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Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: etchmeister who wrote (20911)	10/19/2006 11:09:57 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Consumer Confidence Reaches New High for 2006 at 120.5 Rasmussen ^ \| October 19, 2006 rasmussenreports.com The Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures the economic confidence of consumers on a daily basis, jumped two and a half points Thursday to reach its highest level of 2006. At 120.5, the Index is up ten points from a month ago and up thirteen from three months ago. This is just the second time in calendar year 2006 that the Index has topped the 120 mark. The Rasmussen Investor Index also gained ground on Thursday, moving up two points to 145.5. That’s up 18 points from a month ago. Only twice this year has the Investor Index measured higher levels of confidence than today. (Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ....

To: etchmeister who wrote (20911)	10/19/2006 12:00:18 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 25522

Quantum entanglement demonstrated R. Colin Johnson EE Times (10/19/2006 9:14 AM EDT) PORTLAND, Ore. — The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said it has demonstrated what it claims is the world's first entangled atoms that could be used to communicate information nondestructively. By creating multiple pairings of entangled atoms, NIST scientist Dietrich Leibfried was able to transmit quantum data and verify its reception from one pair without destroying the information in the other pair. "The distance between the pairs is about a micron, but we are the first group to demonstrate high success rates in an ion trap design that we think can scaled up to build a quantum computer," Liebfried claimed. Entanglement—referred to by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance"—is a quantum phenomenon in which two particles—atoms or photons in close proximity—take on identical internal states. The synchronization, if conditions are right, can persist even if the particles are separated so that information processed by one pair is simultaneously processed by the other. Researchers believe the phenomenon could serve as the basis for enabling quantum computing capabilities. Still, almost any operation performed to determine the state of an entangled particle also destroys the synchronization, meaning that information read-out at any step in a computation destroys the synchronization of the quantum information, halting computations. Conversely, not reading out information makes the computation useless. So far, schemes to sidestep the quantum entanglement Catch-22—which involve making more than one entangled pair, performing the same operations on each, then destructively reading out only from one pair—has only been demonstrated by pairs or entangled photons. NIST claims it has demonstrated a method that works for atoms too, opening the possibility of building future quantum computers using its approach. The process, called data "purification," used two pairs of beryllium ions held in electromagnetic traps on a chip surface. The complex procedure enable the entanglement of two pairs which perform a quantum processing step, then read out the results from one pair while maintaining the integrity of original information in the first pair. The purification procedure, which worked in one out of three attempts, compared to once in a million attempts in previous experiments with photons, employed special error-correction procedures that enabled information to become more secure at each iteration, perhaps enabling long multi-step quantum computationsin future quantum computers. NIST researcher will next seek to apply the purification procedure to quantum computer development using other subsystems already designed, including ion traps. They will also demonstrate working algorithms for uncrackable data encryption or quantum teleportation of information.

To: etchmeister who wrote (20911)	10/20/2006 9:00:02 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Cell phone shipments hit highs, but profits sag By Marguerite Reardon Story last modified Thu Oct 19 16:44:47 PDT 2006 Cell phone makers are on track to ship their billionth handset by the end of 2006, but the record sales aren't translating into big profits for the top manufacturers. In aggregate, the world's leading mobile-phone makers--Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics--shipped 254.9 million phones in the third quarter of 2006, a 7.9 percent increase from the previous quarter. Shipments were up about 21 percent from the third-quarter 2005 results. If the current sales trends continue, the billionth handset will ship by the end of 2006, according to IDC. "If sales continue to be strong, they'll surpass our estimates of 998 million handsets shipped in 2006," said Ryan Reith, research analyst for IDC. "Any industry shipping 1 billion of anything, whether it's cell phones or widgets, is significant. And I think the real important thing here is to look at the growth." Reith said that handset shipments have grown every year since the market first developed back in the 1990s. Mobile-phone makers shipped 833.2 million handsets in 2005 and 714 handsets in 2004, according to IDC data. But while handset shipments are hitting records, the growth is not translating into bigger profits for the top two mobile operators. Motorola, the No. 2 maker of cell phones in the world, reported on Tuesday that its handset sales were up 39 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, to 53.7 million units. Its revenue was also up 17 percent, but the company's earnings fell 45 percent year-over-year. Nokia, the No. 1 cell phone maker, reported Thursday that it shipped 88.5 million mobile handsets in the third quarter, one-hird more than it shipped during the same quarter in 2005. Sales in that quarter were up 20 percent to 10.1 billion euros ($12.7 billion) from 8.4 billion euros ($10.6) a year ago. But Nokia reported that its net profit of 845 million euros ($1.06 billion) was down from 881 million euros ($1.11) in the same quarter a year earlier. So how can these manufacturers be shipping more units, but not growing profits? One reason, especially in Nokia's case, is that many of these cell phones are being sold at rock-bottom prices into developing markets such as China and India. Nokia strips the phones down to the basic features and sells them for less than 40 euros, or $50 apiece. This has forced the overall average selling price on Nokia handsets to about 93 euros ($117) down from 102 euros ($128) in the second quarter of this year. In an effort to stem the losses, Nokia is pushing its higher-profit margin smart phones and multimedia phones in more-developed markets like Europe. Motorola is also focusing on more profitable phones. It said during its conference call that it will expand the Razr family. The company also expects sales of its smart phone the Motorola Q to grow.