Manikandan Raman

Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE:AMD) could guide its first quarter revenues to decline 4 percent to 8 percent sequentially when it reports its fourth-quarter results on Jan.19, according to a Wall Street analyst.

Shares of Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) could surpass $60 in the first half of 2012, helped by 3G growth and strong smartphone adoption.

ASUS' Eee Pad Transformer Prime is expected to hit the U.S. market in 2012 but a rumor suggests the 32GB Amethyst Gray version could be made available to certain pre-ordered customers after Christmas.

February gold hit a fresh six-month low of $1,523.90 per ounce overnight. Gold has been under intense pressure since it closed at $1,741.80 per ounce Dec. 7.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. said it sold more than one million Kindle devices per week during the month of December, implying that it might have sold more than 4 million Kindles during December.

Colorado could face a persistent structural budget imbalance for many years to come despite a recovering economy, according to Wells Fargo economists.

Many people have put gymming and getting fit as their top New Year resolution, but Britons think otherwise as majority of them believe that gymming is an unnecessary cost, according to a study by moneysupermarket.com.

BMO Capital Markets has raised its profit estimates of Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) saying the Cupertino, California-based technology giant would benefit from material upgrades of Sprint customers.

Noble Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NBL) said it has discovered natural gas at the Cyprus Block 12 prospect, offshore the Republic of Cyprus. The Cyprus A-1 well encountered approximately 310 feet of net natural gas pay in multiple high-quality Miocene sand intervals.

The year 2011 was one in which smartphones and tablets achieved a status of necessity, instead of being style statement which they used to be in the past, thanks to Apple and Google.

Oppenheimer has upgraded shares of VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW) to “outperform” from “perform” on valuation.

Ever since Motorola adopted Android ecoystem, its fortunes have changed and there is no looking back for the company.

Users with Apple devices running iOS 5 are eagerly awaiting an A5 jailbreak and Chronic Dev-team's French member, Pod2g, is already working on it.

The 2011 holiday shopping season is expected to extend at least another week, as four in ten Americans plan on hitting the stores over the next few days, according to a new Consumer Reports poll.

Tom Cruise's latest adventure as Agent Ethan Hunt - Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - released by Paramount Pictures, topped the weekend box office collections, having grossed more than $26 million during the Christmas holiday weekend (Dec. 23 - Dec. 25), according to Rentrak.

There is an interesting battle brewing among carriers providing 4G LTE services in Android smartphones. The competition is intense between the country's top two carriers - AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless.

Since Apple released its new operating system -- iOS 5 -- in October, the technology world has witnessed a series of jailbreaks.

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. (NYSE: MJN) has confirmed the safety of its Enfamil infant formula saying that new tests did not detect the presence of Cronobacter (Enterobacter sakazakii) in the product.

The U.S. Justice Department has rejected the South Carolina voter ID law, calling it discriminatory, citing concerns about the law's effect on African-American voters.

Roughly one-quarter of Americans say they would refuse a full body scan using new airport body scanners. A further 14.9 percent said new airport security measures have them concerned for their health, according to a Thomson Reuters-NPR Health Poll.

This year saw Android smartphones grow by leaps and bounds and Google Inc. release the latest version of its Operating System - Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich - in the latter half of the year.

The cloud computing is going to be the next big buzzword in 2012 as it would spread to mobile devices, mobile advertising, and wireless equipment. In other words, the Cloud could be the new operating system.

As more and more Android smartphones are coming to the market with advanced specifications, it is quite difficult to make a decision on which one to buy.

The top pre-market NASDAQ gainers are: WCA Waste Corp., Tibco Software, Career Education, IPG Photonics and Canadian Solar. The top pre-market NASDAQ losers are: Alaska Communications, Neogen, Vivus, Bed Bath & Beyond and TripAdvisor.

The battle to win the smartphone war becomes more intense with the passing of every day, given the number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) jumping into the fray and delivering devices with mind-boggling specifications.

Wedbush Securities has upgraded shares of Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU) to outperform from neutral, saying the worst is over for the company.

The fact is everyone in the financial services or wealth management business has thought about what they feel the markets will do next year. Following are the 10 market predictions for 2012 from Oliver Pursche, co-portfolio manager of GMG Defensive Beta Fund.

Several brokerages have lowered their profit estimates of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) after the business software maker reported lower-than-expected quarterly results.

Shares of automaker Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) could touch $42 in the next 12 months, driven by demand for its Model S electric car.