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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Softechie who wrote (47733)	4/5/2002 4:14:16 PM
From: DebtBomb	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Now, who's going to try to sneak out a warning tonight??

To: Softechie who wrote (47733)	4/5/2002 4:19:24 PM
From: Softechie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

MARK TO MARKET: Get Out From Behind That Dumpster. NOW! 05 Apr 13:30 By Jim Murphy A Dow Jones Newswires Column NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Is this a slippery slope, or not? Based on a news item Thursday morning, it is only a matter of time before all Americans will be sporting government-mandated sub-dermal chips so that Big Brother can track them no matter where they go. George Orwell was right in 1984. But he was nearly two decades early. Applied Digital Solutions (Nasdaq: ADSX) is a penny stock. Its shares closed Thursday up four cents at 52 cents a share, a gain of 8.33%. Why? Because just after 8 a.m. EST, the company put out a press release in which it said it had been notified by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration that the agency didn't consider the company's "VeriChip" a medical device and wouldn't therefore be regulating it. Whippety!, exclaimed the company. "We can now begin to sell, market and distribute VeriChip in the United States," the press release said. The VeriChip is the size of a grain of rice. It is, the company claims, a bit of state-of-the-art medical technology. Implant the VeriChip. When you collapse in public and they take you to the Emergency Room, a scanner can read the chip for your medical history, including contraindications like, "Don't serve this patient canned asparagus." Or, as the company's press release so dryly puts it: "Each VeriChip is composed of FDA-accepted materials and contains a unique verification number. That number is captured by briefly passing a proprietary external scanner over the VeriChip. "A small amount of radio frequency energy passes through the skin energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the verification number." I can see clearly now. "I say, old bean. I'm Jones from Intracorporeal Security. Pardon me while I energize your dormant VeriChip and pass my proprietary external scanner over your odafillarammipackaloomer." Is this a slippery slope or not? Probably not. But maybe so. We'll find out, won't we? To turn the observation on its head: "It is the greatest treason to do the wrong thing for the right reason." Meanwhile, I still don't engage in stock-picking, but if I do, you should ignore me. So I can't say whether ADSX shares are a buy or not. I can, however, tell you that the company aims to retail the VeriChip for $200 a pop and says that the "proprietary external scanners" will sell for as much as $3,000 each. Frankly, in one respect I am surprised ADSX shares gained only 4 cents on the news Thursday. I mean, those of us blessed to be making good money could have picked up 1,000 shares for less than $500. Sinner that I am, I have lost more than that in a night of playing the slots at Atlantic City. In another respect, I'm not surprised that ADSX shares didn't ascend heavenward Thursday. Many potential investors might have kept their wallets in their pockets in the belief that otherwise, they'd be contributing to the furtherance of "Big Brother Is Watching You." Inexplicable Sun Microsystems, a big tech company that everyone has heard of, trades on the Nasdaq system under the symbol SUNW. Last year, SUNW reported revenues of more than $18 billion. Kasenna Inc. is a small, private software developer that few people have heard of, other than the immediate members of the Kasenna Family. If Sun Micro decided to invest money in Kasenna, you'd think Kasenna would want the world to know about it. And, up to a point, the little firm would. As the press release this morning began: "MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 5/PRNewswire/-Kasenna today announced a strategic investment in the company by Sun Microsystems." And that was the end of that. Nowhere in the foot-and-a-half-long release did it say how much money Sun Micro had decided to invest. And I'm asking myself, "What are these people at Kasenna, stupid? Dothey need me to do media relations for them?" Or, "Are they devious? Sun Micro, in fact, invested only $232.15." Or, for some reason, a bullying Sun Micro forbade Kasenna from making public the amount of the investment. "Do that, Kasenna, and you'll never develop software in Mountain View again." Makes you wonder, doesn't it? (Jim Murphy can be reached at (201) 938-2145 or Jim.Murphy@DowJones.Com) (END) DOW JONES NEWS 04-05-02 01:30 PM