Apple’s (AAPL Quick QuoteAAPL - Free Report) event was the hottest event last week, and was accompanied with other things like Intel’s (INTC Quick QuoteINTC - Free Report) McAfee carve out, the power abuse allegation on Facebook , Alphabet’s (GOOGL Quick QuoteGOOGL - Free Report) scrapping of Project Ara, Intel’s Movidius buy and so on.

Here’s a quick look at the top stories:

Apple's Latest Mega Event

Apple’s product launch events have always been mega affairs, but strangely enough the shares haven’t always responded in kind. That’s most likely because of investors buying into the hype ahead of and during the announcement to sell off thereafter and make some quick gains.

The pattern has been noticed in past years and this year was no different. So from Aug 31 to Sep 7, the shares gained 2.23%, losing as much as 2.02% the following day. Since this creates the impression that Apple under-delivered on the product launch, let’s check out if this is true:

The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold-rated) company (You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.) did launch a revamped iPhone 7 complete with new features like water-resistance, dust-resistance, new “jet black” and “black” colors, an enhanced camera feature, a new home button, more storage, wireless ear buds…did they leave anything out?

The question then is, if all this can get people to upgrade their phones because a product launch after all is successful only when it gets people to reach into their wallets. My bet is it will since there are enough 6, 6S and older models out there, so look for the share price to bounce right back.

But Apple isn’t only the iPhone company; that is just its biggest business. It is also the second-largest seller of wrist-worn wearables despite a late entry. Apple had a number of announcements for its Watch category, including an entirely new version featuring water resistance, faster dual-core processor, brighter display, built-in GPS and AI-powered activity-tracking feature. There’s also a new Pokemon GO app,

iOS 10 and Watch OS3 are also coming. Apple fans can get more details here: Here's Everything We Learned From Today's Apple Event

Intel Security with McAfee Again

The details of the deal to carve out Intel’s security division as a JV with private equity firm TPG were announced last week. The JV will be called McAfee (the security company that Intel acquired around six years ago for $7.7 billion, or a 60% premium and later renamed Intel Security to dissociate the brand name from its infamous founder).

TPG will pay just $1.1 billion for a 51% stake, which along with new debt of $2 billion values the company at around $4.2 billion. Intel Security General Manager Christopher Young will be CEO of McAfee. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017.

The question then arises as to what Intel’s ambitions might be with respect to PC level security. It doesn’t look like Intel is totally giving up on PCs since it is retaining a 49% stake in the JV. At the same time, TPG does have a good track record of turning companies around and fresh blood, greater flexibility and focus might just do the trick. At the same time, this allows Intel management to focus on the data center, IoT and other areas that represent its strengths/opportunities.

Meanwhile, John McAfee, who sold his security business to Intel, now wants to rename MGT Capital where he is CEO as John McAfee Global Technologies. Intel says this infringes on the trademark McAfee, which he already sold off. So John McAfee sued Intel to be able to use his name. Complicated as ever, and it’s hard to tell how this case which way this will go.

Facebook/Zuckerberg Accused of Abusing Power

In a rather high-handed way, Facebook decided to take down the picture of a nude 9-year old war victim as she was running from a bomb in the Vietnam. The picture was part of a series on the Vietnam war posted by writer Tom Egeland who was thereafter prevented from posting another photo. Not just that: editor of Norwegian daily Aftenposten and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solbergthat got similar treatment for posting the photo.

Facebook did nothing to show perspective with respect to the photo and rather than restoring the photo, a Facebook spokesman defended its actions by saying, “Our solutions won't always be perfect, but we will continue to try to improve our policies and the ways in which we apply them.” The editor protested, telling Zuckerberg in an open letter that he was abusing his powers and that “you are restricting my room for exercising my editorial responsibility.”

The photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut who also went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography because of it. This kind of photograph has played a key role in evoking the emotions of common men and women none of whom wanted the Vietnam War, which ultimately led to its end

Computer and Technology Sector Price Index

Computer and Technology Sector Price Index

Other stories you might have missed-

Corporate

Intel Upgraded to Buy: Evercore analyst C J Muse published a report upgrading Intel shares from Hold to Buy and raising the price target from $38 to $45. The analyst says that the data center business is poised for a rebound, that Intel’s potential in networking chips based on his estimation of 50 billion connected devices by 2020 is under-rated and that Intel may be expected to see a stronger second half in desktop and notebook chips as the first half has seen channel clearance and emerging market weakness is mostly related to the stronger dollar.

New Technology/Products

Microsoft Skype Teams: Microsoft (MSFT Quick QuoteMSFT - Free Report) is adding a group feature to Skype, simply called Skype Teams that helps it to compete with Slack and yes, also whisk away users. The feature allows teams of any size and spread across any part of the world to collaborate in real time by sharing messages, files and notes, while also allowing group discussions through the video conferencing feature.

Alphabet Self-Driving Car Patent: Alphabet has been filing a number of patents related to self driving cars. Some are sensible such as the decision making of the car, or the ability to get the windows open or the music going by a simple wave. Some are kind of weird such as the sticky substance that will glue pedestrians to the vehicle in case of a collision. This time, it’s patenting a technology that will sense light patterns to determine emergency vehicles and pull over to the curb if required. Also sensible!

Google Scraps Modular Phone Plan: Project Ara, Google’s modular phone bet that was supposed to be released to developers this fall, is closing down. This is ostensibly the result of the company’s appointing Rick Osterloh as the new hardware chief. The effort apparently lost steam after the Pentagon’s Regina Dugan parted ways.

The interchangeable parts would have made the phone clunkier and more cumbersome anyway, apart from having higher production costs. Of course it would have helped reduce unnecessary electronic waste, but users would rather throw away their phones every two years and companies would prefer to make profits. That said, Google is reportedly open to licensing the technology, or even selling it to an interested hardware vendor.     

Amazon’s New Tablet: Amazon (AMZN Quick QuoteAMZN - Free Report) has launched a new Fire tablet with a couple of differences. This time it’s coming with Alexa, its voice assistant that has already reached a large section of people through its popular Echo device. It’s also coming for $90, or $60 less than the previous version. This seems to be a rather clever strategy of getting people used to its assistant and then selling them other devices that incorporate it to give people a sense of continuity.

With the tablet market reaching saturation, Amazon certainly isn’t looking to sell a large number of devices.  But the company does sell a large number of products and services that can be very well consumed on them. Amazon is ensuring that its devices are the best things for the Amazon experience.

M&A and Collaborations

Zuckerberg Leads Investment in Indian Startup: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which calls itself a philanthropic organization led a $50 million investment in Indian education startup Byju. This has been a big year for Byju, which earlier this year raised $75 million. Byju uses a mobile app to teach children subjects like Math and Science. The app has reportedly been downloaded more than 5.5 million times and currently has 250K subscribers. This isn’t the Intiative’s first education investment either; it earlier led a $24 million funding round in Africa’s Andela.

Intel to Buy Movidius: It’s no secret that Intel is interested in the IoT market. The company has the technology to address multiple segments of the market and it is acquiring whatever might further augment its capabilities. Such is the case with Movidius, which makes a vision processing unit (VPU) for head tracking and gesture recognition.

These capabilities have won it important business at companies like Google, Lenovo and DJI. When Intel combines the VPU with its depth-sensing RealSense technology, it will most likely lead to a more compelling solution that can help machines like drones, security cameras, self-driving cars and AR/VR headsets “see” better.

Money wasn’t mentioned but it’s worth noting that Movidius previously raised $40 million. Investors in the startup include Enterprise Equity Venture Capital, Draper Esprit and Robert Bosch Venture Capital.

Google to Buy Apigee: Google is going to buy application programming interface (API) management company Apigee for $625 million. This is a small premium to share prices at the time of the announcement, but note that sale speculations have driven up the price 21.6% over the past month. The acquisition, engineered by Google’s cloud chief Dianne Greene, brings on board technology that can help companies’ customer facing apps talk to their corporate backends, thus helping them operate in the cloud.

Alphabet-Box Collaborate: Google’s agreement with Box (BOX Quick QuoteBOX - Free Report) allows Box customers to integrate Google's suite of word processing, spreadsheets and other productivity tools so Google’s cloud gets to make more money. This business is fourth behind Amazon, Microsoft and IBM, but Google would really like it to do more.

That’s why they brought in Dianne Greene, who had the requisite enterprise knowledge. Greene has built up the sale team and expanded the CTO’s office. Now she’s going for collaborations. Box has a large number of satisfied customers and brand value and even Gartner holds it in high regard. So the greater choice should definitely work out well for Google. For Box, it will mean access to Google’s cloud customers.

Alphabet Checking Drone Use Case: Alphabet’s Project Wing has tied with Chipotle to deliver its burritos by drone on the Virginia Tech campus, one of the six FAA-approved sites. We don’t know how it’s going as of now, but Alphabet apparently chose food delivery for its higher level of difficulty because for example food is perishable and needs to maintain temperature. So the thought seems to be that if we can do this, we can do all those other things too.

Zacks' Best Investment Ideas for Long-Term Profit

Today you can gain access to long-term trades with double and triple-digit profit potential rarely available to the public. Starting now, you can look inside our stocks under $10, home run and value stock portfolios, plus more. Want a peek at this private information? Click here >>