Australian Man Auctions his Life on eBay

from Reuters...

"SYDNEY (Reuters) - A man in Australia is auctioning his life -- his house, his job, his clothes and his friends -- on eBay, after his marriage broke up, saying he wants to start a new life.

"It's time to move. A completely fresh start. I want to see where life takes me," Ian Usher, 44, told Australian television on Tuesday from Perth in Western Australia state.

Usher said he was auctioning his life as "a package" with his house in Perth valued at around A$420,000 (US$385,000).

"Hi there, my name is Ian Usher, and I have had enough of my life! I don't want it any more! You can have it if you like!," reads his Web site www.alife4sale.com, which has a link to eBay for bidders.

Usher said his life auction, which starts on June 22, included not only his house, a car, a motorbike, a jet ski and a spa, but also an introduction to "great friends" and a job at a rug shop in Perth for a trial two-week period.

"When it's over, I will just walk out the front door, take my wallet, my passport and start a new life," he said.

Usher said his ex-wife had heard of his auction.

"Her last comment was, 'it seems a bit mental to me'," he said."

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Man Owes $211 Trillion

from "www.wsbtv.com"

"COBB COUNTY, Ga. -- It’s one thing to bounce a check and it’s another to be so far in the red Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Donald Trump combined couldn’t come close to bailing you out. A Cobb County man got a letter from his bank with that very shocking news.

“And I open up the letter and I look at it and I’m like, ‘No, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ said Joe Martins.

Martins said he recently closed an account at Wachovia Bank and made good on an outstanding check. He just got a letter about the closure and his negative balance -- $211,010,028,257,303.00. That’s $211 trillion.

The letter includes the clarification, “no cents.”

“I didn’t know what to think. Obviously $211 trillion is a little above what I put in my bank account,” said Martins.

$211 trillion is more than 70 times the entire federal budget.

Still, the letter said Wachovia was reporting him to an agency that rates risky bank customers.

“I don’t own $211 trillion but because it is automated and reported to check systems, I assume it will be reported to my credit at some point,” said Martins.

He said Wachovia had made mistakes on his accounts before so he called Channel 2 first. Wachovia blamed the letter on a word processing error and the office of the president is sending a letter of apology.

“They tell me it’s going to be resolved but I’m not sure that it will,” said Martins. “I closed my account today.”

Since it is a closed account it is now safe to say the dollar figure in the letter matched the account number.

Martins said Wachovia told him late Friday afternoon they never did report him for his negative balance. Wachovia vice president David Oliver told Channel 2, “We can certainly understand how our recent correspondence with Mr. Martins about his account would be cause for great concern. I can confirm that there will be no adverse effect on Mr. Martins’ credit report related to the letter he received. Also, I can confirm that this was an isolated error specifically related to his account.”"

Apples authorizes French unlocked iPhones

from: tech.yahoo.com

"Want an unlocked version of the iPhone that's actually sanctioned by Apple? Then wing your way to France next month, when wireless operator Orange begins selling an unlocked iPhone—with Cupertino's blessing.
OK, "blessing" might be a bit of an overstatement. Apple's hand was forced by French law, which forbids the sale of cell phones that are tied to a particular carrier (hmmm, sounds like a good idea, no?). The International Herald Tribune reports that yesterday's announcement of Orange winning the iPhone deal in France was delayed for nearly a month as the carrier and Apple hammered out financial terms; an Orange rep denied that the unlocked iPhone was a factor in the delay.

Details about unlocked iPhone sales in France are still sketchy, however. What we do know is that a locked version of Orange's iPhone will retail for 399 euros (or about $560) when it debuts in November; the sticker price for an unlocked iPhone is still under wraps, but it "will cost more," the IHT reports. And here's a little something to consider for potential iPhone importers: the French iPhone will, of course, have all its menus written in French, and the last time I checked, I couldn't find a "Lauguage" setting on my iPhone. Any ideas out there, folks?"

Sprint Touch vs Apple Iphone

from: tech.yahoo.com

"The enticing Sprint Touch is sexy, alright, what with its touch-screen display and iPhone-like appearance. I got some hands-on time with Touch here at CTIA, and while the initial 3D menu is certainly tap-worthy, I was reaching for the stylus once I got to the standard Windows Mobile interface.
The 3G-capable Touch ($250 with a two-year contract, available November 4) is definitely a sleek phone; it's small and slim enough to fit in a jeans pocket, and nearly featureless save for the nearly three-inch touch screen, a navigation pad and the twin soft keys. Hit the power button and you get the "TouchFlo" interface: a 3D cube that gives you quick access to the Touch's main functions (namely messaging, Web browsing, and multimedia), as well as favorite contacts. You can get to the TouchFlo cube any time by touching the Sprint logo just below the screen and swiping upward, while swiping left or right swivels the cube around; strangely, though, this "cube" really only has three sides (for apps, multimedia, and contacts), and there's nothing on the top or the bottom of the cube. Still, it's a cool-looking, clever interface, and I got a kick out of swiping and tapping it. Especially nice is the contacts pane; just click an empty box to add a contact, which appears as a photo (provided your contact has an image associated with it).

Pretty nice, but once you get beyond TouchFlo, you're left with...the pro version of Windows Mobile 6, a decidedly fingertip-averse interface. To be fair, HTC (the manufacturer of the Touch) has clearly done its best to make Windows Mobile at least a bit touch-friendly: for exampe, the home page features a handy tabbed app that gives you a quick view of your various inboxes, as well as the local weather, a program manager, and ringer profiles. The mobile Outlook also features a modified virtual keypad for tapping out messages; however, instead of getting a full set of virtual QWERTY keys, you get a pseudo-QWERTY key layout spread over 14 keys (similar to the SureType keypad on the BlackBerry Pearl). I tried typing out a few messages, and it was a tedious process; I had to press relatively hard for my taps to register, and the phone's predictave text software seemed a little twitchy (or at least it was on the demo model here at CTIA). I wouldn't be too eager to compose a lengthy e-mail on this thing.

Of course, the Touch comes with a stylus, so you'll be able to access all the other Windows Mobile 6 features with a few taps of the stick: Internet Explorer, the mobile Office suite, Windows Media Player, and other WM apps are present and accounted for. You also be able to watch streaming Sprint TV videos and download full music tracks from Sprint Music, which is always a nice bonus. That said, as I've noted before, the Touch lacks Wi-Fi, and I've yet to hear any mention of GPS.

So, does the Touch measure up to the iPhone? In my few minutes with the Touch, I'd have to say that its touch UI can't hold a candle to the iPhone's intuitive, easy-to-tap interface. But if you're looking for document editing, full Exchange support, and full-on streaming video (none of which are possible on the iPhone, save for its streaming YouTube app), the Touch could make for an interesting choice—provided you're not composing massive e-mails on the road. Now, if the Touch had a slide-out QWERTY keypad...well, that would be another thing altogether."

This is your brain on the web!!!

from: Reuters

"11% of Americans Would Implant Internet into Brain Powered by BlogBurst
POSTED: Wednesday, October 24, 2007
FROM BLOG: IP Democracy - IP Democracy is a multi-media, blog-based forum that delivers innovative thinking about IP media and society.

The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.


The 463's Sean Garrett tipped me off to another fun poll conducted by his firm in conjunction with Zogby International. The survey of around 10,000 adults found out lots of interesting things that we probably didn't need to know in the first place, such as:

-- Around 11% of respondents said they would be "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to implant a device into their brains that enable them to use their minds to access the Internet if it could be done safely? Aside from the fact that the 463 is spinning this statistic as a low number ("only 11%" they say), who thought up this question?

--Around 25% of respondents think the Internet is a substitute for a significant other, at least for short periods of time.

On a more serious note, the poll also found an uncomfortably high but still minority level of support for government regulations that involve Internet content. Around 29% of the respondents think that TV-type indecency and obscenity regulations should be applied to the Internet and 25% think a ratings system should apply to Internet content."

Million Dollar Garbage - only in New York!!!

from: Reuters.com

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - The treasure that a New York City woman saved from the trash -- a stolen masterpiece by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo -- is expected to go for as much as $1 million at auction next month.

Elizabeth Gibson will get a $15,000 reward for returning "Tres Personajes" ("Three People") to its rightful owners, as well as an undisclosed percentage of the auction price.

Nearly four years ago Gibson was on her way to coffee when she spotted the painting among garbage bags set out for morning collection in her Upper West Side neighborhood.

She walked by it at first but said she "immediately knew I had to go back. I knew I had to take it!"

"It was a huge, powerful and beautiful painting and I said to myself, 'It is wrong to be in the garbage,'" Gibson told Reuters on Tuesday.

Gibson, who had hung up the painting after her discovery, said she learned of its worth when research led her to the Web site of "Antiques Roadshow FYI," a companion program to the PBS show "Antiques Roadshow."

Sotheby's expert August Uribe had featured the painting on "Antiques Roadshow FYI" after it was stolen more than 20 years ago.

"Tres Personajes" was returned to its owners, who wish to remain anonymous, and is expected to fetch between $750,000 and $1 million when Sotheby's auctions it on November 20.

If Gibson had not acted so quickly after spying the painting, it might have been lost forever. A doorman nearby later told her that garbage collectors had come along just 20 minutes after she had left with her new finding."