Week in review: Best Buy takes a tumble

The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

Apps for Google’s Android mobile operating system are tricky to count. Estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000. Half get fewer than 50 downloads. (Dec. 16, 2010)

Best Buy shares are pounded after the company badly misses Q3 targets and lowers guidance for Q4.
Wall Street has a “management credibility issue” with Best Buy, one analyst says. (Dec. 14, 2010)

Dell hopes to do with Compellent Technologies what it did with EqualLogic.
The acquisition is Dell’s second big data-storage deal in two years. (Dec. 13, 2010)

Week in review: Video game sales rebound with Activision’s ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’

Strong sales of Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and Microsoft’s Kinect motion-controlled gaming system for the Xbox 360 helped the video game industry return to growth last month.
U.S. video game sales at retail rose 8% from a year ago to $2.99 billion in November. That ended seven straight months of year-over-year declines in traditional video game sales.
The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

Activision’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and Microsoft’s Kinect led the video game industry back to growth in November. (Dec. 9, 2010)

Left at the altar by 3Par, Dell is courting another storage company to acquire in Compellent Technologies. (Dec. 9, 2010)

Monotype Imaging makes acquisition to boost its presence in smart phones. The font firm’s stock is on a roll. (Dec. 8, 2010)

Adobe Systems is out with Acrobat X, but the electronic document software is playing a smaller role for the firm overall these days. (Dec. 3, 2010)

Panasonic filmed this year’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 3-D, but the public won’t see it. (Nov. 29, 2010)

Investors are adopting Apple’s iPad for doing research and making trades. (Nov. 27, 2010)

Black Friday madness. Would you wait 18 hours in the cold and rain to save $300 off a Toshiba laptop costing $650?
Notebook PCs were the hot item at the Best Buy store in Norwalk, Conn., today. Practical electronics are in this Christmas. (Nov. 26, 2010)

Investors cheer as Netflix adds U.S. streaming-only option and raises DVD-by-mail prices. Redbox could benefit though. (Nov. 23, 2010)

Week in review: Victoria’s Secret models discuss their favorite smart phones

The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

How Victoria’s Secret uses its holiday fashion show to build brand awareness for the Christmas shopping season. (Nov. 20, 2010)

Dell shares jump as investors react to the PC maker’s improved profit margin and strong enterprise sales. (Nov. 19, 2010)

Funding woes short-circuit the Robot Hall of Fame.
DaVinci Medical Robot, iRobot’s Roomba and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator among robots in Hall of Fame limbo. (Nov. 18, 2010)

U.S. cable TV operators lost 741,000 basic video customers in the third quarter. Economy and over-the-top TV blamed. (Nov. 17, 2010)

Apple’s deal to sell Beatles music means journalists can finally use all the song puns they’ve been saving up.
Beatles joining iTunes was inevitable. Only a matter of time for the rest of the big holdouts. (Nov. 16, 2010)

Michael Jordan tops in basketball and, now, video games.
Take-Two Interactive Software’s “NBA 2K11,” in which Jordan is featured, was the top-selling game in October. (Nov. 16, 2010)

IBD survey: Apple’s iPad a hot tool for investors. (Nov. 12, 2010)

Victoria’s Secret lingerie models torn: iPhone or BlackBerry. (Nov. 11, 2010)

U.S. Supreme Court noobs will pwn either the video game industry or parents groups after hearing violent games case on Nov. 2. (Nov. 1, 2010)

Week in review: Microsoft Kinect hits stores

Microsoft has been getting some good news lately. First, it posted great results for its fiscal first quarter. Then it launched its much-anticipated Kinect motion-controlled video game system for its Xbox 360 console.
The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

More smart phones using OLED displays means a revenue boost for Universal Display Corp. UDC expects video on smart phones to drive OLED adoption. (Nov. 4, 2010)

Profile of the Connecticut men who created the Sunfish sailboat. (Nov. 4, 2010)

Universal Electronics stock way up after its purchase of a Chinese remote-control company. (Nov. 4, 2010)

Microsoft needs Kinect to be a big success and spur sales of Xbox 360s and video game software. “Dance Central” from Viacom’s Harmonix unit expected to be killer game title. (Nov. 3, 2010)

Microsoft posts stellar results thanks to Windows and Office. Stock up over 2% today. (Oct. 29, 2010)

Coinstar’s Redbox is taking a cautious approach to streaming video. It’s talking with partners to launch in 2011. (Oct. 29, 2010)

Microsoft can’t seem to get investors interested in its stock no matter what it does. (Oct. 27, 2010)

Sony is moving a lot of PlayStation Move. (Oct. 21, 2010)

Week in review: Netflix kicks butt; Apple debuts new MacBook Air, other products

The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

Most Americans still watch most TV shows the old-fashioned way – in real time on their TVs. (Oct. 21, 2010)

Apple debuts instant-on MacBook Air notebook computer, new iLife software and Mac App Store, also previews Mac OS X Lion operating system. (Oct. 20, 2010)

Netflix posts strong third-quarter subscriber growth and retention; investors pleased. (Oct. 20, 2010)

Apple’s iPad and iPhone making strides attracting corporate customers. (Oct. 19, 2010)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs schools his rivals during a surprise appearance on the company’s Q4 earnings call. He rags on Research in Motion and Google the most. (Oct. 18, 2010)

Apple beats Wall Street’s forecast for Q4 earnings and sales, but disappoints on iPad sales and gross margin. (Oct. 18, 2010)

Week in review: Microsoft’s ‘Halo: Reach,’ Xbox 360 dominate September video game sales

Microsoft, Apple, PC shipments and video game sales were all in the news this week.
The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

Used video games, rentals, digital downloads, social networking and mobile games generated $2.75 billion in the first half of 2010. (Oct. 15, 2010)

Microsoft is the big winner in September video game sales with “Halo: Reach” and Xbox 360. (Oct. 14, 2010)

Apple stock hits $300. Some think it’s still attractively priced due to growth opportunities from the iPhone and iPad. (Oct. 13, 2010)

PC shipments up soundly in Q3, but way below expectations, Gartner and IDC say. HP underperforms. Apple now No. 3 in U.S. (Oct. 13, 2010)

Apple’s $99 Apple TV set-top box is a hit and quickly moving past the company’s “hobby” status. (Oct. 11, 2010)

Are homepages still relevant today? Yahoo and AOL think so. But the importance of homepages has faded against search, social networking and mobile apps. (Oct. 7, 2010)

Will Microsoft and Adobe merge to form Microbe? Adobe stock was up sharply on a buyout rumor. (Oct. 7, 2010)

Week in review: Facebook movie opens

The Facebook docudrama “The Social Network” opened Friday to rave reviews.
Movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes says 97% of critics gave it a positive review. Rival review aggregator Metacritic also gives it a 97 out of 100.
The following is a roundup of my recent stories from Investor’s Business Daily at Investors.com and Click, IBD’s Tech Blog.

After “The Social Network,” Hollywood should consider telling other tech industry stories. (Oct. 1, 2010)

Apple’s iPad is showing up in more and more giveaway promotions as companies try to incent customers to buy products or use their services. (Oct. 1, 2010)

Hollywood’s negative portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is part of a trend. With “Wall Street 2” and “The Social Network,” Tinsel Town again paints business leaders as evil. (Sept. 30, 2010)

Hewlett-Packard’s new CEO may pursue the acquisition of SAP. (Sept. 30, 2010)

Lots of tablets coming to take on the iPad; some geared to consumers, some to business users. (Sept. 29, 2010)

Photo: Parody magazine cover featuring Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg by the Onion.