Author: Richard Atkins

Richard Atkins is a senior contributor at Tech Insider covering online media, online travel, and video games. Richard has been with Tech Insider covering companies in these industries since 2011 and has authored numerous industry reports, including "Internet Video: Field of Dreams or Nightmare on Elm Street," "The Next Leg of Online Travel," and "Pwned: How Casual Games Changed The Gaming Landscape." Atkins was recognized as the No. 2 stock picker and earnings estimator in the 2011 Financial Times / StarMine Internet & Catalog Retail category and was ranked in the 2010 Wall Street Journal "Best On The Street" for the Leisure Goods & Services category.
Finance, Internet

Microsoft MSFT Stock Review: Is Microsoft A Digital Dinosaur?

After a post-earnings slide, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT) has seen its stock price recover and gain slightly, but some critics remain unconvinced that the tech giant can justify price multiples that would have been considered cheap ten years ago. Indigo Equity Research argues that Microsoft is still too dependent on the PC market and has 30% downside. “We consider Microsoft to be overvalued given its … Continue reading Microsoft MSFT Stock Review: Is Microsoft A Digital Dinosaur?

Richard Atkins
Finance, Software

Bitcoin Update: US Colleges Start Bitcoin Courses

Two top-ranked US universities, New York University and Duke University, are offering courses on cryptocurrencies for the first time. Professor Geoffrey Miller taught the first class of NYU’s new course, The Law and Business of Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies, yesterday. 35 students attended the session – the first in a series of 14 – which covered the fundamentals of money.

Miller, a faculty member at NYU’s law school, teaches the course with Professor David Yermack, who is on the faculty of the university’s business school. Yermack says the course aims to examine the impact of cryptocurrencies on the fundamental principles that underpin current notions of law and finance.

“The course is not so much about teaching a knowledge of bitcoin, but it’s to show how some of the issues about property, finance and contracts are going to change very quickly in the next century. The technology is forcing people to reexamine long-held assumptions.”

News on Bitcoins

Yermack and Miller are joined by Duke University Finance Professor Campbell Harvey, who is preparing a course on cryptocurrencies that will be offered to students next spring. Both schools at NYU and Duke are ranked in the top 10 of their respective categories in the US News and World Report college rankings. Notably, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam graduated from Duke in 2010.

Harvey’s course at Duke is titled Innovation, Disruption and Cryptoventures and will focus on the potential of businesses that use the block chain. The course will be offered to students at Duke’s computer science department and its law and business schools. Harvey is confident that the course will be a hit with students. He said: “I think it’s going to be a blockbuster. The problem will be turning people away.”

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Richard Atkins
Biotechnology Stockmarket Biotech
BioTech, Finance

Biotech Stock News: Amgen Set for Big Things in the Near Future

Amgen Inc (AMGN) received encouraging news from the FDA as the regulatory body granted priority review status to the New Drug Application (NDA) for its pipeline candidate, ivabradine. Amgen is looking to get ivabradine approved for the treatment of chronic heart failure. Te FDA grants priority review status to candidates which have the potential to bring significant improvements in terms of safety or effectiveness in … Continue reading Biotech Stock News: Amgen Set for Big Things in the Near Future

Richard Atkins
Biotechnology Stockmarket Biotech
BioTech, Finance

Biotech News: United Therapeutics Remains Strong Due to a Patent Case Win

United Therapeutics Corporation (UTHR) shares surged approximately 28.5% after the company announced that the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has rendered a favorable decision in the Remodulin patent infringement lawsuit against Sandoz, the generic division of Novartis (NVS). As per the court’s ruling, Sandoz will not be able to launch its generic version of Remodulin until patent no. 6,765,117 protecting Remodulin … Continue reading Biotech News: United Therapeutics Remains Strong Due to a Patent Case Win

Richard Atkins
Finance, Software

Bitcoin News: A Look at Bitcoins in Gambling

Gambling is big business, and online gambling represents a significant and growing proportion of that business – about 8% currently. Research company H2 Gambling Capital, which values the online gambling market in terms of gross winnings, put the global market value at €21.73bn ($28.54bn) in 2012. Furthermore, the firm expects a 9.13% compound annual growth rate through 2015.

Right now bitcoin gambling only accounts for a tiny percentage of the total of online gambling revenues. However, it is clear that the opportunity exists to make significant income within the industry and, with bitcoin’s advantages in terms of low-cost, speedy payments, cryptocurrency-based gambling firms are doing their best to do just that.

The bitcoin world loves to gamble, in one form or another. In his book, The Anatomy of a Money-like Informational Commodity, Tim Swanson points out that half the transactions on the bitcoin network were being used to transmit bets to SatoshiDice, one of the earliest bitcoin betting sites, created by Eric Voorhees.

News on Bitcoins

Further, an analysis in August 2013 showed that roughly 5% of the value of all bitcoin transactions in June that year were flowing through SatoshiDice. That means lots of very small transactions, which is, after all, one thing that cryptocurrencies are very good at.

Ivan Montik, CEO at SoftSwiss, provides online casino software for entrepreneurs, and its solutions support fiat and bitcoin gambling. “We’ve got about 400 requests for the launch of a bitcoin casino in the last six months,” he said. “We constantly have three to five casinos in the set-up phase, and could have had more if we had more resources.” Not all bitcoin bets are low in value. Montik said that there are some high rollers in crypto-land.

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Richard Atkins
Analysis, Finance, Internet

Microsoft MSFT News: Windows 9 Name Leaked

Windows 9 has been the talk of the technology community as rumors about it continue to run hot and heavy. There has been some confusion about the name, with some referring to it by the Windows 9 name and others using the reported codename Threshold. Now Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ MSFT)’s China business has apparently let the cat out of the bag—on accident. Although the tech … Continue reading Microsoft MSFT News: Windows 9 Name Leaked

Richard Atkins