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Most Expensive Painting Goes On Display In The UK

Filed under: Art

Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust stunned the world when it sold at Christie's New York last May for $106.5 million. Now the Telegraph reports that the most expensive painting ever sold at auction is on display for the first time in the UK at the Tate Modern. The painting was done in 1932 during Picasso's very fruitful year when he did a series of paintings of his mistress and muse Marie-Therese Walter. Picasso first saw young Marie-Thérèse on the streets of Paris in 1927, when she was just seventeen years old. Because of her age and the status of his marriage to Olga Khokhlova the relationship was kept quiet for several years. This painting was part of a colorful explosion of works painted in January 1932 in anticipation of the major retrospective that he was planning. The Steve-Wynn-owned painting Le Reve is from this period as is La Lecture which sold for over $40 million earlier this year. The painting has been lent to the gallery by a private collector and will have pride of place in the new Pablo Picasso room in the Poetry and Dream wing on Level 3 of the building.

Tags: Microsoft, museum exhibit, pablo picasso, tate modern

Largest Yacht Ever Built in Italy Knocks Paul Allen Off the Top 10

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing, Wealth

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen no longer owns one of the world's 10 largest yachts thanks to the just-launched Serene (above) from Fincantieri. At just under 440 ft. Serene is the largest yacht ever built in Italy, and enters the list of the world's largest yachts at No. 9, according to Camper & Nicholsons – just behind the floating brothel Savarona. That knocks Allen's famed 414-ft. Octopus out of the top 10 altogether (No. 1 of course is still, by a mere 18 inches, Roman Abramovich's Eclipse). The billionaire buyer of Serene is unknown. Designed by Espen Oeino, the Serene, which took four years to complete, has seven decks, a tender hangar and two helipads. The high-tech megayacht features a large seawater swimming pool and a submarine with a diving depth of up to 100 metres. The 4,500 square meter interior boasts super-luxe accommodations and entertaining spaces designed by Pascale Reymond of London's Reymond Langton Design.

[via JamesList]

Tags: billionaire, Eclipse, Espen Oeino, Fincantieri, Italy, megayacht, Microsoft, Paul Allen, Roman Abramovich, submarine, superyacht, wealth, yacht, yacht design

Paul Allen Joins BIll Gates By Giving Away His Fortune

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity, Big Givers

Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft and now Allen is taking a page out of Gates's book, announcing that he will give more than half of his estimated $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy. Just last month we learned about a plan that Gates, his wife, Melinda and Warren Buffett had cooked up to get the country's billionaires to earmark half their fortunes to charitable causes. Other billionaires who have already committed to at least a 50 percent pledge include Eli and Edy Broad, John and Ann Doerr, H.F. "Gerry" and Marguerite Lenfest and John and Tashia Morgridge.

Allen already has an existing foundation, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. His projects have included the nonprofit scientific research done at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Allen institute and the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. As the NY Times reports Allen has made Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the nation's 50 largest donors, eight times. Last year, he ranked No. 11 for giving away $85 million.

Tags: bill gates, microsoft, paul allen, philanthropists, philanthropy, warren buffett

The Classicist: The World's Greatest Luxury Yachts

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing, Books, The Classicist

In the rarefied world of mega yachts, the ultimate achievement is to have one designed by a certain Norwegian genius named Espen Oeino. The world's top star in naval architecture, Oeino's megabucks creations "combine the precision of fine machinery with indulgent finishes and the high-end amenities of a palace." When German luxury publisher teNeues opted to focus a volume in its amazing Luxury Toys series to the world's greatest yachts, it was quickly decided to dedicated the entire book to Oeino.

Luxury Toys: Mega Yachts showcases 20 of the Monaco-based Oeino's stellar creations accompanied by text from top yachting author Nick Jeffery, the most respected authority on luxury watercraft. Among the megayachts featured is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's 413-ft. Octopus, the 8th largest yacht in the world and the second largest superyacht that is not owned by a head of state. The nine deck ship cost $200 million to build and has an annual operating budget estimated at $20 million.

Designed for self-sufficient long range cruising, the Octopus contains a wet dock for a 59-ft. tender and an equally large remotely-operated submarine that can descend to 2500 meters, a twin helicopter hangar and two helipads, countless giant antennae and a telescopic sonar, a cinema and music studio. Another Oeino creation featured in the book is the military-looking 233-ft. SKAT, pictured above, built by Lürssen of Bremen, Germany for Charles Simonyi, a former Microsoft software engineer and pioneering space tourist. The yacht features an elevator serving all four decks, a gymnasium, matching helicopter, and motorcycles with a special lift.

Gallery: Luxury Toys: Mega Yachts

Tags: Charles Simonyi, CharlesSimonyi, Espen Oeino, EspenOeino, Lurssen, megayacht, Microsoft, Monaco, Octopus yacht, OctopusYacht, Paul Allen, PaulAllen, teNeues, yacht

Continue reading “The Classicist: The World's Greatest Luxury Yachts”

Blue Monster Reserve, A Wine Just For Microsoft

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Bill Gates can afford any wine he wants but now there is a special wine made just for Microsoft. The Blue Monster Reserve Sauvignon Blanc was created by South African winery Stormhoek for Microsoft and its employees. Hugh MacLeod, the talented cartoonist and blogger behind GapingVoid and the marketing strategist for Stormhoek, created the Blue Monster image after meeting many of the Microsoft employees after sponsoring dinners for those in the tech community. His cartoon of a fanged blue monster along with the tagline: "Microsoft – change the world or go home", has become an unofficial mascot for some people in the company. The Blue Monster bottles are only available only to Microsoft and people who belong to the "Friends of Blue Monster" Facebook group or who attend the geek dinners that Stormhoek sponsors or attends.

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Tags: gaping void, hugh macleod, microsoft, sauvignon blanc, stormhoek, wine

Microsoft Surface

by Anton Friant (RSS feed) —

OK people, here it is, the iPod of 2020 - the Microsoft Surface. Although slightly less portable than everyone's favorite gadget today, Microsoft is rigorously positioning its concept device for the kind of widespread consumer - and commercial - craze that only Apple have been able to drill up. As you can see from their flash video, good ol Gates and Co want every last one of us to be able to use this touchscreen surface to do everything - from consumer applications like organizing and sharing photos, music and video - to consumer uses like in-restaurant ordering and bill paying.

If you're as awed by this as we are, check out the hands-on demo over at Engadget!

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Tags: computer, microsoft, screen, surface, touch, touchscreen, vista, windows

Touchscreen Media PC

by Anton Friant (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets

With CES season having descended upon us once again, we're starting to see some really cool new high-end offerings from the compy giants. This puppy looks like Microsoft's answer to the iMac, branded as an HP and (tentatively?) called the TouchSmart PC, and is at the same time trying to take over your study and living room. The whole 19" touch-screen thing is obviously making it a larger-than-normal blip on the radar, but it also boasts some of the new-fangled tech specs we're starting to see more and more: AMD Turion 64 X2 dual core TL-52 processor and that sweet sweet NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600. No official word on price yet, but our sibs over at Engadget hypothesized $1799 - $1899 a while back (lots of cool pics there too).

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Tags: hp, microsoft, touchscreen