by The Editors on May 5, 2008
The biggest, most important tech conference (if you judge it by its attendees), D: All Things Digital will be back in Carlsbad at the Aviara Four Seasons Resort May 27-29, 2008.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner. Yahoo’s Jerry Yang. . . . All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time.
Looks like this is going to be an even better party to crash than last year.
[Link: D: All Things Digital]
by The Editors on May 1, 2008
Days after giving our favorite Carlsbad-based life sciences company a completely uninformed “buy” rating, Invitrogen’s board of directors announces that the stock is going to split.
The stock split will be distributed May 27 to shareholders of record as of May 16. . . .Shares of Invitrogen (nasdaq: IVGN – news – people ) rose 51 cents to $94.08 in after-hours electronic trading, after falling 35 cents to close at $93.57 in the regular trading session.
We may wait until after the split to see where the stock settles out.
[Link: Forbes.com]
by The Editors on April 29, 2008
Our favorite life sciences company, Carlsbad’s Invitrogen, just announced that its first quarter profits have doubled since the first quarter of 2007. Looks like CEO Greg Lucier is worth every penny of his package.
Analysts have attributed this encouraging bottom line to improved profit margins, share buybacks and lower taxes. So much so that the Carlsbad, California-based company did better than the $334.5m in revenue analysts had been predicting. . . . Looking ahead to full-year 2008, the company said that revenue growth was expected, ‘in percentage terms to be in the high single digits.’ This is up from a previous forecast for mid-single-digit growth.
If we knew anything about the stock market we’d probably give Invitrogen a strong buy rating.
[Link: Lab Technologist]
by The Editors on April 22, 2008
A Carlsbad man, Dr. Jackson Streeter, is working on an investigative light therapy that he says can help save injured brain cells, specifically in cases of nerve and spinal cord injuries, as well as Parkinson’s disease. The company is called PhotoThera and it’s device works like this:
A hand-held probe delivers an infrared energy signal into the brain. It stimulates mitochondria, which provide energy to each living cell. The mitochondria in neurons shut down when the brain is injured. “When that energy transfer takes place, it keeps cells alive inside the brain that might otherwise die,” Dr. Streeter says.
We wouldn’t mind trying to rescue some of our damaged brain cells. Streeter hopes to get FDA approval by next year.
[Link: New4jax.com]
by The Editors on April 4, 2008
Time Warner Cable apparently announced today that we’ll be getting six new high definition channels in our lineup starting Tuesday April 8. While we’d be much happier with “OnDemand” that functioned (though after calling four times and having the box replaced twice we’ve pretty much given up on that), more HD is always good.
The new channels include: CNN HD, channel 726; Discovery HD, channel 743; Animal Planet HD, channel 764; Food Network HD, channel 751; HGTV HD, channel 753 and The Learning Channel HD, channel 755.
“By increasing our HD channel offerings, Time Warner Cable ensures customers can get the most out of their HDTVs and watch what they want, when they want, in HD,” Marc Farrar, vice president of public affairs for TWC’s San Diego division, said in a statement.
We don’t know about the most, Marc, but we’ll definitely have six more channels. Thanks.
[Link: Multichannel News]
by The Editors on March 11, 2008
Kind of looks like we’re overloading a little on Carlsbadistan business stories, but for some reason we’re finding them interesting today.
Like this one for example: Entriq is a Carlsbad-based company (owned by South Africa’s Naspers) that claims to be the only “all-in-one pay media solution that makes turning your content into cash as simple as DragDropSell.” Entriq has just purchased DayPort, a company that “helps media companies syndicate, manage and monetize their online video properties” for $10 million.
Guy Tennant (click here for an interview), Entriq chief operating officer, said DayPort’s advertising-supported model will add an important dimension in the culture of Naspers, whose biggest business is managing pay TV programming. “We’ve been all about premium content,” he said. “What we haven’t done yet is work on the free content side.”
And to think, all this is going on while we’re out surfing. We love living in Silicon Beach.
[Editors’ Note: Apparently, we were surfing a little too much as we failed to mention (or notice) that the sale was actually for between “$10 and $50 million.” Probably on the higher end. Thanks, John.]
[Link: The Red Herring]
by The Editors on March 2, 2008
Our favorite life sciences company Invitrogen has announced that it showed a $41.1 million profit for the fourth quarter of 2007. That’s “compared with a loss of $100.2 million, or $2.03 a share, in the same quarter 2006.” Congratulations! Some of Carlsbad’s golf companies should take note.
Revenue rose 12 percent to $336.4 million. Analysts had expected $327 million. . . . Shares of Invitrogen were up $2.87 in after-hours trading following the company’s announcement. The stock had closed at $83.43, down $1.57.
They also settled a lawsuit with one of their competitors.
[Link: San Diego Union-Tribune]
by The Editors on January 18, 2008
According to the Job opportunities website at Apple, it looks like the company is preparing to open a new retail store at The Forum in Carlsbad.
Currently, the company is looking for people to fill the following positions: Store Manager, Assistant Store Manager, Business Consultant, Cashier, Concierge, Creative, Inventory Control Specialist, Mac Genius, Mac Specialist, Operator, and Personal Shopping Specialists.
We spend so much time in the Fashion Valley Apple store that we might as well cut the commute and get paid at the same time.
[Link: Apple Computers]
by The Editors on January 10, 2008
Our favorite Carlsbad life sciences firm, Invitrogen, has done some shopping. They recently bought CellzDirect, a company that “focuses on hepatocytes that are widely used to predict a compound’s effect on liver metabolism” for $57 million in cash.
“CellzDirect’s high-value products and services will greatly complement Invitrogen’s market-leading portfolio of complete cell systems, including primary cells, media, matrices and growth factors,” said Greg Lucier, Invitrogen’s chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement. “The purchase of CellzDirect follows our strategy of investing in high growth areas of the market, specifically specialty cell systems.”
We’re don’t even know enough to comment on it, but Lucier makes it sound great.
[Link: Local Tech Wire]
by The Editors on January 8, 2008
Carlsbad-based Luminous Medical has developed a new glucose measurement system for hospital patients that the medical equipment world is raving about.
Luminous has now developed what it claims to be the first-of-its-kind automated glucose measurement system that continually takes blood samples from a patient’s IV system, analyses the blood using near-infrared spectroscopy, then sends the blood back to the patient. . . . The net result is a system that accurately and precisely reports patient glucose readings without the need for frequent calibration and allows for automated, frequent measurements.
While we’re guessing few people understand any of this, it is just one more reminder of how Carlsbad-based high-tech businesses are making the world a better place.
[Link: The Engineer]
RSS Feed-Posts