Dracula's Castle Goes Up for Sale

New York Architect Selling the Spooky Mountaintop Castle for $78M

Bran Castle is being offered for sale to the Brasov County Council by the U.S.-based owner, Dominic von Habsburg who is a descendant of the Romanian royal family June 23, 2005 in Brasov, Romania. The castle built by the Teutonic knights in 1212 was used briefly by Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler who was partly the inspiration for Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Passed through royal hands for many generations the castle was the principal home of Queen Marie whose grandson Dominic von Habsburg had the castle returned only in May of 2006 by the Romanian governmen. In preparation for Romania joining to the European Union the government has been handing back assets seized during communist rule. The castle is reported to be worth $25-million (USD)  (Wojtek Laski/Getty Images)

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By BARBARA PINTO

Jan. 9, 2007 —

 The imposing Transylvanian castle, where, legend has it, the model for Dracula once lived and was imprisoned, is about to go up for sale. But it's probably already too late for you to get your bid in.

Dominic Habsburg, 69, an architect from Westchester County, N.Y., and the son of Romanian Princess Ileana, said his family hopes to finalize the $78 million deal with the government of Brasov County later this month.

Habsburg and his two sisters, Maria-Magdalena Holzhousen and Elisabeth Sandhofen, who are direct descendants of the Romanian royal family, grew up in the castle — which is known as Bran Castle — until Romania's communist government seized it in 1948.

"The government took it away from us overnight. They took everything," said Habsburg, who at the age of 12 was forced to leave the country with the rest of his family.

The Habsburgs' search for a new home was a long one. They first went to Switzerland, but they were unable to gain asylum there. They then fled to Argentina, before finally settling in the United States.

That is where Habsburg learned of the legend that links his family's home to Prince Vlad "The Impaler" — who punished adversaries by impaling them on stakes. Vlad's cruelty was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula."

Despite the link between the novel and his family home, Habsburg said he has never read the book.

"No. It's not my kind of literature," he said.

Still, the link to the Dracula story has turned the Gothic fortress, perched on a rock and surrounded by mountains, into a popular tourist destination.

Nearly half a million Dracula enthusiasts visit the castle every year.

The local economy, with its Dracula-related souvenir stands and bed and breakfasts, all depend on the visitors.

The Romanian government returned the castle to the Hapsburgs in May 2006, as part of its recent efforts to make restitution for the former communist regime.

The family waited 60 years and engaged in a six-year legal battle to get the castle back.

Don't play with maps

Mapping a Mideast peace II

Dennis Ross

Published: January 9, 2007

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WASHINGTON: I became embroiled in a controversy with former President Jimmy Carter over the use of two maps in his recent book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." While some criticized what appeared to be the misappropriation of maps I had commissioned for my book, "The Missing Peace," my concern was different.

I was concerned more with how the maps were labeled.

To my mind, Carter's presentation badly misrepresents the Middle East proposals advanced by President Bill Clinton in 2000, and in so doing undermines, in a small but important way, efforts to bring peace to the region.

In his book, Carter juxtaposes two maps labeled the "Palestinian Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal 2000" and "Israeli Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal 2000."

The problem is that the "Palestinian interpretation" is actually taken from an Israeli map presented during the Camp David summit meeting in July 2000, while the "Israeli interpretation" is an approximation of what President Clinton subsequently proposed in December of that year.

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Apple unveils iPhone

Jayed.us
Internet and Technology News from around the globe. Always updated!

Published 9 January , 2007 by Jay

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday announced the iPod maker's long-awaited leap into the mobile phone business and renamed the company just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increased focus on consumer electronics. The iPhone, which will start at $499 when it launches in June, is controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system. Jobs said it will "reinvent" wireless communications and "leapfrog" past the current generation of smart phones.

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. "It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. … Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these." He said the company's name change is meant to reflect Apple's transformation from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer electronics company. During his speech, Jobs also unveiled a TV set-top box that allows people to send video from their computers and announced the number of songs sold on its iTunes Music Store has topped 2 billion.

Apple shares jumped more than 8 percent on the announcements, while the stock of rival smart-phone makers plunged. The run on Apple stock created about $6 billion in shareholder wealth. While Jobs noted the explosive growth of the cell phone market, it's not clear that a device as alluring as the iPhone poses a threat to mainstream handset makers due to the price, said Avi Greengart, mobile device analyst for the research firm Current Analysis.

"My initial reaction is that this product actually lives up to the extensive hype, and I'm not easily impressed," he said. "But the vast majority of phones sold cost way less than $500." Instead, the rivals most likely to face new competition from Apple's handset are makers of higher-end smart phones such as Palm Inc. Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said the iPhone could revolutionize the way cell phones are designed and sold. "This goes beyond smart phones and should be given its own category called 'brilliant' phones," he said. "Cell phones are on track to become the largest platform for digital music playback and Apple needed to make this move to help defend their iPod franchise as well as extend it beyond a dedicated music environment."

Apple currently commands about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music and portable music players. But it's expected to lose market share on both fronts as rivals introduce their own gadgets and music stores. Jobs said Apple expects to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, the first full year in which they'll be available. That's about 1 percent of the global market for mobile phones; 957 million were sold worldwide in 2006. The Apple phones, which will operate exclusively on AT&T Inc.'s Cingular Wireless network, will start shipping in June. A 4-gigabyte model will cost $499, while an 8-gigabyte iPhone will be $599. While wireless carriers typically offer discounts and rebates on new devices when they agree to sign a two-year service contact, Cingular said it was unclear whether this would be the case with the iPhone.

Cingular declined to comment on its financial arrangement with Apple. IPhone is less than a half-inch thin — less than almost any phone on the market today. It comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card. The phone automatically synchs the user's media — movies, music, photos — through iTunes on computers running either Mac OS X or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The device also synchs e-mail, Web bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on a PC. "It's just like an iPod," Jobs said, "charge and synch."

To make a call, users can tap out the number on an onscreen keypad or scroll through their contacts and dial with a single touch. "It works like magic," Jobs said. "It's far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores unintended touches. It's super smart." Apple is also introducing what it calls "visual voicemail," so users can jump to the most important messages rather than have to listen to all of them in order. The phone supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology and can detect location from Global Positioning System satellites. It also can send and display e-mail and text messages. Apple is partnering with Yahoo Inc. on Web-based e-mail and Google Inc. on maps.

With a few finger taps, Jobs demonstrated how to pull up a Google Maps site and find the closest Starbucks to San Francisco's Moscone Center, where Macworld is held. He then prank-called the cafe and ordered 4,000 lattes to go before quickly hanging up. Jobs demonstrated the iPhone's music capabilities by playing "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid," from the Beatles' "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band." The audience cheered, spurred by speculation that an announcement was imminent about a deal to sell Beatles songs on iTunes. But there was no such announcement, and Beatles songs still cannot be legally downloaded.

Also Tuesday, Jobs said Apple will begin taking orders immediately for the $299 video box called Apple TV. It will ship next month. The gadget is designed to bridge computers and television sets so users can more easily watch their downloaded movies on a big screen. A prototype of the gadget was displayed by Jobs in September when Apple announced it would sell TV shows and movies through iTunes. Apple TV will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive that stores up to 50 hours of video. It features an Intel Corp. microprocessor and can handle videos, photos and music streamed from up to five computers within the wireless range.

Apple also announced Tuesday it will sell movies from Paramount, increasing its online selection from about 100 to about 250. Meanwhile, Apple's milestone of selling more than 2 billion songs on iTunes catapults the company into the top ranks of music sellers worldwide — more than Amazon.com Inc. and behind only Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and Target Corp., Jobs said. Apple shares jumped $7.10 to close at $92.57 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $50.16 to $93.16.

Nearly 120 million Apple shares were traded on Tuesday, more than four times the average daily volume. Meanwhile, shares of other smart-phone makers slid: Treo-maker Palm dropped 5.7 percent, BlackBerry's Research In Motion Ltd. lost 7.9 percent and Motorola Inc. shed 1.8 percent.

A haven for 'Halo' in New York City

Nyclan, a new community center for video game fans, combines gaming with a social and friendly atmosphere.

By Caroline McCarthy

Published: December 31, 2006, 11:30 AM PST

reporter's notebook NEW YORK--This place is underground. Literally.

It was shortly after 10 p.m. on the day before New Year's Eve, and I was looking for Nyclan, a community-focused video game center in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. I'd heard about it when I picked up a promotional flier that had been lying on a table at the Blip Festival last month, and was immediately intrigued by the idea of a community center that featured Saturday night Halo matches from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.

So I had e-mailed Nyclan's owner soon after and asked if the gamers wouldn't mind having a reporter come and poke around. They were more than willing to accommodate me.

When I made my way over there, pretty much all I knew about Nyclan's location was that it was on West Fourth Street near the intersection with Seventh Avenue South, and that the space was below ground. Consequently, I was briefly concerned that I'd pass over it altogether; the Village, after all, can be hard to navigate.

The historic district is filled with brick row houses and streets that jut out from avenues at wild angles, a far cry from the towering high-rises and neat grid of roadways that characterize most of the city. And on a Saturday night, outsiders have to navigate not only the maze of streets but also the crowds of convivial Manhattanites who are headed to the Village's seemingly countless bars.

But I was able to find Nyclan, thanks in part to the colorful sign hanging over the West Fourth Street sidewalk as though it were advertising yet another tavern. The gaming center was indeed underground, tucked beneath a ground-level bar called Absolutely 4th where plenty of martini-sipping patrons were visible through the windows.

"Sugar and more sugar. No caffeine. I mostly do an energy drink or something."

--Marc Stubbs
Competitive 'Halo' player

But down the stairs and inside Nyclan, the atmosphere was strangely reminiscent of a high school computer lab: neat and well-lighted, with a pack of young people intently focused on the monitors in front of them. But the monitors were actually TVs connected to Xboxes, the contents on the screens were the first-person shooter Halo 2 rather than educational software, and the attendees were sitting in extra-comfy padded chairs--nothing you'd expect to see in a classroom. They were supplementing the game with lively conversation: yes, they do actually say, "You got pwned!"

I was immediately and cheerfully greeted by Brian Tang and Kia Song, the young husband-and-wife team who own and operate Nyclan--Tang says his official title is "overlord"--along with Nike, their dog. The gaming center has been operating for almost two months, having opened its doors for the first time on Halloween. Both hard-core gamers themselves, Tang and Song had previously hosted video game parties that had grown so popular that a nightclub-like line would form out their door.

As Tang recounts, "We decided, 'Wouldn't this be so awesome if we turned it into a real place?'" He and Song quit their jobs and pitched the idea of a gaming center to potential investors. The investors apparently loved the concept.

"This would be considered a slow Saturday night," Tang told me, surveying the crowd. Usually, a Saturday night would see 50 to 70 players, but Nyclan had an understandably lower attendance on the night before New Year's Eve. The space is divided into two rooms: a large front room for recreational gaming and a back room for competition, which was empty but about to fill up, Tang said.

At that moment, it looked like everyone in the recreational gaming room was playing with Xboxes, but Nyclan boasts a whole range of consoles from Super Nintendo to the Wii. There are no PlayStation 3s, though, Song said. "We don't have the PS3 because there are no really good titles out on it," she told me.

Indeed, around 10:30 p.m., the competitive Halo players began to show up for their weekly Saturday night matches. ("Are you here to play?" one of them asked me enthusiastically.) They are a young bunch, all male with an average age of about 18 (the youngest is 14, the oldest 27), and almost every one of them was wearing an oversize hoodie. Each one had brought his own Xbox 360 controller, and most had loaded their pockets with snacks.

Need Local Blogs? Check Out Placeblogger

 

Placeblogger.com Placeblogger includes a listing for a blog about Pearlington, Miss. -- a Gulf coast town which suffered considerable hurricane damage.

What's happening in Pearlington, Miss. or Bozenman, Mont.? Sure, you could check local news outlets -- but to get a deeper slice of life you might peruse nearby placeblogs.

Finding placeblogs just got a whole lot easier. Today, Lisa Williams debuted Placeblogger, an online resource that lists and showcases placeblogs -- so far 713 from around the U.S., with a few scattered elsewhere around the globe.

What's a placeblog? Williams defines it as "an act of sustained attention to a particular place over time. It can be done by one person, a defined group of people, or in a way that's open to community contribution. It's not a newspaper, though it may contain random acts of journalism. It's about the lived experience of a place." Her own community site for Watertown, Mass, H20town, is an example of a placeblog.

While many placeblogs focus on hyperlocal news and citizen journalism, others are more personal views about life in that town or region.

Placeblogger allows you to find and list placeblogs. Each placeblog listing includes a map, link, and other information. I know Lisa is a major fan of OPML, so expect some sophisticated feed options later from Placeblogger. Apparently, wikis will be part of the mix. And there's already a discussion forum for placebloggers.

Many news organizations already offer lists of local blogs or even syndicated content from them. Also, more and more news organizations are blogging about local issues. Why not add these blogs to Placeblogger, if they're not already listed? And if you're covering unfamiliar locations, why not check for nearby placeblogs to add color and context?

See Jay Rosen's Pressthink today for more about Placeblogger.

Lonely Planet Gets Online Travel Channel On ROO's Video Network

ONLINE COMPANY ROO AND LONELY Planet, a leading independent travel guidebook publisher, Web site and television production company, are launching a dedicated Lonely Planet channel on ROO's online video network. The focus is city-based destinations, narrated by authors of the Lonely Planet guidebooks.

Google Says Newspaper Ad Program A Hit

Two months into a test with 100 advertisers and 66 newspapers, Google executives say that a pilot program in which small merchants would go online and bid on the excess ad inventory of daily newspapers has exceeded their expectations. So they plan to roll out an expanded version in the coming months.

"The volume [of ads sold] is tripling where we thought it would be," says Tom Phillips, director of print ads at Google. "I think we'll have real impact next year" on newspapers' bottom lines," he adds.

According to Phillips, the medium is open to a whole new class of advertisers. Newspaper executives and analysts are more cautious, saying that while Google has brought in new advertisers, its online ad technology is so new it remains unclear how much it can help.

 

The Washington Post  Read the whole story...