Category Archives: oud

Apple Supplier NXP May Beat Tesla Partner Nvidia To Autonomous Car

Apple ( AAPL ) chip supplier NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) batted the iPhone slowdown Monday by unveiling a radar, lidar and vision-sending engine that could beat Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) partner Nvidia ( NVDA ) to the autonomous-car punch. The product platform was revealed during NXP’s annual user forum in Austin, Texas, and comes as Nvidia stock has hit record highs the past two trading days on Wall Street after reporting eye-popping Q1 earnings after the close Thursday. Nvidia touted its machine-learning sales for the Q1 beat. Machine-learning, analysts and companies say, will be essential to creating safe, fully autonomous vehicles. NXP’s BlueBox engine incorporates “embedded intelligence and machine-learning required for complete situation assessments,” the company says. On the stock market today , NXP stock rose 2.3%, following its BlueBox announcement, to 84.97, putting it up a fraction for the year. Shares had hit a 19-month low during the February dip that hurt most Apple suppliers. Apple’s iPhone shipment decline has chip investors worried about the next semiconductor frontier, as smartphone sales hit the brakes. But NXP CEO Rick Clemmer recently told IBD that 40% of his company’s revenue stem from automotive sales. For its Q1 ended April 3, 21% of NXP’s sales stemmed from its smartphone segment. The BlueBox engine uses NXP silicon and software at each advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) node and incorporates radar, lidar and vision-sensing to complete a 360-degree world model around the vehicle. “This functionality greatly improves car safety by both managing and preventing emergency situations,” NXP says. And “unlike closed systems focused only on vision and other single-sensor data streams, the NXP BlueBox engine for autonomous vehicle is an open-source platform.” Programmers can customize BlueBox to their specifications, NXP says. The product already is in hands of customers of four of the world’s top five carmakers, NXP says. It has been shipping since September but now is broadly available.

Twitter Looks At New Ways To Make Tweets More Compelling

Twitter ( TWTR ) will soon stop counting photos and links in its 140-character limit for tweets, a change that could happen in the next two weeks, a news report says. As reported by Bloomberg , citing a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named, the idea is to give users more flexibility on the site. It’s one of several steps being pondered by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey as he looks for ways to rejuvenate the company, which is struggling to recharge user growth and to gain online ad sales vs. leaders Facebook ( FB ) and Alphabet’s Google ( GOOGL ). Reports surfaced in January that Twitter was looking to allow tweets longer than the traditional 140 character limit, perhaps to as many as 10,000 characters. Many core Twitter users complained that such a move would turn the short-messaging service into a Facebook clone. The photo/link tweak offers a way to increase the effective character count without changing Twitter’s character. According to Bloomberg, executives have spent the last few months emphasizing how Twitter is a destination for live events and discussion. Removing the character requirement for links and photos might encourage users to add more media to their posts. Twitter stock rose 1.4% in the stock market today , to 14.29. Shares touched an all-time low of 13.90 on May 3 and are down 38% this year. After the market close, Twitter announced that Debra Lee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BET Networks, will join its board of directors. Twitter has been criticized for its lack of diversity on its board.

Microsoft Stock Rated Hold, Seen Near Full Value In Choppy Market

Investment bank Canaccord Genuity initiated coverage of Microsoft ( MSFT ) on Monday with a hold rating, saying the short-term risk-reward looks balanced for the software giant. Canaccord analyst Richard Davis set a price target of 55 on Microsoft stock. Shares rose 1.5%, to 51.83, on the stock market today . Microsoft stock hit a record high of 56.85 on Dec. 29. Microsoft has “attractive long-term prospects,” Davis said in a research report. “We believe Microsoft will continue to make a significant transformation into a much better firm. “We are quite optimistic that most of Microsoft’s growth initiatives will succeed, thereby propelling the stock ahead faster than the overall market.” In the best-case scenario, Microsoft’s renaissance could be similar to IBM ’s ( IBM ) in the 1990s or perhaps even Apple ’s ( AAPL ) in the 2000s, he said. Microsoft is moving from licensing desktop and server software to providing cloud computing services. Davis said he is optimistic about the direction Microsoft is headed, but said he’s cautious because of the choppy market of late. After dropping coverage of Microsoft more than a decade ago, Davis said he wrestled for the appropriate rating in resuming coverage. “We were ready to put a buy on MSFT,” Davis said. “Instead, we took pause after last month’s adequate quarter and slightly disappointing guide. Product and business model transitions are never as linear as analysts project and investors hope, so last quarter could be just a wiggle in fundamentals.” Microsoft stock could go sideways for the next one to three quarters, he said. RELATED: Microsoft Stock Plummets On March-Quarter Miss, Weak Guidance Windows 10 Adoption Slows As PC Users Resist Upgrade Push