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Call it a comeback? Google earnings due

With the online ad business appearing to have collected itself at the bottom of the ravine, all eyes will be on Google's earnings report Thursday to see if it has figured out where the path back to the top starts.

Investors are feeling good about Google in the run-up to Thursday's third-quarter earnings conference call, sending the stock to a 52-week high on Tuesday at $527.46 before it settled back down to $526.11 at the close of trading. Five prominent financial analysts raised their expectations for Google's stock Monday amid a collective feeling that advertisers … Read more

Simple golf companion

Golf Tracker for Excel provides golfers with ways to track their statistics over many courses and matches. While the layout looked familiar and simple, its trial limitations kept us from fully testing it.

We were so instantly comfortable with the program's interface that we skipped the instructional Help file. The program is based around Excel spreadsheets, looks the part, and was a cinch to navigate. We were surprised by how professionally the entire program was designed, especially since it was built from spreadsheets, but its areas to enter golfer information, courses and scores looked great. The Scores section was … Read more

Search satisfaction high as Google rules the group

Americans are apparently quite happy with their Internet search options.

That's the conclusion reached by a survey of U.S. consumers conducted earlier this year by the American Customer Satisfaction Index and scheduled to be released Tuesday. The Internet portals and search engines category--made up of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft--scored an 83 on the index, far ahead of the score of 75 amassed by the PC industry.

Google leads the industry in both market share and customer satisfaction, posting a score of 86. That's one of the highest satisfaction scores recorded by any one company, said Larry Freed, … Read more

Baby gender predictor

MB Chinese Pregnancy Calendar helps users get a better idea of what sex a child will be, based on a very simple premise. This is a fun option for anyone thinking about starting a family.

The program's interface could not be much simpler. First, you are directed to some pull-down menus to fill in dates. From there, the results screen is static and cannot be navigated through. This program works well by keeping its navigation as simple enough as its results. An online Help file is available, though completely unnecessary. The program functions very primitively, as you need only … Read more

RIM posts strong results on 7.8M BlackBerry shipments

Updated 3:15 p.m. PDT with comments from conference call.

Research In Motion continued to post strong numbers in a bad economy, bypassing expectations for its first fiscal quarter amid sales of 7.8 million BlackBerrys.

The company on Thursday reported revenue of $3.42 billion, essentially in line with analyst estimates of $3.43 billion for the quarter, and up 52 percent from the same quarter last year. Excluding special charges related to the tax liabilities concerning stock options (perhaps this), and a one-time boost from a change in tax rules, net income was $564.4 million, or … Read more

Apple's Cook determined to stay the course

Coming off the best quarter in the company's history that didn't involve a holiday miracle, don't expect Apple to make major strategic changes.

The worst recession in decades has had a limited effect on the consumer electronics powerhouse that is the modern-day Apple. The company's second-quarter earnings results shattered Wall Street expectations, despite a relatively weak quarter for the Mac, the rise of low-cost Netbooks, and the strong performance of iPhone rivals such as Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

As the economic situation has worsened, some analysts and observers have opined that Apple needs to embrace … Read more

Apple soars during economic gloom

Updated at 1:55 p.m. PT with additional details, and at 3:20 p.m. with further details from the conference call.

Apple blew away expectations for its second fiscal quarter, reporting revenue and net income far beyond what the Wall Street community was expecting amid a poor economy.

For the period ended March 28, Apple recorded $8.16 billion in revenue, up from $7.5 billion in revenue during the same period last year. Net profit was $1.21 billion, or earnings per share of $1.33. Analysts had been expecting revenue of $7.96 billion and earnings … Read more

Apple's recession report card arrives Wednesday

Correction: This post initially misstated Apple's revenue guidance for the quarter. The midpoint of the range was $7.8 billion.

Does Apple have one more earnings surprise up its sleeve?

This week will supply a telling sign of the tech industry's economic health. Intel hinted last week that the worst was over, while Google was more cautious. Now, all eyes will be on reports from a parade of tech bellwethers--including Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, and IBM--for signs that the tech economy is indeed on the road to recovery.

But Apple's earnings announcement Wednesday may be the most closely … Read more

Yahoo adds fancy Facebook links to search results

On Thursday Yahoo rolled out deeper integration with Facebook as part of its SearchMonkey open semantic program. Now, when a person's public Facebook profile shows up in search results, there's a list of options on top that let you add them as a friend, send them a message, poke them, and see who they're friends with.

This (obviously) only works on Facebook profiles that have been made available for indexing by search engines, something Facebook introduced in late 2007. Users also have the option to opt out of getting their profiles indexed entirely.

One thing you can … Read more