The Dailies

A newly discovered Faberge egg made for a top banking dynasty is expected to fetch up to nine million pounds (13 million euros, 18 million dollars) when it is sold in London next month.

The egg was made for the Rothschild family in 1902 by Peter Carl Faberge and contains a diamond-encrusted cockerel which pops out every hour to flap its wings and nod its head while opening and shutting its beak and crowing.

One of only three known examples featuring a clock and a mechanical figure, it is unusually large and is enamelled in pink with gold detailing.

Faberge, a Russian jeweller whose name is synonymous with extravagant craftsmanship, made 50 eggs for the Russian royal family but is only known to have created 12 eggs to similar standards for private clients.

The Rothschild egg will be auctioned on November 28 as part of a week of Russian art sales at Christie’s which is expected to attract a string of big bucks bids from wealthy Russian business people in London.

The National Braille Press is auctioning a rare complete set of Harry Potter books autographed by author J.K. Rowling as part of the nonprofit’s annual fundraiser.

The fundraiser, emceed by “Tonight Show” host and Massachusetts native Jay Leno, is scheduled for October 26.

The seven-book print set, donated by Rowling herself, is the only item that can be bid for online. Rowling rarely signs books. A similar set sold in Scotland recently for $40,000.

The books will be placed in a bank vault until the event. The money raised will help the press produce Braille books for children.

Falling home prices may not be the only thing poisoning your neighborhood. Landfills, abandoned manufacturing plants, and leaking underground petroleum tanks sometimes lurk in the backyards of unsuspecting homeowners and home buyers, leading to serious health issues and spoiled real estate markets.

Which areas of the U.S. have the highest concentration of contaminated sites? The list might surprise you. Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Portland, Ore., are three of the biggest offenders when it comes to number of contaminated sites per capita, according to Environmental Data Resources (EDR), a provider of environmental risk information services based in Milford, Conn. But EDR is quick to note that this doesn’t automatically mean the cities aren’t safe.

Hmm…

Verizon Wireless unveiled three new cell phones on Wednesday for the holiday season, including a high-end handset named Voyager that will compete with Apple Inc’s iPhone.

The Voyager, made by LG Electronics, trumps the iPhone by offering faster wireless Web access. But in a nod to the Apple device, which is only available to AT&T Inc subscribers, it has a large touch screen and full Web browser.

Verizon Wireless hopes the new phone will attract customers put off by the iPhone’s lack of a traditional keypad — the Voyager hinges open to reveal a small computer keypad and a second screen.

“We think it’ll be the best phone … this year. It will kill the iPhone,” Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Mike Lanman said in an interview.

Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said the Voyager may attract existing Verizon subscribers who do not want to switch service providers, but he doubted it would hurt iPhone sales.

“People who want a high-end media phone and want to stay with Verizon will certainly give that one a hard look. I don’t know that it would pull anybody away from an iPhone,” he said.

(more…)

Starbucks finally launched its Wi-Fi iTunes store today (well, in New York and Seattle, anyway), so I moseyed on down to my local purveryor of overpriced (oops, I meant oh-so-tasty) java to give it a try.

As advertised, logging on to the Starbucks iTunes storefront was a piece of cake; I simply connected to the “tmobile” Wi-Fi access point under my iPhone’s Settings menu, tapped on the iTunes icon, and voilà: more Starbucks-branded songs than I could shake a stick at (a “Starbucks” icon appears on the bottom-left of the screen; you can tap the other icons to return to the main iTunes store). Up top, you get a “Now Playing” section that updates in time with the music over the Starbucks speakers. There are also a few other (mostly low-key, of course) categories, including the much-vaunted “Recently Played” list (which shows you the most recently-played songs in your Starbucks), “Must Haves,” “Coffeehouse Sound,” “Under the Radar,” and “Custom Blends.” Amont the artists I found in the various categories were the Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Paul McCartney. Buying a song was no problem, and it downloaded in about a minute or so.

(more…)

George Lucas said Tuesday he is planning a live-action television series spinoff of the “Star Wars” film franchise. Lucas told The Los Angeles Times he has “just begun work” on the series, which will not include the films’ major characters Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.

“The Skywalkers aren’t in it, and it’s about minor characters,” Lucas told the Times.

Lucas wouldn’t reveal details, but joked that the series would be about “the life of robots.”

Lucas already has another television series in the works. Lucas Animation has been working for months on the computer-animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”

Bob LaMonte
“Before we got involved, coaches were making $300,000,” says LaMonte. “Now they’re making $3 million.” But the agent doesn’t just fill his coaching clients’ coffers. He also brokers deals that give them the kind of control most coaches just dream about. The 62-year-old agent’s roster boasts Charlie Weis and an army of A-list NFL coordinators (Mike Martz, Mike Singletary, Jim Mora Jr., and Mike Sherman among them). But it is head guys such as Mike Holmgren, John Gruden, Andy Reid, Brad Childress, John Fox, and Mike Nolan who make LaMonte one of the league’s most influential insiders. The contracts he brokered for Holmgren in Seattle, Reid in Philadelphia, and Sherman during his run with the Packers set a new gold standard, combining multimillion dollar compensation with unprecedented front-office control.

Mark of influence: For the 2007 season, LaMonte’s head-coaching clients will rake in somewhere north of $36 million in contract money.

Janet Marie Smith
As the senior vice-president of development and planning for the Red Sox, Smith is in charge of Fenway Park’s renovations. Over the past five years, she has overseen vast improvements in the fan experience at one of baseball’s oldest and most overcrowded parks. With expanded concourses, less congestion, and additional seats perched above the Green Monster, Fenway has retained its 95-year-old charm while adapting to modern demands for more space and amenities. It’s the same approach that Smith used with Atlanta’s Turner Field and before that, Baltimore’s Camden Yards, two retro parks that proved a fan-friendly stadium can enliven a city’s dormant urban center.

Mark of influence: Since Camden Yards opened in 1992, a dozen throwback ballparks have helped revitalize urban areas.