iPad 3

Today in Tech: The decline of Japanese electronics

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* Sony (E), Sharp, and Panasonic's combined losses for the fiscal year will total a whopping $17 billion. The Wall Street Journal explores why this Japanese tech trifecta is losing consumers. (The Wall Street Journal)

* Why Facebook's recent claim of 845 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active MORE

Apple hits a new all-time high

Breaks through previous intraday record of $427.75 set last week

UPDATE: Apple closed Wednesday up $4.41 (1.04%), to hit a new all-time high of $429.11. At one point in afternoon training it hit $429.47.

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Apple (AAPL) quickly set a new intraday high Wednesday and kept climbing in early morning trading, although it's not clear why.

It could be that investors are moving into the stock ahead of next week's quarterly earnings MORE

iPad sales estimates for Q1 range from 11.7 to 19.5 million

The Street's consensus: 13.5 million. The indies are 10% more bullish

Everybody we've heard from expects Apple (AAPL) to report record iPad sales for the quarter that ended Dec. 31.

And why not? Tablets were a popular gift item this past holiday season. The iPad 2 didn't face much competition -- except perhaps from Amazon's (AMZN) Kindle Fire. And although there were rumors of an iPad 3 coming in March or April, MORE

Ticonderoga's top pick for 2012 is its top pick for 2011: Apple

Prospered in last year's economic storms, prepared for even rougher weather ahead

"During 2011," writes Ticonderoga's Brian White in a note to clients Tuesday, "Apple was the best performer in our universe of twenty companies, rising by 26%."

Yet despite Apple's (AAPL) recent gains -- and what he expects will be "rougher" waters head -- White is again recommending the stock as his top pick for 2012. Among his reasons:

His expectation that MORE

Is DigiTimes trying to kill the iPad 2's Christmas sales?

No, but the steady flow of rumors about a new iPad just around the corner aren't helping

Remember what happened to iPhone 4 sales last summer? They hit a wall in mid-July, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, when "speculation" that Apple was about to release a new iPhone, "hit extreme highs."

Now we're in the middle of what's shaping up as Apple's (AAPL) biggest holiday season ever, and the same thing MORE

Sharp and Apple: What the Jefferies report really says

There's a lot more to the relationship than the rumors of an Apple-branded TV suggest

Credit AllThingsD's John Paczkowski for finding the most headline-worthy nugget in the report issued Tuesday by Jefferies analyst Peter Misek on his recent trip to Japan.

The thrust of Paczkowski's story -- Apple Television Could Be Ready for Commercial Production by Feb. 2012 -- was echoed Wednesday by more than a dozen writers who had only his brief item to rely on.

But MORE

Sure, Samsung, we all wish Apple would open its kimono

In a legal tit for tat, Samsung's patent attorneys demand copies of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3

What Apple watcher hasn't wished he could do what Samsung's lawyers did Friday night in a California federal court: File expedited discovery papers demanding "samples of Apple's next-generation iPhone and iPad."

It was the latest move in nasty patent fight that Apple (AAPL) started last month when it accused Samsung of "slavishly copy[ing]" nearly MORE

No more speculation on iPad 2 -- and for a day, Steve Jobs

Details about the real iPad 2 and all the rumors, mockups, and premature criticism that got us here, along with the reappearance of the visionary force behind Apple Inc.

Try racking your brain for a device more crowed about, lusted over, or prematurely criticized than Apple's (AAPL) iPad 2. (We know. Pretty hard.) That's probably because, over the last six months, media outlets everywhere gave voice to even the most outré rumors, design MORE

iPad 2 event: 9 things to watch for

The fun starts at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST). A guide to the proceedings.

[UPDATE: It's official. There will be no live webcast. My colleague Michael Copeland will be live blogging from inside the auditorium. I'll be following the action from Brooklyn here.]

Assuming Apple (AAPL) provides a live webcast of the event -- as it has for the last two -- here's what we'll be looking for:

Steve Jobs. A classic MORE

Today in Tech: Why the iPad 3 is one to watch, Verizon killing unlimited data

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