Painting by fictional artist sells for $11,000

A painting supposedly by a fictional American artist has sold for more than $11,000 at an auction.

The work, entitled Bridge number 114, was attributed to "Nat Tate," who was invented by the author William Boyd in 1998, the Guardian newspaper reported.

Boyd's "Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960," came complete with reviews and tributes from celebrities, including David Bowie and Gore Vidal, the paper said.

Vidal remarked at the time that Tate was "an essentially dignified drunk with nothing to say. Unlike most American painters, he was unverbal," the Guardian said.

At a party to launch the book in artist Jeff Koons' studio in New York, Bowie ? who was part of the hoax ? gave a reading, while other people ? who were not ? told how they had met Tate, who was said to have killed himself by jumping from the Staten Island ferry.

The painting, actually by Boyd, was bought by an anonymous bidder at the auction, held at Sotheby's in London. It was attributed to Nat Tate in the catalogue.

"I am utterly delighted and overwhelmed with the result of ... (the) sale," Boyd told the Guardian.

The money will go to the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, which was set up by famous artist JMW Turner in 1814.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45338376/ns/world_news-weird_news/

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Italy's premier-designate finalizing new govt (AP)

ROME ? Prime Minister-designate Mario Monti of Italy said Tuesday he is ready to present his new government to the president after winning wide backing ? and important pledges of sacrifices ? from political, business and union leaders during two days of intense consultations.

Monti said he still has to put the final touches on his Cabinet and economic program, which he will outline to President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday. His government must receive votes of confidence in both houses of Parliament, expected this week, to take office and begin the task of steering the eurozone's third-largest economy through its debt crisis.

Monti expressed his "serenity" and "conviction" in Italy's ability to overcome the difficult phase in its history.

"I was impressed by the sense of responsibility and willingness to back social growth," Monti said. "Everyone offered concrete contributions of possible partial sacrifices in exchange for a more general positive outcome."

Monti, a respected economist and former European commissioner, is under pressure to quickly reassure financial markets that Italy will avoid a default that could tear apart the 17 countries that use the euro currency and push the global economy back into recession. The European Union and the European Central Bank have outlined measures Italy must take ? many of them reforms blocked in the past by special interests.

Monti, 68, has already shown his determination to press through deep reforms by making it clear he intends to serve until regularly scheduled elections in 2013, rejecting calls for an early vote.

On Tuesday, after rounds of meetings, Monti garnered support from the center-left Democratic Party, former premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and the Confindustria, a powerful business lobby.

"We strongly support the birth of this government because for us it is the last chance to regain credibility," Confindustria leader Emma Marcegaglia said.

Union leader Raffaele Bonanni said Monti was close to completing his Cabinet at the time of their meeting Tuesday afternoon.

"Monti told us that he has reached an agreement with the main political forces that will give him a consistent parliamentary majority that will support him and he will very quickly be in a position to present the list of ministers," said Bonanni, leader of the powerful CISL union.

Despite reports of progress, European markets closed lower Tuesday as investors worried that politicians might pull their support in the future if austerity measures proved unpalatable.

On Wall Street, stock indexes wavered between small gains and losses as investors considered another spike in Italy's main borrowing rate against an increase in U.S. retail spending.

The yield on Italy's 10-year bonds jumped again to 6.94 percent. Last week's spike above 7 percent ? a level considered unsustainable in the long term ? raised fears Italy would eventually need a bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

But a financial debacle in Italy raises a whole new set of problems because the country is considered too big for Europe to bail out.

Monti was asked to form a government Sunday after Berlusconi resigned amid weeks of market turmoil over Italy's stagnant growth and high public debt, which at euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) is nearly 120 percent of GDP.

Many of those debts are coming due soon, with Italy having to roll over more than euro300 billion ($410 billion) of its debts next year alone.

Monti met Tuesday with the head of the Democratic Party and Angelino Alfano, leader of the Peoples of Freedom party.

"We think, in light of the facts and after this latest conversation, that Professor Monti's attempts are destined to turn out well," Alfano told reporters afterward.

Previously, his party had conditioned its support on the shape of Monti's Cabinet, his government agenda and the duration of his term.

Pierluigi Bersani, head of the Democratic Party, pledged support and placed no timeframe on Monti's tenure.

Only the Northern League, Berlusconi's allies, have refused to support his government. They want early elections this spring, something Monti has rejected.

The EU, meanwhile, says said new measures will be necessary for Italy to balance its budget as promised by 2013. The eurozone avoided contracting in the third quarter, thanks mainly to Germany and France, but is widely expected to fall into recession imminently as a result of its raging debt crisis.

Monti says Italians will have to make some sacrifices to get through the crisis but "not tears and blood."

___

Barry reported from Milan. Patricia Thomas contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111115/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_financial_crisis

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Australia court to hear Samsung-Apple case in March (Reuters)

SYDNEY (Reuters) ? An Australian court has agreed to hear in March a case brought by Samsung Electronics to ban sales of Apple Inc's latest iPhone, with sales allowed to continue as normal ahead of the full hearing on alleged patent infringements.

Samsung has sought to block sales of Apple's latest iPhone 4S, which went on sale in early October, by filing preliminary sales injunction requests in four countries including Australia.

The decision by the court to hold a full hearing in March gives Apple at least four months to sell the new iPhone in Australia. Apple stunned Wall Street last month with quarterly results that missed expectations for the first time in years as customers held off buying iPhones until the October launch.

"The case will be fixed for a hearing for three weeks, commencing in March, 2012, with the date to be fixed on Friday," justice Annabelle Bennett told the Australian Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday.

Bennett said sales of the iPhone 4S in Australia would be allowed to continue in the meantime.

"I stand over the application for an interlocutory injunction, that will stand over to the same date, as that of the date of the hearing," she added.

Apple and Samsung have been locked in a legal battle in 10 countries involving smartphones and tablet computers as they jostle for top spot in the fast-growing markets. Apple is also Samsung's biggest customer, buying mainly chips and displays.

Lawyers for Apple had wanted a hearing for the case to be held in August next year, but Bennett said this was too far away.

"They are trying to expand the Android market. The longer it's left the harder it will be for Samsung," Justice Bennett said.

Samsung uses Google Inc's Android operating system in its smart phones.

In October, Samsung filed preliminary injunction motions against the latest iPhone in Japan, France and Italy, claiming the product infringed its patents.

The case in Australia will center around alleged infringement of 3 patents and more than 25 claims.

Samsung's latest salvo came after the South Korean electronics giant suffered a series of setbacks in its ongoing legal battles with the U.S. firm.

Apple has scored preliminary injunctions against some Samsung products in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, and further seeks to block sales of Samsung models in the United States, the key smartphone battleground.

In Australia, Samsung has appealed against an Australian court's decision to grant a preliminary injunction blocking the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, with a full court hearing scheduled for November 25.

(Reporting by Amy Pyett; Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111115/tc_nm/us_apple_samsung

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IconSettings gives you simple control of your iDevice without jailbreaking

IconSettings
Look, we understand, some of you are a little timid about jailbreaking your iPhone. You've looked on in envy as your contemporaries have thrown warranties to the wind and enjoyed the convenience of turning on and off their WiFi from the homescreen. But, be jealous no longer. A crafty developer has figured out how to bring the same capabilities your iDevice with little more than a browser bookmark -- no jailbreaking required. IconSettings lets you quickly access or toggle various settings on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, provided its running iOS 5. Setting it up is as simple as saving a bookmark to your home screen. Then you just tap the links and, voilà, you can turn on and off Bluetooth, change brightness levels, or disengage autolock. You'll find full instructions and the appropriate bookmarks at the source links.

IconSettings gives you simple control of your iDevice without jailbreaking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/eTKaAB9zwew/

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Justin Timberlake Stays True To His Word?Attends Marine Corps Ball

Oil price again flirting with $100 per barrel

(AP) ? Oil prices climbed to near $100 per barrel Tuesday on encouraging news about the U.S. economy.

Benchmark crude rose $1.23 to end the day at $99.37 per barrel in New York. The benchmark price hasn't been that high since July 26. Brent crude, which is used to price many foreign oil varieties, climbed 50 cents to finish at $112.39 per barrel in London.

Prices jumped after the Commerce Department said that retail sales rose in October for the fifth straight month. Consumer spending increased for electronics, appliances, hardware and building supplies. Sales also rose at grocery stores, bars and restaurants and health care stores.

"If people are opening their pocket books again, it's good for the economy. Maybe you'll see gasoline demand go up," said Phil Flynn, an oil analyst at PFGBest.

Inflation also eased last month, as companies paid less for gas, new cars and other goods.

The European Union also said that the 17-nation bloc avoided recession in the third quarter. The eurozone economy grew by 0.2 percent in the July-September period. However, it's still expected to shrink as countries like Italy and Greece cut spending to reduce debt.

A stalled European economy means that world energy demand could drift lower. But analysts say that most oil traders have already priced in the potential for a slowdown in the eurozone.

In other energy trading, heating oil rose less than a penny to end at $3.1713 per gallon, and gasoline futures rose 5.04 cents to finish at $2.5857 per gallon. Natural gas gave up 5.4 cents to finish at $3.4040 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-15-Oil%20Prices/id-1a35dca585544e5c8045639b7d97dd16

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Arima Communications expected to ship 5-6 million smartphones in ...

Daniel Shen, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES?[Wednesday 16 November 2011]

Arima Communications has landed smartphone ODM orders with shipments to begin at the end of 2011, and is expected to ship 5-6 million units, accounting for 40-50% of total revenues in 2012, according to handset component makers.

Arima has obtained ODM orders for three smartphones based on Qualcomm platforms from a Japan-based vendor and will start shipments at the end of 2011, the sources indicated. In addition, Arima has landed orders for five models based on MediaTek and ST-Ericsson platforms from Motorola Mobility, with shipments to begin in the second quarter of 2012, the sources pointed out. In addition to the two clients, Arima is competing for ODM orders from Sony Ericsson, LG Electronics and other vendors.

Thus, Arima will ship an estimated 5-6 million smartphones in 2012, with the proportion of its total shipments of handsets to climb from less than 1% in 2011 to 40-50%, the sources said. In addition to smartphones, Arima is expected to ship 16-17 million feature phones in 2012, the sources noted.

With shipments falling to 1.9 million handsets in October, Arima will see its fourth-quarter handset shipments decrease 30% sequentially to 4.7 million units, the sources indicated.

Categories: Mobile phone and PDA Telecom

Tags: 2012 Arima Arima Communications

Companies: Arima Communications

Source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111115PD214.html

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Colo. bison head's owner forgot to tell roommates

(AP) ? Police in Boulder, Colo., have solved the mystery of how a severed bison head ended up on a decorative rock in someone's front yard. It belongs to somebody who lives in the home but forgot to tell his roommates about it.

The roommates called police about the head Sunday, and investigators quickly ruled out one obvious potential source: the beloved buffalo mascot named Ralphie at the University of Colorado.

Police spokeswoman Kim Kobel said Monday that the head came from a buffalo recently slaughtered from a ranch in Nebraska. The head's owner told police he was drying out his souvenir so he could display it on a wall.

Kobel says the case is now closed.

Police didn't release the names of the people involved.

___

Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2011-11-14-Severed%20Bison%20Head/id-f1a6eadb97634aaa8d20fc32c7717278

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Amazon, Microsoft catch on, BlackBerry falls-survey (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet and Microsoft's efforts to get back into the mobile game have impressed developers, a survey released on Monday showed, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion fell further behind.

Mobile software developers remain enamored with Apple's iPhone and iPad and, to a lesser extent, devices using Google's Android software, according to the survey from researcher IDC and Appcelerator, a company that works with app developers.

But in the second-tier, Microsoft's partnership with Nokia helped it break ahead of BlackBerry maker

RIM.

"Amazon and Microsoft are the two big movers as we head into 2012," Appcelerator's head of marketing Scott Schwarzhoff said in an interview. "RIM continues to face challenges, especially on the PlayBook," its tablet which has sold poorly.

Amazon's Fire uses a variation of Android, but developers were most interested in its low cost and rich content library.

"It has all the trappings of the next big thing," Schwarzhoff said, pointing out that interest in the tablet, which is due to ship on Tuesday, is only slightly lower than the pre-launch interest in Apple's iPad.

Developers reporting they are "very interested" in RIM's operating system for its BlackBerry smartphones dropped 7 percentage points to 21 percent and its QNX-based PlayBook tablet dropped 6 points to 13 percent.

By contrast, Microsoft added 8 points to 38 percent.

That is, the survey showed more developer interest in Nokia's new Lumia Windows Phone lineup than RIM's smartphones.

The dismal reading for RIM was blamed on lack of clarity on future direction, despite the Canadian company in October setting out a unified platform for future tablets and phones.

"Time is not really on RIM's side right now, certainly that is the perception," Schwarzhoff said.

The number of respondents who said they were very interested in developing for the iPhone and iPad was constant at 91 and 88 percent, respectively. Android for phones dipped slightly to 83 percent and Android tablets slipped to 68 percent.

The survey of 2,160 developers was conducted on November 2-3. The full report can be found here: http://www.appcelerator.com/company/survey-results/mobile-developer-report-nov-2011/

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp, editing by Bernard Orr)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111114/wr_nm/us_mobiledevelopers

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Berkshire buys 5 pct of IBM, takes other stakes (AP)

OMAHA, Neb. ? Warren Buffett said Monday that his company has spent $10.7 billion to buy more than 5 percent of IBM's stock this year, a surprising move by the billionaire investor who has long shied away from investing in high technology companies.

Berkshire Hathaway also revealed several other new investments made during the turmoil of the third quarter. Besides the new IBM investment, Berkshire added much smaller stakes in Intel Corp., DirecTV, General Dynamics Corp. and CVS Caremark Corp.

Most of the details emerged from the quarterly update Berkshire filed with regulators on its $59 billion U.S. stock portfolio. Buffett disclosed some details in interviews earlier in the day.

Monday's filing doesn't offer a full picture of Berkshire's holdings, however, because the Securities and Exchange Commission allowed the Omaha-based company to keep some of its investments confidential.

Buffett has long refused to invest in high-tech companies because he has said it's too difficult to predict which technology businesses will prosper in the long run.

But he said he recently realized his view of IBM was wrong based on what he read in the company's annual reports and what he learned by talking to information-technology departments at Berkshire subsidiaries. He said he should have realized years sooner that hardware is no longer the heart of IBM's business.

"Now they're very much a services company, and they're very intertwined with their customers," Buffett said. And he said IBM's customers are reluctant to change once they start working with IBM.

So Berkshire has bought about 64 million shares since March, or about 5.5 percent of IBM. Buffett says he believes IBM has a sound plan for the future.

Andy Kilpatrick, the stockbroker-author of "Of Permanent Value, the Story of Warren Buffett," said it's surprising to see Buffett invest in a high-tech company, but the investment appears to be an example of Buffett spotting something in plain sight that he had previously overlooked.

"I don't think it moves things very far from what he's always done," Kilpatrick said.

IBM joins several other American business icons in Berkshire's stock portfolio. Buffett's company already holds stakes in Coca-Cola Co., American Express Co., Wells Fargo & Co., among others.

IBM officials declined to comment Monday on Buffett's investment.

International Business Machines Corp., which marked its 100-year anniversary in June, has proven resilient even in a downturn because of hard decisions it made in the 1990s, when it tapped an outsider as CEO to help with a turnaround.

At the time, IBM was slipping with the rise of cheap microprocessors and rapid changes in the industry. Although it helped make the personal computer a mainstream product, it quickly found itself outmatched in a market it helped create. PCs also began to perform many of the functions of mainframes computer, throwing IBM's main moneymaking business into disarray.

The company decided then to focus on the high-margin areas of software and technology services and move away from computer hardware. That intensified with IBM's $3.5 billion purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting business in 2002 and the sale of its PC business to Lenovo for $1.75 billion in 2005. Today, IBM is the world's biggest technology services provider.

The shift is important because it has allowed IBM to ride two recessions. When times are tough, businesses pay IBM to help them find ways to cut costs and handle technology chores that would be more expensive to perform in-house.

IBM's stock has more than doubled since the depth of the recession in 2008. IBM shares gained as much as $2.46 Monday to trade near its 52-week high of $190.53 before slipping to close at $187.35, down 3 cents.

Buffett said Berkshire paid an average of about $170 per share for the IBM stock.

IBM executives insist the company's focus on long-term contracts insulates it from economic swings. The company has said it is ahead of its own aggressive forecasts. IBM has disclosed a goal of hitting $20 per share in adjusted earnings by 2015, a rare example of a long-term earnings target made public by a major company. IBM, which is based in Armonk, N.Y., says it plans to continue growing its software business and invest about $20 billion in acquisitions from 2011 to 2015.

The third-quarter report filed Monday doesn't include all of Berkshire's new IBM stake because Buffett said some of the shares were bought in the fourth quarter.

A couple of the other new investments revealed Monday are tech companies. At the end of September, Berkshire held 9.3 million Intel shares, 4.2 million DirecTV shares, 3.1 million General Dynamics shares and 5.7 million CVS Caremark shares.

But those other new investments, besides IBM, were worth less than $200 million at the end of September. That dollar figure suggests those investments were made by Berkshire's new investment manager Todd Combs, who manages between $1 billion and $3 billion.

It's not clear who picked the investments because the filing doesn't differentiate between investments Berkshire makes, investments any of roughly 80 subsidiaries make, or investments made by Buffett himself.

Besides the new investments, Berkshire also reported changes in some of its other holdings, including:

? Increasing its sizeable stake in Wells Fargo to 361.4 million shares from 352.3 million in June.

? Reducing its holdings of Kraft Foods to 89.7 million shares from 99.5 million.

? Boosting its Dollar General stake to 4.5 million shares from 1.5 million.

? Increasing its stake in insurer Torchmark Corp. to 4.2 million shares from 2.8 million.

Berkshire's investments are closely watched in the market because of Buffett's successful record. Buffett has said that Berkshire has been buying aggressively during the recent market turmoil.

Berkshire occasionally receives permission from the SEC to delay disclosing some stock purchases to prevent others from driving up the price of those stocks before Berkshire completes its purchases. Berkshire then discloses the purchases or sales in a subsequent quarter and issues amended reports for previous quarters.

The SEC says it grants such confidentiality to investment managers only when they can show they would be harmed substantially by immediate disclosure.

___

Online:

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.: http://www.berkshirehathaway.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_hi_te/us_berkshire_investments

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