The world's 10 richest pets and pampered pooches

It is the search that is gripping the US nation: which pooch will president-elect Barack Obama choose to be the White House puppy?

A pampered life awaits the dog that gets the nod, what with the run of the 132-room White House and its spacious gardens. Then there's the presidential jet Air Force One to look forward to. A trip to the countryside will never be the same again.

Not that life is going to be easy, what with all those photo shoots and life lived in the public eye. Nothing less than a shiny coat and perfect teeth will do. The press can be so cruel on those bad hair days. And "cavorting" with other canines will definitely be out.

But let's not play down the job's advantages. Mr Obama says that he is ideally looking for a mutt from a shelter home: a rags to riches story that sums up the American dream.

However, it won't be the first pet to embark on a life of luxury and excess. Here are some of the richest animals ever to have walked this earth.

1. Gunther IV - Germen Shepherd

Worth: £90 million

German Countess Karlotta Liebenstein left a staggering fortune of 139 million German marks (about £43 million) to her beloved pet dog Gunther III when she died in 1991. When Gunter III died, the fortune passed to his offspring – imaginatively named Gunther IV – who used it, through a mysterious group of human beings, to, among other things, buy Madonna’s eight-bedroom villa in Miami. Gunther’s property portfolio is also said to include estates in the Bahamas, Italy and Germany and is estimated to be worth £90 million.

A website dedicated to the pampered Alsatian shows him living the Playboy mansion lifestyle. There are photos of Gunther splashing around in swimming pools while bikini-clad women and bronzed muscle men look on adoringly. Read the accompanying text and it gets even weirder. These “five gifted youngsters” it informs you are the Burgundians, the “most talented among a selected group of boys and girls of international origin endowed with special features, beauty, intelligence and independence”.

You couldn't make it up, or maybe you could. Some cynics have questioned whether it is all just an elaborate hoax. Make your own mind up by taking a look at Gunther's website

2. Toby Rimes - Poodle

Worth: £45 million

Toby Rimes, worth the equivalent of £45m in dollars, is a descendant of a pooch left £15m in New York in 1931.

3. Kalu - Chimpanzee

Worth: £42.5 million

Kalu, a chimpanzee, was adopted by Patricia O’Neill, daughter of the Countess of Kenmore, after she found her tied to a tree in Zaire. On her death Mrs O'Neill stunned her husband, the former Australian swimming champion Frank, by leaving her entire estate near Cape Town, South Africa, to Kalu. She said she couldn’t bear the thought of what might happen to the chimp after she died. All together now- Awwwww.

4. Pepe le Pew, Ani and Frankie – Two cats and a Chihuahua

Worth: £18 million

Chihuahua Frankie and cats Ani and Pepe Le Pew each had a third of a San Diego mansion worth around £10 million left to them. The reclusive millionairess who granted them the house also left £8.1million in cash for the three to share. I wonder what they've spent it on - Tuna sachets and dog bones?

5. Flossie – Labrodor mix

Worth: £3 million

Drew Barrymore, the actor (above), placed a £3 million Beverly Hills mansion in trust for her dog, Flossie, in 2002 after it woke up her and husband, Tom Green, in time to escape from a house fire. As the blaze caught hold in the early hours of the morning, Drew's faithful dog ran upstairs and banged on their bedroom door with its tail to alert them to the danger.

6. Trouble - Maltese Terrier

Worth: £1.1million

New York hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, dubbed the "Queen of Mean" during a 1989 trial for tax evasion, left $12 million of her estimated $8 billion estate for the upkeep of her Maltese terrier Trouble. Two of her four grandchildren meanwhile got nothing. Unsurprisingly, the request by Helmsley, famous for her quip that "only the little people pay taxes," sparked nothing but trouble. After the will was contested, the pooch, who was spoon fed gourmet foods by maids, was stripped of $10 million by a Manhattan judge. Fortunately the $2 million left is enough to keep Trouble in the lap of luxury. The mutt's annual expenses come in at $190,000, including $100,000 for round-the-clock security, $60,000 for his guardianship fee, $8,000 for grooming and $1,200 for food.

7. Tinker - Cat

Worth: £450,000

Tinker, an eight-year-old cat from North London, inherited a £450,000 fortune after Margaret Layne, an elderly widow who found him as a stray, left him a three-bedroom house in Harrow and a £100,000 trust fund. Her will makes clear that the black cat, aged about eight, should not stray again. "If Tinker abandons the property permanently the trustees shall at their discretion be entitled to bring the trust to an end," says the will.

8. Tina and Kate - Collie crosses

Worth: £450,000

Tina and Kate, owned by Nora Hardwell, were left £450,000, the run of their owner’s home and five acres in Peasedown, St John, near Bath. The will also demanded that a carer must be employed to look after the two dogs, and that the house must be kept clean at all times.

9. Silverstone - tortoise - and friends

Worth: £100,000 plus

Silverstone the tortoise and a number of cats were provided for from the £59million estate of Christina Foyle, the late owner of Foyle's bookshop in London. When she died in 1999 Ms Foyle left the cats a house in Essex and £100,000 to her handyman to look after the tortoise.

10. The Queen Mum's collection of livestock

Worth: £8,000 each

150 Aberdeen Angus cattle and 200 North Country Cheviot sheep were the beneficiaries of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's will. She left a £3 million trust to protect the herds on the Castle of Mey Farm which is shared with a collection of goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits and two lovebirds. Each is worth about £8,000. Good on you, ma'am.

(http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/11/the-worlds-10-m.html)

25 reasons to avoid the new iPhone

The wait is over. The iPhone 3G goes on sale today, and no doubt hordes of Apple fans will be queing outside Carphone Warehouse and outlets of O2 mobile - the only supplier - to get their hands on the hugely hyped handset.

Here at Times Money we were pretty scathing of the original iPhone (take a look at 50 reasons not to buy an iPhone), but Apple claims that its new version is a huge improvement. It is being billed as twice as fast and half as expensive as its debut model.

Given that Apple kept the phone under wraps ahead of the launch it's difficult to know whether the new phone is all its cracked up to be. If the hype is true it will certainly be a huge improvement on the original model. But there are downsides. Maybe not 50 this time around, but here are 25 things to consider before parting with your cash.

1. It's less expensive than its predecessor but still not cheap. The 8GB version is free to O2 customers who spend £45 a month or more on a new 18-month contract. The handset, available from 02, Carphone Warehouse and Apple outlets will cost £99 on a new £30 monthly tariff and the existing £35 per month tariff.

2. For the more powerful 16GB version it will cost £159 on the £30 and £35 tariffs, £59 on the £45 tariff and will only be free on the £75 tariff. So the cheapest deal over 18 months - the 8GB version on the £30 tariff - costs £599. For that you get "unlimited" internet surfing but a measly 75 free calls a month and 125 texts. You can compare it with existing deals here.

3. It will not be available on Pay & Go till later this year. This has angered some O2 customers. Moreover, it is in super-short supply even on contract, with only a few dozen initially supplied to each O2 store.

4. The touch screen isn't great if you're an obsessive texter. This was a problem with the first iPhone, although this guy seems to have cracked it.

5. Like the Model T-Ford the 8GB model is available in any colour - as long as its black.

6. Go for the more expensive 16GB version and you can get it in white too. Rumours had been that Apple was going to be a little more adventurous.

7. Its camera is rubbish. At just two megapixels with no flash it's worse than many standard phones leaving even fans feeling short changed. Phones such as the Nokia N95 boast five megapixels.

8. You can’t use it to take videos, leading some critics to the conclusion that it’s not sexy enough.

9. Like its predecessor the 3G handset is large and bulky. Not something you can just stick in your pocket and forget about. True, the new phone is thinner at the edges and weighs slightly less than the debut model, but otherwise the measurements are the same. It’s even been nicknamed the monolith.

10. To enable Apple to cut costs something had to go. The original iPhone had a hard-wearing silver aluminum back; the new one a less durable black plastic skin. So will it be able to cope with a beating like this?

11. The absence of a metal back means that it is unlikely to blend as prettily as its predecessor.

12. It’s going to be popular with terrorists if Apple's official ad is anything to go by.

13. Battery life is poor - just five to six hours of 3G calls or web browsing. One reviewer found that the indicator fell below 20 per cent by early to mid-afternoon on some trial days.

14. The battery is sealed into the handset, which must be sent off for replacement when it starts to wear out. This is a hassle and means that you can't carry around a spare for use on the move.

15. It inspires people with anger issues to post pointless and mistitled videos at Youtube.

16. If you are an Apple fan, you already own the old iPhone. Much of the new handset's improved functionality is already available in the free 2.0 software update.

17. If you are not an Apple fan, you may be an Apple "hater". In that case, you wouldn't want one.

18. If you live away from the big cities, you may well not have 3G coverage (check here). That would make the whole 3G phone thing pointless...

19. It has no instant messaging function - forcing users to SMS. But it doesn't have multimedia messaging (MMS), which means that users must send and receive photos by email.

20. The web browser has limited Adobe Flash support, so cannot display videos from many sites.

21. Incredibly for a "smart" phone, it has no copy and paste ability. Duh.

22. Who needs a phone with GPS? Anyway, it can't find a decent pizza when you need one.

23. The iPhone is sometimes termed the "Jesusphone". Tasteless.

24. Bluetooth enables headset voice calls on the new handset. A less-limited Bluetooth profile could have enabled wireless music streaming and file sharing, too.

25. Its unveiling by Steve Jobs, of Apple, was predictably and unbearably smug.

(http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2008/07/reasons-to-avoi.html)

The world's 10 RICHEST female models!

The 10 richest models in the world

The age of the supermodel is definitely not over. The world’s top models have proved their earning power this year despite fashion designers downgrading their runway shows because of the recession. For the second year in a row, Gisele Bündchen, the Brazilian model tops Forbes magazine'd richest models list, based on estimated earnings from June 2008 – June 2009.

1. Gisele Bündchen, pictured above, £15 million

Despite earning US$10 million less this year, due to the loss of Victoria’s Secret and other contracts, this Brazilian beauty has topped the list for the second year in a row. With her own shoe line and success from campaigns such as Versace, Dior, and True Religion jeans, the 28 year old earned about £15 million last year. She also found time to hold two wedding receptions with her husband, American football player Tom Brady.

2. Heidi Klum, £9.7 million

At 35, this mum of three (soon to be four, with husband Seal) and Victoria’s Secret Angel has made her fortune through TV and endorsements. When she wasn’t busy hosting her hit TV series Project Runway and Germany’s Next Top Model, she designed a range of sandals for Birkenstock. Klum endorses brands that range from Diet Coke and Volkswagen, to McDonalds and LG.

3. Kate Moss, £5 million

This year Moss shot down rumours of a pregnancy by saying she's "just fat" and was also attacked for being old (yes, she is 35), but the supermodel isn't going anywhere. She achieved great successes in the past year as the face of Longchamp, Versace, and David Yurman, and her range for Topshop, which also debuted in New York, has made her the third highest earning model.

4. Adriana Lima, £4.8 million

Another angel, famous for her sultry poses, Lima's career has taken off with the support of the lingerie brand. Although her contract with Maybelline ends later this year, the one-time Ford “Supermodel of the year” is busy away from the catwalk too. She appeared on Ugly Betty last September, and is now expecting her first child with her husband, basketball player Marko Jaric.

5. Doutzen Kroes, £3.6 million

This Dutch model, the latest to join the entourage of Angels, recently signed up with Seven For All Mankind jeans after her contract with DeBeers expired. At just 24, Kroes is also the face of cosmetic company L’Oreal, and the fragrance Calvin Klein Eternity.

6. Alessandra Ambrosio, £3.6 million

Last autumn, the 28 year old returned to the Victoria’s Secret runway just three months after giving birth. Having starting modelling for their PINK line, she is now one of the brand’s biggest names. Ambrosio is also a model for the European retail outlet C&A and the Mexican department store Liverpool.

7. Natalia Vodianova, £3.3 million

This Russian-born beauty has not forgotten her roots, using some of her fortune to run Naked Heart Foundation, which helps provide playgrounds for children in Russia. Vodianova, 27, is most recognisable for her work with Calvin Klein fragrance Guerlain, but over the next three years, she will be designing and modelling various collections for French lingerie company Etam.

8. Daria Werbowy, £2.7 million

After winning a modelling competition, this Polish-born Canadian has shot to fame as the face of Lancome and Louis Vuitton. Werbowy’s other campaigns include H&M, Balmain, Roberto Cavalli, and Vogue Eyewear. At just 25, she was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame, alongside film director James Cameron.

9. Miranda Kerr, £1.8 million

Equally famous for being Orlando Bloom’s leading lady as for her sultry Victoria’s Secret campaigns, this fresh-faced Aussie made her mark signing on to be the new face of Maybelline and XOXO. Following the devastating Australian bush fires earlier this year, Kerr lent a hand to the Australia Unites fundraiser.

10. Carolyn Murphy, £1.8 million

The long-time face of Estee Lauder has proved her staying power in the industry, at 35. She is also the only American on the list. Having posed for Playboy and Sports Illustrated swimsuit in the past, her most recent campaigns include Banana Republic and Lord & Taylor.

By Vanessa Kortekaas

(http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/07/top-ten-richest-models-in-the-world.html)

5 reasons touchscreen PCs may fail

Touchscreen technology is sweeping the consumer electronics market as technology brands hope to come up with the next iPhone, but these new toys could be little more than plenty of hype especially in the PC market.

Major phone and PC makers such as Nokia, Research in Motion Hewlett-Packard and Asustek have launched touchscreen-enabled products, aiming to ride the trend of what they expect to be the next big thing.

Microsoft's impending launch of its next-generation Windows 7 operating system is expected to give the budding technology a further boost, bringing a software that supports such capabilities into millions of home and office PCs.

But most consumers may not find touchscreen PCs very different from their usual laptop or desktop PCs, and the technology is unlikely to spread beyond mobile phones.

"I don't think it's going to be the next big thing by any means, but just more and more brands are going into it," said IDC analyst Jay Chou.

"The software's still in an embryonic stage, and until that changes, hopefully with Windows 7, it's still going to be a while more before we see things taking off."

Touchscreens, once only commonly found in supermarket checkout counters and airports and banks, jumped to the forefront of consumer technology thanks to Apple's popular iPhone, inspiring a whole list of knock-offs in the process.

The old-fashioned keyboard and mouse could still be the best way to use a PC, with user interaction habits notoriously hard to change, especially if there is a dearth of software support.

"I think it sounds like a lot of hype," said Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai. "It seems impractical to me for a person to use touchscreens on a computer, and when you're using a device so big, it really adds little value to the over all experience."

Touchscreen PCs have been around for a while now, but high costs and limited functionality have kept them to niche devices. These type of PCs make up less than 1 percent of all computers sold worldwide. While most analysts expect this figure to climb, few see it growing as quickly as some computer brands expect.

"The biggest question to me is how much value does a touchscreen add to your computer? Probably not very much, and if that's the case, why would I want to pay more money for such a computer," said iSuppli analyst Peter Lin.

High cost associated with touchscreens could set back the technology a few more years until prices come down, with the cost of manufacturing a panel and its required chips jumping manifold on a PC when compared to a smaller smartphone.

Specialist manufacturer Wintek estimates it costs about $10 to make a 3 inch touchscreen frequently used in smartphones, but said costs can increase exponentially when the size increases.

Touchscreen chip designer Elan Microelectronics, which counts Dell and HTC among its clients, estimates that adding a touchscreen to a desktop computer would increase its price by more than 10 percent.

"We've got to wait for the cost to come down a little before the kind of growth we're seeing right now in mobile phones can spread to computers," Elan's Chairman IH Yeh told Reuters at during the PC trade show Computex.

"Right now, I think it's still an issue whether or not consumers are willing to fork out an extra 10 percent for a touchscreen on their computers."

PC brands' previous forays into touchscreens have fizzled. With products such as the Tablet PC not living up to its initial hype when they were launched more than a decade ago.



(http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4763026.cms)

6 failed technology predictions by Bill Gates

The founder of the world's largest software company Microsoft Bill Gates is often looked upon for his vision. But then they also say, there's really nothing like perfection. So, all our venerable tech czar's forecasts too have not been flawless.

Many of the technology prophecies of the man who is often credited for ushering in the third wave of computing -- mainframe era, minicomputer era to personal computing era -- did miss the mark.

Here's looking into where all Gates went ‘wrong’.
Seems Bill Gates couldn't comprehend the pace at which the size of data will grow in the computing space. In 1981, Gates reportedly said that nobody would ever need more than 640 kilobytes of memory on their personal computer. Contrary to what Gates thought, most PCs today come with at least 2GB of memory.

However, in an interview to Bloomberg Business News in 1996, Gates refuted the quote. Here's an excerpt of what he said when asked about the (in)famous quote, "I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.

"The need for memory increases as computers get more potent and software gets more powerful. In fact, every couple of years the amount of memory address space needed to run whatever software is mainstream at the time just about doubles. This is well-known."

In a foreword to the OS/2 Programmer's Guide in 1987 Bill Gates wrote, "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly programme, of all times."

OS/2 was a computer operating system initially jointly developed by both Microsoft and IBM, and later developed by exclusively by IBM.

The OS though gained some ground in large industries like banking, insurance and telecommunications it, however, failed to make an impact among the home and SOHO users. The launch of Windows 95 completely stole the OSes thunder.

Contrary to what Gates wrote, Microsoft's own Windows operating systems today continue to power world's over 90 per cent desktops. OS/2 is no longer marketed by IBM, and IBM standard support for OS/2 was discontinued on 31 December 2006.

The problem of spam e-mail messages will be gone within two years, Bill Gates promised in January 2004.

Speaking at a session of the World Economic Forum, Gates said that the company was working on three ways to enable email users to keep spam out of their computers.

The first two, he said, would involve having computers reply automatically to any email messages from senders not known to that computer -- that is, not in the mail list of the email programme installed on the computer -- with a request to solve a problem that could be handled by a person but not by a computer.

The third way, which Gates said was likely to arrive later but be the long-term solution, would require that email messages sent by strangers come with postage attached, the equivalent of a postage stamp. It's been four-and-a-half years since then, and the spam menace only seems to be growing.

In 1983, Bill Gates said that the company "will never make a 32-bit operating system."

However, nine years later (in 1992), Microsoft released beta of its first 32 bit Windows NT. NT was the first full 32-bit version of Windows. The OSes consumer-oriented counterparts, Windows 3.1x and Windows 9x were 16-bit/32-bit hybrids.

In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, which featured new user interface, supported long file names and could automatically detect and configure installed hardware (plug and play). The OS could natively run 32-bit applications, and featured several technological improvements that increased its stability over Windows 3.1.

In 2005, Microsoft released 64-bit versions of Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003, now dubbed Windows XP Professional x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64. Currently, Microsoft's most popular XP packs both 32 and 64-bit versions. Less-popular Vista also comes in both versions.

In the year 2005, the tech czar amused the world with one another forecast that failed miserably. In an interview to a newspaper, Gates said "Blu-ray Disc is the last physical format there will ever be."

Here's quoting him, "Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-ray is very anti-consumer and there's not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [movie] studios got too much protection at the expense consumers and it won't work well on PCs. You won't be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way. It's not the physical format that we have the issue with, it's that the protection scheme on Blu is very anti-consumer. If [the Blu-ray group] would fix that one thing, you know, that'd be fine. For us it's not the physical format. Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be. Everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it's even unclear how much this one counts.”

While Blu-Ray has beaten HD-DVD to death, its successor are on way including multi-layer discs (LS-R), 3D discs that may hold up to a terabyte of data and discs read by short wavelengths such as UV.
In the year 2001, Bill Gates had said that tablet PC would be the most popular form of PC sold in America.

At an event in Las Vegas, Gates showed a prototype Tablet PC and following year launched it. He said, "It's a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."

However, Tablet PCs failed to make an impact. Only a few handful vendors market Tablet PCs. Also, they are still to take off as business devices.

Some time back, Gates again reiterated his faith in the Tablet PC form factor. He said that with better hardware and software, Tablet PCs have the potential to dominate over traditional laptop PCs.
Tablet PCs to be most popular'



(http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4775207.cms)

Wow, what a FLY-PAST..Just amazing

Now that's what I call a fly-past: US Navy F18 streaks past apartment block

This is the moment a a US Navy pilot gave a shocked resident a very close look at his F18.

The fighter/bomber streaked past an apartment block on the banks of the Detroit River at the weekend.

It was part of a tactical demonstration fly-past to open a speedboat race in the North American city.

Officials waived rules to allow the Navy flyers to swoop under 100ft along the waterway.

Flypast: The F18 streaks past an apartment block

One resident said: 'I couldn't believe how low they flew and how close they came to our building - I'm sure the pilot waved at me.'

The jets had flown in from the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia to put on a spectacular show for thousands of spectators.

The Chrysler Jeep Superstores APBA Gold Cup race was won by speedboat ace Dave Villcock.

'We danced with the devil at every turn,' said Villwock, 55, who demolished the field on his way to his seventh Gold Cup win.

'We were either going to win it big or lose it big.'

He couldn't match the F15s for speed, although his average of 141mph for the five-lap final remained impressive.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1199341/Now-thats-I-fly-past-US-Navy-F18-streaks-past-apartment-block.html#ixzz0L9M5RUGt&D

Worst US cities for IT pros

USA is considered as the land of opportunity. The country is the core market for Indian software companies and one of the hot favourite with techies.

However, during the current troubled times not all US cities are likely to be a great workplace for IT pros. Network World has come out with a list of US cities that IT pros probably should avoid. Here's Network World's list of least favorite US technology job locales.

Topping the list is Detroit. According to Network World, Detroit, the Mecca of automobile companies, can hardly be any IT professional's destination of choice right now. With auto companies and their suppliers struggling to survive bankruptcy and global recession reason is not hard to find.

Detroit was also a part of the Forbe's top 10 'Fastest Dying US Cities' list. The second city on the list is US retail giant's headquarter Bentonville. The city of Rock and Roll fame Cleveland is next on the list. The city has witnessed one of the highest foreclosure rates in the US, huge population declines and dying industries of yesteryear, according to the article. Like Detroit, Cleveland too was a part of the Forbes top 10 'Fastest Dying US Cities' listing.

Next on the `worst' US city for IT pros list is Syracuse. The city holds the title for the US city with the highest average annual snowfall (115 inches), more than Anchorage, Alaska (114 inches). The city reportedly also has a bit of a problem with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) due to heavy snow and little sunshine. Here's the city whose entry in the list is sure to raise eyebrows. According to Network World, "These havens for IT geeks and tech companies both offer insanely high real estate prices, suicide-inducing traffic and too many cocky and annoying IT people fighting over precious jobs."

San Francisco also claims the No. 1 spot for worst cities for identify theft, or `iJacking.' And Boston is said to be too full of itself. Anchorage is the next city on the list. The city receives second-highest snowfall in the US.

Orlando is surely a tourist haven with its theme parks. But the city is surely not a haven for techies. The Network World's authour blames the Orlando's real estate mess and the annual hurricane season for this not-so-favourable title.

(http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/4745138.cms)