Mainstream News

New York auction houses celebrate after billion-dollar sales week

"Two of New York’s leading auction houses combined for the art world’s richest sales week ever, with works going under the hammer for a breathtaking total of more than one billion dollars. Christie’s reaped in more than $638 million dollars at its blockbuster contemporary art auction on Wednesday. Its staggering haul included a record $58.4 million for a Jackson Pollock drip painting, which shattered all previous records for the highest price for any work at an art auction. An official at Christie's said the record prices 'reflect a new era in the art market, wherein seasoned collectors and new bidders compete at the highest level within a global market.'" Continue reading →

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Japan rejecting Osaka mayor’s view that ‘Comfort Women’ were ‘necessary’

"A large majority of Japanese people disagree with a high-profile politician who said women forced to provide sex during World War II were a military necessity, polls issued on Monday said. Up to 200,000 'comfort women' from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forcibly drafted into brothels catering to the Japanese military during WWII, according to mainstream historians. Outspoken Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto said last week these women served a 'necessary' role keeping soldiers in line, sparking outrage in China and South Korea and inviting US criticism." Continue reading →

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Julian Assange reveals government eavesdropping messages speculating he’s being framed

"Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations. A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: 'They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.'" Continue reading →

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Pentagon approves iPhones, iPads for military use

"The Defense Department said Friday that it has approved Apple devices for use on its networks, meaning that it can issue its employees iPhones and iPads at the office. With the announcement, Apple joins Samsung and BlackBerry on a short list of commercial smartphone makers that the Pentagon says are secure enough for its workers to use. Apple iPhones and iPads running iOS 6 meet that standard, the Defense Department said in a release. Earlier this month, the Pentagon gave its nod to new phones from Samsung that run a business-focused version of Google’s Android mobile operating system and also approved BlackBerry’s latest phones." Continue reading →

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AP chief to Obama: Spying on reporters is ‘an unconstitutional act’

"The Obama administration‘s decision to seize phone records from the Associated Press was 'unconstitutional' and sends a message that 'if you talk to the press, we are going to go after you', the news agency’s boss Gary Pruitt said Sunday. AP revealed last week that the Justice Department had obtained two months’ worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors without informing the organisation in advance. The move was an apparent effort by US officials to identify the source of a story about the CIA foiling an alleged terrorist plot by an al Qaida terrorist affiliate in Yemen." Continue reading →

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Yahoo prepares to buy Tumblr for up to $1.1 billion

"Marissa Mayer, the former Googler who is now chief executive of Yahoo, is poised to create yet another nothing-to-riches tale in the web industry with a rumoured $1.1bn (£720m) acquisition of the blogging site Tumblr. Tumblr was only founded in 2007, by David Karp, then 21, in his bedroom in his mother’s apartment in New York. Within a fortnight it had 75,000 users; by January 2012, there were 42m blogs on the site; today, there are around 110m, and the investors who have poured $125m into the company include Sir Richard Branson." Continue reading →

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That 3-D Printed Gun? It’s Just the Start

"In 2009, a German hacker going by the name Ray used a 3-D printer to fabricate a plastic key to the handcuffs used by Dutch police. He created the copy using only a photograph of an actual key. Last year, Ray demonstrated how to open even high-security handcuffs. The ability to copy keys isn’t new but, as with many of these dangers, 3-D printing will make it a lot easier. Just think of all the things -- houses, cars, offices -- we still use keys to open. Professor Lee Cronin, at the University of Glasgow, has been experimenting with something he calls 'reactionware,' which he hopes will allow people to print their own medication at home." Continue reading →

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Documentary Film Investigates the (Alleged) Death of Books

"Who killed the printed book—or at least hastened its demise? That’s the question posed in an absorbing new documentary, Out of Print, by director Vivienne Roumani. The primary suspects are e-readers, cell phones, and other gadgets, Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), sluggishly evolving publishers, Facebook (FB)-addicted teenagers, people who pirate books, and perhaps even the susceptibility of the human brain to various distractions. Out of Print frames one of the central cultural questions of our time: If books are the foundation of society, how does their gradual evolution change the world of ideas—and how does it change us?" Continue reading →

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Richard Branson: Space tourism won’t hurt environment

"More than 500 people have already reserved seats — and paid deposits on the $200,000 ticket price — for a minutes-long suborbital flight on the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) set to begin by the end of this year. 'We have reduced the (carbon emission) cost of somebody going into space from something like two weeks of New York’s electricity supply… to less than the cost of a economy round-trip from Singapore to London,' Branson told reporters in Singapore. The SS2′s lightweight carbon-fibre body will also 'reduce fuel burn dramatically', he said." Continue reading →

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Tesla’s Elon Musk Is No Dummy

"You have to be pretty smart to create an online payment company, an electric car company and a space exploration company in quick succession. Indeed, Elon Musk, who founded or co-founded PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has degrees in economics and physics. He started a PhD at Stanford in applied physics and materials science, but dropped out to become an entrepreneur. Smart move. Today, Musk is worth an estimated $4.3 billion after strong gains in Tesla shares, along with Solar City, where he is chairman and owns 28 percent. Proceeds from share sales will be used to pay off Tesla’s taxpayer loan under a Department of Energy program." Continue reading →

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