Visualant ($VSUL) has just announced the addition of Brian Schowengerdt, co-inventor of the company's unique Spectral Pattern Matching (SPM) technology, as a consultant. His hiring comes just a week after Visualant appointed his SPM co-inventor, Tom Furness, as senior scientific adviser to the company.

Hi gang, now that I've had some time to digest what I learned on Friday from our friends at ChinaTel Group ($CHTL.PK), I want to give you an "update of our update" from last week.

Everyone knows that gold is white-hot right now, and with Centerra Gold's ($CG.TO) newest dividend announcement, it is also an investment that can reward you right now.

For shareholders of record as of May 12, Centerra's annual dividend of 10 cents (Canadian) is payable May 18. As an added bonus, the company is issuing a special dividend of 30 cents. This represents a total payout of nearly $100 million in U.S. dollars.

It’s not unreasonable for Apple to trade for 90 times earnings. In the past 12 months the company earned $20 billion. Ninety times that is $1.8 trillion.  Learn more by clicking on Apple. Curated by Kyle Brown.

The Cloud is going to be one of the biggest growth industries in the history of business. Over the next ten years, this company could grow earnings 20% per year, every year, which would get earnings per share up near $20 a share.  Throw a 15 multiple on that and you get a $300 target.

Apple, Google, and Verizon are a lock to keep making big money from the Smartphone Wars which should translate into better stock performance.  Learn why by clicking on Apple or Google. Curated by Kyle Brown.

I had a GREAT meeting with ChinaTel Group ($CHTL.PK) today, and want to share some of the highlights with you right away.

Our No. 1 Takeaway is….

ZTE Corp. (which provides telecom equipment and network solutions on the global scale) is backing ChinaTel for eight MORE countries in Central Europe and Russia. This includes ALL capital and operational expenditures to get the networks deployed and selling subscriptions.

With the release of Pervasive’s latest version of DataRush, the company can now be counted among the industry’s Big Data specialists. DataRush can process mountains of data very quickly. This advantage makes it an attractive acquisition candidate for companies like IBM, Informatica (INFA), Microstrategy (MSTR), and Oracle (ORCL). Watch for an acquisition here and the impact on several cloud computing stocks.

Apple faces increased competition in the consumer-cloud arena from the likes of Amazon.com, which recently launched a cloud-based locker and player for music, and Google, which has serious designs on both music and e-books. See who's likely to win the war by clicking on Apple, hint, hint. Curated by Kyle Brown.

Microsoft has the best chance to move the most users to the cloud of anyone in the application space.  It's embedded user base of Office customers is massive.

TurkPower Corp. ($TRKP.OB) continues to build its management team to become a major player in iron ore mining in Turkey.

The company has appointed Richard Schaeffer to its Board of Directors. He is an industry and investment services heavyweight. (This follows last week's addition of James Davidson to its board.)

Hot off the presses -- Visualant ($VSUL) just released its operating results for Q1 2011. They're having a great start to the year, but here at NBT Equities Research, we expect many more blowout quarters to come!

Here are some of the highlights:

-- Year-over-year, revenues increased 100%, to nearly $3 million

-- Cash flow from operations increased sixfold, to nearly $1 million

ChinaTel's ($CHTL.PK) Peru launch comes one month EARLY -- and aims at the sweet spot for low-cost Internet access -- prepaid!

The renewal rates on pre-paid are HIGHER than billed, and the collection percent is 100% ... THAT is the way to win customers and profits.

As Amazon winds down its spending and has, presumably, a strong 2011 holiday season, the stock could head way beyond targets in the first quarter or two of 2012. Learn alot from this in depth article written for serious investors. Click on Amazon. Curated by Kyle Brown.