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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (2172)	10/21/2014 1:20:22 AM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 26439

They'll have to change the name to "IBS... International Business Services" since they don't make machines any more but for maybe Watson.

To: Gottfried who wrote (2172)	10/23/2014 12:22:32 AM
From: Kirk ©	Respond to of 26439

I originally went to UC Berkeley as a nuclear engineering and EE double major to do nuclear fusion. I changed when I found it was 30 to 50 yrs away and you really didn't get to do much but a few experiments a decade. You had to be a big shot to be in charge of the billion dollar experiments, so I switched to semiconductors where I could start doing design and experiments right away. Interesting that nearly 40 yrs have passed and still not much but this comes along and perks my interest. Does Lockheed Martin Really Have a Breakthrough Fusion Machine? Lockheed Martin says it will have a small fusion reactor prototype in five years but offers no data. By David Talbot on October 20, 2014 Lockheed Martin’s announcement last week that it had secretly developed a promising design for a compact nuclear fusion reactor has met with excitement but also skepticism over the basic feasibility of its approach. The interior of Lockheed Martin’s fusion reactor shows a series of rings used to create magnetic fields that confine plasma. Nuclear fusion could produce far more energy, far more cleanly, than the fission reactions at the heart of today’s nuclear power plants. But there are huge obstacles and no hard evidence that Lockheed has overcome them. The so-far-insurmountable challenge is to confine hydrogen plasma at conditions under which the hydrogen nuclei fuse together at levels that release a useful amount of energy. In decades of research, nobody has yet produced more energy from fusion reaction experiments than was required to conduct the experiments in the first place. ... Tom McGuire, project lead of the Lockheed effort, said in an interview that the company has come up with a compact design, called a high beta fusion reactor, based on principles of so-called “magnetic mirror confinement.” This approach tries to contain plasma by reflecting particles from high-density magnetic fields to low-density ones. Lockheed said the test reactor is only two meters long by one meter wide, far smaller than existing research reactors. “In a smaller reactor you can iterate generations quicker, incorporate new knowledge, develop faster, and make riskier design choices. That is a much more powerful development paradigm and much less capital intensive,” McGuire said. If successful, the program could produce a reactor that might fit in a tractor-trailer and produce 100 megawatts of power, he said. “There are no guarantees that we can get there, but that possibility is there.” The small team developing the reactor at the company’s skunkworks in Palmdale, California, has done 200 firings with plasma, McGuire said, but has not shown any data on the results. However, he said of the plasma, “it looks like it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.” He added that with research partners Lockheed could develop a competed prototype within five years and a commercial application within a decade. The company is even talking about how fusion reactors could one day power ships and planes. more technologyreview.com

To: Gottfried who wrote (2172)	10/27/2014 1:06:25 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26439

Intel updates server processor plan; to release Haswell-EX/EP4S in 2Q15 Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES [Monday 27 October 2014] Intel's next-generation server processors for 2015 including new Haswell-EX (Xeon E7 v3 series) and -EP4S (Xeon E5-4600 v3 series), are scheduled to be released in the second quarter of 2015, giving clients more time to transition to the new platform, according to industry sources. For the entry-level workstation and server processor industries, Intel will launch its Skylake-based products including E3-1280 v5 and E3-1200 v5 series in the third quarter and will release Broadwell LGA1150 (E3-1200 v4 series) products in the same quarter, the sources said. For its Xeon D/Atom C series SoCs, Intel plans to add the new Broadwell-DE series processors in the second quarter of 2015 to defend the micro-server industry along with processors such as the C2750 and the C2350, the sources said. Intel also plans to phase out several server processors under Itanium, Xeon, Xeon Phi and Atom between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015, the sources added. Intel updates server processor plan Photo: Michael Lee, Digitimes file photo

To: Gottfried who wrote (2172)	10/28/2014 10:31:36 AM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26439

UTEK up 6% on this news. I added at $17.50 last week Current Market Cap: $518.11M Ultratech Announces $100 Million Stock Repurchase Program SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Ultratech, Inc. (Nasdaq:UTEK) a leading supplier of lithography, laser-processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), today announced that its Board of Directors has authorized the discretionary repurchase of up to $100 million of its outstanding common stock. Arthur W. Zafiropoulo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "Our management team and Board of Directors have a strong conviction in our long-term growth prospects, and with our strong cash position, this stock repurchase authorization provides an avenue to return capital to investors and build shareholder value." Any repurchases under the new authorization may be made through open market purchases, block trades, privately negotiated transactions and/or derivative transactions, subject to market conditions and Ultratech's ongoing determination that it is the best use of available cash. Ultratech expects to use cash on hand to fund any repurchases. The repurchase authorization does not obligate Ultratech to acquire any common stock. snip.... You are subscribed to Ultratech, Inc. Investor Relations'' e-mail alerts as...