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Jerry Brown Chooses A Loft For His Governor's Residence

Filed under: Estates

jerry brownNewly elected (and former) California Governor Jerry Brown has chosen his new Sacramento home. Brown and his wife Anne Gust own a five-level contemporary in Oakland Hills but needed a new nest in the California capital. The Sacramento Bee reports that Brown and Gust will live in a one-bedroom unit at 16th and J streets, near the Capitol and across from Memorial Auditorium.

The 1530 J St. building is a a renovated, one-time automobile dealership building which was constructed in the late 1920s. California is one of five states without a governor's mansion (Arizona, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island are also on that list). The former governor's mansion at 16th and H streets is now part of the California State Parks system and has been vacant since 1967.

The four-story building also known as the Elliot Building has two restaurants, P.F. Chang's China Bistro and Mikuni Japanese Restaurant, on the ground floor. Brown lived in an apartment on N Street when he was first governor, from 1975 to 1983. There are 18 lofts in his new building ranging from 695 to 1,493 square feet. Rents in the building start at a modest $1,700 a month and the new units have modern kitchens with concrete counters, stainless steel appliances and plenty of light courtesy of large windows. Listings for the units say that they also have a washer and dryer in unit but Brown may have to pay extra for parking. It's a step up from his first governor's residence but doesn't hold a candle to the extravagance of Governor Schwarzenegger who refused to move to Sacramento and commuted from the Brentwood area of Los Angeles via private jet.

Billion Dollar Cruise Ship To Be Built In Korea

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing


It's a risky move but a couple of investors are betting that the world is ready for a new level ocean liner luxury. Recently Samsung Heavy Industries announced a commission to build $1.1 billion super cruiser in Korea called The Utopia. This is the first huge luxury passenger ship being built in Asia. The 1,000-foot, 105,000-ton ship will be completed in 2013 and will offer the Utopia Residences, 200 floating apartments that will range from 1,400 to 6,600 square feet. Residences on the ship will have a starting price of $3.6 million. There will also be a 204-room hotel on board, a fact that makes it different from a similar concept, The World of Residensea ship which is all owned units. The ship plans to travel the world checking out events like the Cannes Film Festival, Rio's Carnival, the Olympics and the Grand Prix auto race in Monaco.

Utopia Residences has opened a showroom on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and is also selling through Douglas Elliman in New York City. The Utopia venture is being financed by a majority of New Mexico investors and the project's lead investors are the Chant and Robb families. David Robb serves as Utopia's chairman while Chris Chant is its president. Frank Carlucci, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, is also involved and the project is backed by Frontier Group, a private equity firm founded by Carlucci. According to an article in New Mexico Business Weekly, David Robb said that he expects that 60 percent of the sales will come from outside the United States.

Samsung's Armani Night Effect Phone

Filed under: Gadgets


Armani and Samsung have released their latest joint effort cell phone. The Samsung Armani 2 Night Effect gets its name from the wraparound LED light on the phone. The candybar-style phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera, FM radio, 120MB of memory that is expandable with microSD, and Bluetooth. It will be sold in Europe in November with sales in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to follow. It will sell for around 300 euros. Tech pundits don't seem to be loving this one, finding the Armani logo on the back a bit garish and the overall look to be a bit clunky.

The Samsung and Armani HDTV

Filed under: Gadgets


Armani and Samsung have collaborated again, this time on a premium HDTV design. Revealed for the first time at the opening of the Milan International Furniture Fair. Combining cutting edge technology from Samsung with cutting edge design from Giorgio Armani, this is one sleek 1080p LCD television. Available in 46" and 52" sizes the tv itself is pretty basic looking (although I'm sure it has a more than "basic looking" picture) but the remote control sounds like it puts on quite the light show with "a full range of radiant backlights." Plus there's a smaller pebble-shaped remote for basic functions. Look for the smaller tv model to launch first (in Europe) this summer, with the 52" quickly following.

Corporate Art or Corporate Scandal for Samsung

Filed under: Art

The hunger for art, or more aptly his wife's hunger for art, can get a man in trouble. Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung, allegedly used over $64 million from a corporate slush fund to buy art for his wife Ra Hee Hong Lee who is director-general of the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. The big mystery is, where has the art gone? It hasn't been exhibited in Korea and its whereabouts is presently unknown. Samsung has denied the allegations but the National Assembly has approved an independent investigation. The move has caused other Korean corporations to stop buying art and caused the country's two main auction houses to report a 20% drop in sales.

One painting in question is Roy Lichtenstein's Happy Tears, 1964, bought at Christie's New York in 2002 for $7,159,500, a record price for the artist at the time. The painting is said to have been bought at the auction on behalf of the chairman's wife by Hong Seong-won, director of the Seoul-based Seomi Gallery. Kim Yong-chul, head of the legal department of the Samsung Group Restructuring Office from 1997 to 2004, has released a full list of the art alleged to have been bought with money from the Samsung slush fund as well as details of payments made to Christie's that according to The Art Newspaper, includes 30 paintings and photographs including works by Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter and David Hockney. Samsung supplied The Art Newspaper with a statement saying that the allegations are groundless and that the list is of works of art purchased by Seomi Gallery alone and that neither Mrs Hong Lee nor the Samsung Museum of Art were involved in the purchase of "Happy Tears." Where is "Happy Tears" now? Seomi Gallery first said they sold"Happy Tears" to a private collector and then quickly retracted that and told Korean reporters she still had the painting but that other works on the list have been sold to various collectors.

Porsche And Armani Set To Enter The Cell Phone Market

Filed under: Gadgets


It's a busy few weeks for cellphone watchers as everyone wants to create the next phone that makes all the cool kids go crazy the way the iPhone has. Born Rich reports that Porsche Design is working on the shiny new gadget shown above. The P9521 cell phone is created from a block of aluminum and has a scratch-resistant screen which rotates 180 degrees, a three-megapixel camera, a fingerprint reader and a MP3 player. This baby will set you back way more than the iPhone, it is expected to sell fo $1600.

Another hot cellphone story is that Samsung is reportedly working with Armani to create a phone. The Armani phone is said to have "exclusive content" and undoubtedly minimalist design to die for.

Samsung Plans Gold Phone For The Olympics

Filed under: Gadgets

Those at China's Olympics can keep in touch with a gold phone. Samsung will make a special 18-carat gold-plated mobile phone in China to celebrate the Olympics in Beijing. The P318 phone will be black with gold trim and gold along the bottom half of its back. The phone will only be sold in China and no launch date has been set yet.

Samsung and Bang & Olufsen WEP 420 Headset

Filed under: Gadgets


This week took me through several different airports and so I got to see a lot of people sporting Bluetooth headsets. Starting soon, those in need of new ear candy might want to check out the WEP 420, a headset designed by Bang & Olufsen and created by Samsung Electronics. The sleek and silver WEP 420 has buttons that are hidden behind a sliding cover. The sliding cover blocks static to increase overall sound quality and comes with an attractive charger cradle. Not bad, although the blockish bar look makes it look as if you have a silver ingot strapped to the side of your head.

[via PSFK]

Samsung's Gilded Hauzen Washing Machine

Filed under: Gadgets

There is nothing like a little bling on an appliance to get you in the mood to actually do some household chores and the new Hauzen Washing Machine from Samsung certainly has no shortage of bling. The look of the machine was created by Korean designer Andre Kim. It is done in crimson and gold, with a gilded floral pattern, stainless steel door/window ring and the designer's golden crest on the front. There are no details out on pricing from Samsung, yet, but it seems possible that this particular machine will only be available to the Korean market.

[via engadget]

Thinnest Slider Ever: Samsung Ultra Edition 10.9

Filed under: Gadgets

Samsung just announced that their crack team of millimeter-shavers has done it again with their new fangled "Ultra Edition 10.9" slider. Being two millimeters thinner than the company's previously crowned D900 and boasting quite similar specs - the 3.2 megapixel camera, along with 80MB worth of music/video internal memory (plus a microSD slot) - it looks like we're getting ever-closer to the much sought-after two-dimensional mobile phone. No price or availability yet, but our Engadget cronies predict we'll know next month after the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona.

Click through for more pictures of the Ultra Edition 10.9

[via Engadget]

Samsung FP-T5894W: Wireless Plasma TV

Filed under: Gadgets

At CES, Samsung had a display that featured their newest plasma TV. The Samsung FP-T5894W is a flat panel, wall-mounted TV that is completely wireless.

Up until this point, if you wanted to have the look of wireless, you would need to pay someone to install the TV and hide the wires in the wall behind the unit, which means that you ended up with an attractive look, but that you couldn't move the TV or even attach DVD players, etc. to it without attaching additional wires. The FP-T5894W has a wireless A/V center that can be placed up to 300 feet from the screen and will communicate at 150Mbps, the 802.11n wireless standard. The screen is 58-in. with 1080 px resolution and, according to Samsung, a 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

The retail release is scheduled for September 2007. List price is expected to be $5,799.

Samsung Sells A Million Yepps, Drops Next 10 In Gold

Filed under: Gadgets

Because, apparently, there are enough My Super Sweet Sixteen types out there, gadget companies seemingly can't find enough reasons to bling up their wares, and Samsung is surely no exception. To commemorate the 1 millionth Yepp YP-Z5 unit sold, the company and interface designer Paul Mercer (he also designed the iPod's 'face) are auctioning off 10 of these 18k gold bars, which are predicted to net over $1,000 each. Go for it, if you're in Korea.

[Via Engadget]

Samsung Promises 70" LCD, Again

Filed under: Gadgets

Although they ragged us with a sneak peak of this behemoth back in August, Samsung has finally announced the official release date for the largest mass-produced LCD TV in the world to be February (actually, "February or March") 2007.

The 70-incher provides 1080p flat panel resolution with 8ms response time and 2000:1 contrast ratio – but what's even more exciting is the fact that Samsung claims that they will be manufacturing a million of the bad boys annually. Nice.

No word on price yet, but seeing as they've sort of got the market cornered here (and very well may have it cornered for a while), we're hoping they'll be nice, responsible market-creators and keep 'er well below five digits.

Via gizmodo

10-Megapixel Camera Phone from Samsung

Filed under: Gadgets

The Samsung SCH-B600 is a camera phone for those who want really quality pictures, not just those blurry little shots of half-recognizable faces. In fact, it is more like a camera with a phone built into it than the other way around. It has a 10-megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom and other features that include a satellite multimedia service, Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a business card reader, and a TV-output. The phone retails for about $950.

Before you get too excited, however, keep in mind that this camera will only be released in Korea - at least for the time being.

Samsung Wireless HDTV

Filed under: Gadgets

Flat panel TVs look great, sleek and far less bulky than any ordinary TV, especially if you choose a large screen size. Unfortunately, unless you have a niche in the wall carved out for the screen - which is a good idea, but can be a hassle - there will be wires along your wall connecting the cable, DVD and any other relevant equipment. The Samsung SPD-50P7HDT Wireless is a 50" flat screen that solves these problems. It comes with a wireless AV center to which all of your extra equipment can attach. The center then transmits the signals to the screen, hanging wire-free (except for the power cord) on the wall. It's only available in Korea at the moment, and is priced around $5,000.

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