”

According to Carl Chery, Apple Music’s head of artist curation, Apple has been interested and supportive of Post Malone even prior to the launch of the company’s first streaming service, Apple Music. Once Apple Music did launch, Post Malone’s “Rockstar” got “prime placement” on some of the most-listened-to hip-hop playlists, including The A-List, It’s Lit, and #OnRepeat, helping increase Post Malone’s presence on Apple Music.

Chery said that the reason behind the support of “Rockstar” is a simple one: “If we like it, we support it.”

Post Malone has shattered Apple Music’s single week streaming record with over 25 million streams of his new single “Rockstar” feat. 21 Savage, the streaming service tells The Verge. The previous record holder for worldwide single week streams was “I’m the One” by DJ Khaled.

“We just have a long history of supporting Post Malone, even before he got signed. ‘White Iverson’ was being heavily supported in iTunes — that song is old enough that Apple Music wasn’t even live yet. We were supporting him heavily back then, and we did the same thing with the Stoney project last year,” Chery says. “The process is pretty simple for us, if we like it, we support it.”

In total Apple Music grabbed 56 percent of the first week streams of “Rockstar” in the United States, and 41 percent worldwide, despite the single being released on multiple streaming services. Apple has been able to acquire large portions of the streaming market for other songs in the past, particularly Drake’s “More Life” earlier this spring, and Chery said that this is because the company is “ahead of the curve on them.”

The Apple Music executive explained that he heard “Rockstar” pre-release and “knew immediately” how much it would gain traction with fans, allowing the team to place it in the right playlists the week it was released, and grow from there.

“A lot of times on those records where we outperform is because we’re ahead of the curve on them, Chery says.” Chery told me he heard “Rockstar” before it was released and knew immediately that it would be a hit, allowing Apple to move fast and add it to the relevant playlists in the first week. “And to a point, Apple Music becomes the destination where people want to hear that particular record,” Chery said.

Other previous Apple Music streaming records include Drake’s album “Views,” which became the first album on Apple Music to be streamed more than 1 billion times. Apple is continuously adding content into Apple Music to bolster its subscribers and retain current users, most recently introducing a new social element to the “For You” tab on iOS and macOS, generating even more music discovery among friends and family.

Tag: Apple Music
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From ‘Batman’ to ‘Aliens,’ this online prop auction is a geeky treasure trove

Why it matters to you

This online prop auction will make you the envy of your movie-loving buddies.

Ever dreamed of equipping your bachelor pad with an authentic xenomorph egg from 1986’s Aliens? How about a complete alien warrior prop from that movie? Or one of the costumes from 1992’s Army of Darkness? Or a Jack Nicholson-worn Joker overcoat from 1989’s Batman? We suppose that unless you’re a much less geeky person than we are, of course you have.

So consider today your lucky day because the U.K.’s Prop Store Entertainment Memorabilia auction is here — and it’s set to leave you salivating, and with a much lighter wallet. The auction spans an impressive range of movies and TV shows both cult and mainstream, including pretty much every iconic sci-fi or fantasy property we can think of from the past several decades. While a lot of what is on offer is as pricey as you’d imagine, there are some bargains to be had in the form of original scripts, clapperboards, or just less immediately recognizable props from your favorite flicks. (Personally, I’d love one of the missile-toting penguins from 1992’s Batman Returns!)

The auction kicks off at 7 a.m. ET/ 4 a.m. PT, and is being livestreamed for your viewing pleasure. Although there are plenty of folks who will be turning up to watch it live, you can bid online, too, which is just as well since it’s a bit late to book a plane ticket to jolly old London.

Unlike a lot of online auctions, however, you don’t have days or weeks to agonize over whether or not you can sacrifice your meals for the next four months to buy an M41A Pulse Rifle from Aliens. The lots operate at roughly one per minute, just like a real grown-up auction. At that rate, things will continue until around 10 p.m. local U.K. time (5 p.m. ET and 2 p.m. PT), but it could continue for longer than that depending on how long each lot lasts.

As mentioned, even if you don’t have money to buy anything, you can still enjoy the auction by tuning in to watch the livestream or perusing the catalog here. Because watching other people buy the self-lacing Nikes that Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future Part II is every bit as rewarding as buying them yourself, right? Right?