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Apple may introduce the new iPhone5 in September, along with a lower-end iPhone with less technological capability, a pre-paid voice plan option, and a price tag of about $349, according to a Deutsche Bank analyst note.

“With Nokia and RIM struggling, the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market (i.e. $300 to $500 category),” said analyst Chris Whitmore, in a note. “Apple could further segment the market by offering an unlocked iPhone 4S with a pre-paid voice offering. We’d expect this product to look a lot like the low-end iPod touch with wireless connectivity built in.”

Shares of Apple are off their highs this year as some investors were disappointed the iPhone5 wasn’t introduced in June. However, the stock is up almost 6 percent from its 2011 low, in part because of the speculation brought to light by the Deutsche Bank note. Also, Morgan Stanley reiterated its "overweight" rating on the stock Monday.

Shares of Research In Motion and Nokia are both off more than 40 percent so far this year, because of customers switching to the iPhone and devices running Google’s Android system. If prepaid iPhones catch on in emerging markets, it could be the knockout punch for Nokia.

Apple now has 205 carriers in 98 countries, according to Deutsche Bank, giving it access to a total of 1.5 billion subscribers, including 1 billion pre-paid customers. While still No. 1, Nokia’s international smartphone market share has plummeted to just 25 percent from as much as 45 percent three years ago. Apple is now second at 17 percent, according to Whitmore.

“It is a good move and has been the subject of speculation,” said Stephen Weiss of Short Hills Capital. “They have multiple products at multiple price points in iPods, laptops and PCs hitting various levels of the consumer, so it is reasonable to expect them to do the same here, particularly if they want to go after the business customer where cost is more of an issue.”

BlackBerry models account for 13 percent of the smartphone market and a lot of that has been propped up by information technology departments unwilling to spend the money to switchover to Apple’s technology. That attitude may be starting to change, however, as the economy enters its third year of recovery. Total U.S. enterprise and public sector IT spending is expected to climb 5.6 percent in 2011, much faster than he economy, International Data Corp. reported in a release Monday.

To be sure, the introduction of the lower-end handset could backfire on Apple, some traders said, as it hits margins and reduces the cachet of Apple’s stylish and innovative products.

“Offering old hardware without the technological capability to run the software at the same quality as the most recent products only opens them up for criticism, which they don't take well,” said Dan Nathan, options trader and creator of RiskReversal.com.

Apple’s gross margins are the envy of the tech hardware space at 41 percent, compared to 29 percent for Nokia, as the Finland-based company allowed its generic phones to become commodity over the last few years.

“We see this often in retailing that the brand with such great ‘cachet’ has to be careful that they do not get an image as cheap,” said Joe Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim brokerage. “As long as Apple keeps its high-end technology as impressive as it is, they can retain their cool factor better than anyone. In doing so, they can also use the different phones as a product ladder so that you can ‘graduate’ up to the best phone.”

( Source: CNBC )

Children as young as eight years old are invited to Las Vegas this summer to learn that it's cool to be a hacker -- provided they don't cheat, steal or commit other crimes.

The first-ever Defcon Kids conference in August is a chance for children between eight and 16 to learn the skills of computer hackers, as well as protect themselves against cyber attacks.

It will also be an opportunity for U.S. federal agents to size up tech-savvy youngsters who could form the next generation of digital crime-fighters.

Police, intelligence agents, military officers and the consultants working for them have long attended as well as recruited from Defcon, the world's biggest gathering of hackers held in Las Vegas every summer.

This year, against a backdrop of high-profile cyber attacks on targets ranging from Google Inc to the International Monetary Fund, Defcon organizers are holding Defcon Kids on August 6 and 7 alongside the main conference. Kids need to register in advance at www.defconkids.org to be able to participate in some conference activities.

One goal of Defcon Kids is to convince children from age 8 to 16 that it is cool to be a "white hat," or benevolent hacker who uses computer skills to fight crime.

"Black hats," in contrast, work on the dark side of the Internet, using their skills to steal money, identities and other perform nefarious deeds.

"Hacking isn't just fun and games. It isn't about breaking into systems," said a 16-year-old who goes by the hacker handle "FS." He will teach Defcon Kids how to protect against Internet spies who sniff wireless networks for private data. (www.defconkids.org).

"It's about securing yourself and the people around you," said FS, who gets paid by companies to conduct penetration testing, which is breaking into computer networks to uncover vulnerabilities.

Like many hackers, FS uses a handle rather than his real name to protect himself from being targeted by black hats.

Such names have special meaning for hackers, who often keep their significance secret. FS stands for forty seven, which is code for the initials of his real name, which FS declined to disclose.

HACKING TOOLS

Law enforcement around the world is scrambling to combat cyber crime, and each week seems to brings a new attack -- from activists promoting a cause, to more serious security breaches and data thefts at Sony Corp or Citigroup.

Some of the world's most elite hackers have volunteered to teach at Defcon Kids, running sessions on basic computer programing, lock picking and puzzle solving. A course in hardware hacking, for example, will show children how to modify a circuit board so it plays the game "Simon."

"CyFi," a 10-year-old Girl Scout whose identity has been stolen twice, is helping to organize the conference. Her personal agenda is to network with other young hackers, advance her lock-picking skills and meet real federal agents while she's there.

"Most of the time when people think of hacking, they think 'Oh that's a bad thing,'" she said. "I want to get more people to become good hackers and to have fun doing it."

While she has few friends who share her passion for hacking, CyFi is a fan of a website called CryptoKids (www.nsa.gov/kids) managed by the National Security Agency.

The highly secretive NSA, which runs spying operations for the U.S. government, tries to make hacking cool on the website by offering for download coloring books for the young, video games, and tips on breaking codes for older hackers.

Cartoon characters on the website include the code-breaking team of Crypto Cat and Decipher Dog, as well as Cyndi, a fictional hardware hacker who loves to figure out how gadgets work.

Defcon Kids will learn how white hats use Google's search engine to find confidential information that is exposed over the public Internet. But they won't cross the line into illegal activity by forcing their way into private sites.

"It will give the kids an avenue to practice certain skills without the fear of getting into trouble," said Chris Hadnagy, one of the Defcon Kids instructors.

That doesn't mean they won't have fun.

"We want to expose kids at an earlier age to the wonders of taking things apart and making them do things that they weren't intended to do," said Jeff Moss, Defcon's founder.

( Source: Reuters )

Online video site Hulu has been approached by a potential buyer and is weighing whether to sell itself, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The approach presents another decision point for the jointly owned company, which has shown an unclear strategy and last year spent six months planning an initial public offering before dropping the plan.

The development has encouraged the Hulu board to engage with the banking community to help handle the approach from the "serious" buyer and other potential offers, the person said.

Hulu is jointly owned by News Corp, Walt Disney, Comcast Corp's NBC Universal and private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

The acquisition approach has not been made by any of the current equity holders, the person said. The buyer is expected to be either a strategic buyer or private equity. No decision has been made about whether the board is prepared to sell the company or not.

Hulu is best known for offering free online access to popular TV shows like 'The Office' and 'Modern Family' from its strategic owners but last July launched a paid subscription service as a way to expand its offerings to include TV shows from other programming partners like Viacom.

Though Hulu has been immensely popular with users, its owners have come under increasing pressure from their cable and satellite distribution partners reluctant to pay premium dollars to carry content that is being offered for free on the Web.

Added to that has been the unwillingness of many program makers to put their shows up on a free site with an advertising model that is yet to prove itself with premium video.

Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said in April that Hulu is on track to nearly double its revenue to $500 million and bring its paid subscriber count to more than 1 million this year.

However, Hulu's stiffest competition online is from Netflix,which now has more than 20 million paying subscribers in the United States.

Last year, Hulu had been planning to raise $200 million to $300 million in a public offering that would have valued the company at about $2 billion. But the company backed out of the plan in favor of a focus on new subscription models.

A Hulu representative was not immediately available. Wall Street Journal first reported news of Hulu's possible sale.

Women who get silicone breast implants are likely to need additional surgery within eight to 10 years to address complications such as rupture of the device, U.S. health regulators said on Wednesday.

The Food and Drug Administration will work to revise safety labels for silicone breast implants after reviewing data from several long-term studies, which also showed that implants had a small link to a rare form of cancer.

"The key point is that breast implants are not lifetime devices," said Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

"The longer you have the implant, the more likely you are to have complications."

There were almost 400,000 breast enlargement or reconstruction procedures in the United States in 2010, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. That includes silicone and saline implants.

Post-approval studies showed up to 70 percent of all women who received reconstruction surgery, and up to 40 percent of those getting an enlargement procedure using silicone, needed another surgery within eight to 10 years.

The FDA first approved silicone gel-filled breast implants in 2006 for Allergan's Natrelle and Mentor Worldwide's MemoryGel. Since then, the manufacturers and the agency have been conducting studies to review post-operation safety.

The FDA said the most common complications were hardening of the breast area around the implant, additional surgeries and rupture or deflation of the implant.

Other local complications include implant wrinkling, asymmetry, scarring, pain, and infection at the incision site.

The studies also found a small correlation between implants and anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (ALCL), a form of cancer that affects about 3,000 Americans a year.

From 1997 to 2010, there were about 60 cases of ALCL reported for women worldwide out of about 5 million to 10 million women who had breast implants, Shuren said.

"If there's a true association between that cancer and implants, it's very, very rare," he said.

However, the FDA said most long-term studies confirmed initial results, and that most risks of implants were well known.

"Most women reported high levels of satisfaction with their body image and the shape, feel and size of their implants," the FDA report said, adding that women should monitor their breasts for the rest of their lives to make sure there are no problems.

The FDA is releasing a report on the safety of silicone implants, as well as an updated website, brochure and handout for patients considering implants, and a video about ALCL.

India's heretofore "insatiable" appetite for precious metals will need to find a new adjective to describe it, after it surged by an absolutely unprecedented 500% in May MoM, and 222% compared to May of 2010, touching on a massive $8.96 billion in imports in the past month. Putting this number in perspective the yearly average Indian imports are about $22 billion: in one month the country will have imported about half its average quota for the year! And while inflation may have much to do with it, events like the Sensex flash crash from last night certainly are not helping matters: "The gold story is puzzling" added financial analyst A S Kirolar. "Consumers are shying away from stocks and bonds and heading to safe assets like gold and real estate, but one cannot understand this given the meagre 12% growth in imports of petroleum and oil products." Granted demand is not just at the retail level as ever more institutions are buying up gold: "Analysts maintained that India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India's decision to grant licenses to seven more banks to import bullion has helped push up demand. Karur Vysya Bank, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, Punjab and Sind Bank, South Indian Bank, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore were added to the list. As of the start of 2011, some 30 banks in India have been granted permission to import gold and silver. Jewellers are getting easy supplies which is also helping push up demand. Moreover, the flow of scrap is also expected to fall from a yearly average of 200 tonnes, which could again boost imports, underlining the insatiable appetite of the Indian consumer." Add ongoing Chinese demand for PMs, and one can see why calls for an imminent gold crash absent a global deflationary vortex are largely overblown.

"Even as inflation and a widening trade deficit to $15 billion in May continues to weigh on the minds of Indian investors, the demand for fresh gold has continued to grow. This is very confusing, especially when one sees it against the backdrop of a 400% rise in the value of the rupee over the last decade," said bullion analyst Anand Patnaik with a brokerage firm.

India's commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma recently released trade figures. India's imports have surged to a 4-year high at a scorching pace of 54% mainly due to rising oil prices and a surge in gold imports.

The country's imports have jumped to $40.9 billion, which has resulted in the gap between imports and exports widening to $15 billion – a 67% increase which is the largest since August 2008, prompting the government authorities to caution that India's trade deficit for 2011-12 could touch a record $145-150 billion.

Minister Sharma pointed out that exports of iron ore were down given the ban on exports imposed by the country. Imports in pearls and precious stones, however, have risen 24.6% to $ 5.20 billion, gold and silver by 222% to $ 13.5 billion and iron and steel by 13% to $ 1.80 billion, he said.

But the true cause of this endless demand is and always will be the threat of central bank hijacked purchasing power :

"People in India have accepted high inflation as a reality of life," said Rajesh Shukla of the centre for Macro Consumer Research. Noting that Indians tend to use gold as a hedge against inflation, Shukla said this would be partly responsible for the spike in imports.

He added that high imports reflected a strong demand for the yellow metal, despite the weakening of the rupee.

The Indian rupee fell to its lowest in three weeks on Monday weighed down by losses in domestic shares and the euro, with dollar demand from oil companies also adding pressure.

"Bidding from oil companies is keeping the rupee lower. All of last week, the rupee depreciated. Hiking of key interest rates has further weakened the rupee," said a forex dealer at a national bank.

And that's merely the anchor for current gold prices at over $1500 even as stocks continue to sink. Once the Fed announced Operation Twist 2 either on Wednesday, or in one or two month's time, the PM complex will explode, reaching $2000 in no time whatsoever.