The battle for supremacy in the global smart-phone market is getting intense by the day. Now the matter has entered the courtroom. Yesterday, the largest smart-phone maker in the world, Nokia Corp. (NOK) filed a complaint against Apple Inc. (AAPL) with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple's legendary iPhone has violated as many as ten Nokia patents from 2007.   These ten patents related to technologies fundamental to making mobile handsets, which are compatible with one or more of the GSM (2G), UMTS/WCDMA (3G) and wireless LAN ( for Wi-Fi connectivity) standards. Technically these patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption for smart-phones. Nokia said that the company spent more than $60 billion in the last two decades to develop the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, consisting of 10,000 patents. So far the company has entered into patent licensing agreements ...

VeriFone Holdings Inc. (PAY) recently announced the formation of its Global Security Solutions Business Unit. This unit will focus on delivering innovative security solutions including VeriShield Protect end-to-end encryption, which protects cardholder data throughout merchant and processor systems.

The business will focus on sales, consulting and implementation of VeriShield Protect and VeriShield Retain and future initiatives are aimed at helping retailers and processors protect consumer data. VeriFone also plans to focus on reducing the complexities and costs of PCI compliance.

Based in San Jose, California, VeriFone designs, markets and services a transaction automation system that facilitates electronic payments between consumers, merchants and financial institutions. Earlier, Verfione doubled its investment in the security technology developer Semtel Corp. and announced that it will become the lead investor in a Series B financing of Semtek. Additionally, VeriFone and Semtek entered into a worldwide distribution agreement which allows VeriFone to license Semtek encryption technology to

...

BEXP, Brigham Exploration Co.

MSGI, MSGI Security Solutions Inc, MSGI.OB

PennyOmega.com Watch List!

PennyOmega.com Watch List ! for Tuesday August 11, 2009

Our Picks at PennyOmega.com for Tuesday August 11, 2009 are:

**************************************************************

BEXP, Brigham Exploration Co.

BEXP engages in the exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas reserves in the Rocky Mountains, Onshore Gulf Coast, Anadarko Basin, and west Texas.

BEXP holds property interests in the Powder River Basin located in Wyoming. It also holds property interests in the Onshore Gulf Coast consisting of the Vicksburg trend in Brooks County, Texas; Miocene and Upper Oligocene trends in Southern Louisiana; and the Frio trend in and around Matagorda County, Texas.

**Today, after Closing Bell, BEXP announced that

...

Sarah Lacy published a seminal piece yesterday on TechCrunch about the Israeli VC and entrepreneur scene.  In an article entitled, “Now that China Is the New Israel…What’s Israel?”, Lacy explores the evolution of the Israel tech industry.  From enrapture in 2000 to finishing 2008 without a single IPO and virtually no exits, Lacy questions whether Israel has just hit a bump in the road or just peaked out.

Lacy explains:

Israeli companies have raised just over $10 billion since the beginning 2001, but acquisitions and IPOs have returned just over $860 million over that almost eight-and-a-half-year period…

Somewhere along the way, the entrepreneur scene here lost its mojo.

So I don’t say this to trash Israel, but facts are facts. In sheer numbers, Israel’s place on the global scale of investing has been dwarfed by China, and matched by the United

...

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-Gb4DZlL6YZX8HuZFSHh8L-dwjU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-Gb4DZlL6YZX8HuZFSHh8L-dwjU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pLast week you noted that consumer and a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/consumer-pessimism-receding-investors.html"investor confidence were up significantly/a. But taking a closer look at the data reveals just how significant the confidence bounce was.br /br /In fact according to the archive of a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/indexes/rasmussen_consumer_index"Rasmussen Confidence Index data/a, it only took five days last week for a href="http://legacy.rasmussenreports.com/rasmussen_index.htm"the daily index/a to make up almost all of the ground it had slowly lost over the past five months. (Click to enlarge chart)br /br /a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jlRX6zR7UgM/ScG_xpHp-aI/AAAAAAAAAUU/MAYFqHcJ4Oo/s1600-h/5days.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 398px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jlRX6zR7UgM/ScG_xpHp-aI/AAAAAAAAAUU/MAYFqHcJ4Oo/s400/5days.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314739894846355874" border="0" //abr /You've seen how a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/03/retail-growth-is-indeed-leading-us-to.html"consumer spending drives recovery/a. Here's just one more data point leading us out of the winter doldrums into a much a style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);" href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/evidence-points-to-recessions-end-by.html"cheerier spring and summer./adiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good ...

The markets continued to rally as the Dow Jones ended up 1.23% at 7486.58 while the S&P and NASDAQ closed up 2.09% and 1.99% respectively. The 10 year saw yields shrink as news that the Fed will increase its open market purchase pushed prices up. Yields closed around 2.55%. Gold and oil settled up at $49 and $929.50 as investors pushed funds into these commodities.

Big news from the tech sector today as International Business Machines [IBM: 91.95, -0.96 (-1.03%)] is in talks to purchase the ailing hardware maker Sun Microsystems [JAVA: 8.89, +3.92 (+78.87%)].  The two Companies have not outright stated anything, but sources close to both sides say an agreement is fast approaching. Could this be a strategic maneuver for IBM as competitors are beefing up their offerings in the data center space?   After all, CEO Palmisano did say he is now on

...

      As the fallout in the financial markets continues to unwind, a number of companies have bolted down balance sheets and insured some cash flows by cutting their once attractive dividends.  In the past month we have seen the likes of General Electric [GE: 10.32, +0.32 (+3.20%)], JP Morgan Chase [JPM: 27.11, +1.97 (+7.84%)], Bank of America [BAC: 7.67, +1.40 (+22.33%)], Pfizer [PFE: 14.25, -0.01 (-0.07%)] and Alcoa [AA: 5.48, -0.11 (-1.97%)] all cut these coveted yields, proving that this trend has extended into and beyond the financial sector.  However, one sector that has maintained their healthy yields has been the utilities sector.  While equity prices in the sector have been beaten down with the overall market, there is still a basket of companies that have the means to continue redistributing lucrative cash flows to investors.  By no means are

...

Notes from the

Investment Underground

Wednesday, March 18, 2008 Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Plastic Paddies… The now and future inflation… Spendaholics Anonymous… Waiting for the Treasuries bubble to pop… The perversity of ‘self-stimulation’… Paul Volcker’s two-tier financial system… Notes in “Fantasyland”… Going to ground in Ireland… And more!

*** Paddy’s Day celebrations are over. Yesterday, the streets of Buenos Aires filled up with lots of Latin “plastic paddies.” All very strange indeed. More on this below.

*** This morning, the Financial Times reports that Mr. Market is waiting to see whether the Fed will start buying long-term U.S. Treasuries to further ‘stimulate’ the economy.

And with rates at near zero levels, it’s running out of ammo. Talking to CNBC yesterday, Dr. Marc Faber, editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report said

...

Zix Corporation (NASDAQ: ZIXI) had $1.2 million in new orders for its e-mail encryption software in the third quarter. In a report issued this week, CEO Rick Spurr highlighted the new orders as one of several postive trends for ZixCorp.

Those new orders were among $5.2 million in total orders in the 3Q, with a 95-percent renewal rate for current customers and clients. The company projects a cash balance of $13.1 million to end the third quarter, up slightly over $13 million in the 2nd quarter.

Those second quarter results are to be released after the close of financial markets on Oct. 28. Spurr said figures this year show the company is positioned well for future growth.

“The positive cash flow from operations for the third quarter 2008 highlights the corner we’ve turned this year when compared with the $550,000 cash burn for the third quarter of last year,” Spurr said. “This …

...