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Lifestyles of the ridiculously rich: ‘Cheapest’ of these 7 homes starts at $150M http://bit.ly/2TtsPWl For the average person, buying a house comes after years of careful planning and saving. In this day and age, most are lucky to own a home at all. Some might choose a property that combines needs and preferences. Some people prefer tiny houses, apartments or condos, or single family homes, while others want a huge extravagant house on the hill. But when choosing a home, we all have one thing in common: we have to find a house that fits our budget. According to Zillow’s December, 2018 U.S. housing market data, the median sale price of homes in America is just under $230,000, which is a lot of money for the average person. On the other end of the spectrum, some of the most expensive homes in the world cost upwards of 1,000 times the median home price in America. We wanted to see just what type of home you could buy for this kind of money. Here are some of the sickest, most luxurious, most ridiculous, and most expensive houses in the world. Tour Odeon Penthouse in Monaco ($387 million)    
Tour Odéon sits above the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The building was developed by the Groupe Marzocco and designed by architect Alexandre Giraldi. The 35,500 square-foot penthouse has several floors, but you don’t have to walk up stairs to get from floor to floor. There’s private elevator and a water slide coming from the second floor (yes, a water slide). With an infinity pool and 360-degree views of the beautiful surrounding landscape, this place is paradise in the form of a penthouse. Totally worth the almost $400 million price tag. Antilia in Mubai India ($2 billion)
This house might not look like much in the picture, but it may just be the most extravagant house on the planet. Owned by Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the incredibly large home is 27-stories high, and it boasts a whopping 400,000 square feet of live/play space. Sitting 570 feet tall, it’s more than half of the height of the Eiffel Tower. The home was designed by Chicago architects Perkins and Will, and it features amenities like an ice cream parlor, six floors for cars, a snow room, a salon, and a private movie theater large enough to hold 50 people. We’re still trying to figure out what “snow room” means. We’ll get back to you on that. 924 Bel Air Road in California (~$188 Million)    
Luxury developer Bruce Makowsky’s 38,000 square-foot home is a like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous to the extreme. It has 12 bedrooms (including two master suites), and 21 individual bathrooms. With 7,000 square feet of entertainment decks, 10 huge guest suites, three separate gourmet kitchens, and five bars, you could probably fit a neighborhood comfortably in the home. It also has cool amenities like a massage studio, a fitness center, an infinity swimming pool, a theater, and a bowling alley. It’s like a modern-day Great Gatsby home. 24 Middle Gap Road in Hong Kong ($446 Million)
This home is relatively humble when you consider its price tag. At 6,200 square feet, it has four bedrooms, four full-bathrooms, and one partial bathroom. But, it comes on a large lot, has a pool, and it’s in an incredibly desirable area in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world. For perspective, the tiniest flats in Hong can be as small as 123 square feet and cost a fortune. South China Morning Post reports that homes prices in Hong were HK$13,561 ($1,728 USD) a square foot, as of October 2018. Villa Les Cedres in France (~$400 Million)    
Once owned by Belgian king Leopold II, this nearly 190-year-old property has 14 bedrooms and 18,000 square feet. Located on the coast of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in France, the house has beautiful views of the Mediterranean Sea. The home has an Olympic-sized pool, horse stables, a ballroom, and it’s decorated in antique furnishings. Perfect for plant and garden lovers, the property has 20 greenhouses and a multitude of plants beautifying the property. The home sits on 35 acres and features marble statues. The chandeliers alone in this house are sick. 220 Central Park South ($238 Million)   
Billionaire Ken Griffin made headlines when he purchased this four-story condominium in New York for $238 million, just a few days after being in the news for purchasing a different home near Buckingham Palace in London for 95 million pounds (about $122 million). The New York Penthouse has almost 24,000 square feet and overlooks New York Park. Get this: Griffin plans to use it as an occasional home. It’s not even his primary residence! The Manor ($150-$175 Million)   
The former residence of Aaron Spelling, the Manor is a gigantic 56,500 square feet. It has all sorts of perks, including a movie room, a bowling alley, two swimming pools, a tennis court, and a bar and wine cellar. The home reportedly has 14 bedrooms and 27 bathrooms, so no one will ever have to wait in line for the restroom. There’s also parking for 100 cars, so if you’re in the market to buy a parking lot to go with your home, this house is for you.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://bit.ly/2p4eJdC January 31, 2019 at 03:36AM
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Tesla: Model Y to share 75 percent of its parts with Model 3, coming in 2020 http://bit.ly/2Ga3lsW  
Tesla has a new electric vehicle in the works, though truth be told, we know very little about the Model Y crossover at this stage. But in a letter to investors published on Wednesday, Elon Musk, the man who runs the Tesla show, confirmed that the company will start tooling for the Model Y this year with a view to achieving volume production “by the end of 2020.” Musk also revealed that the Model Y is “most likely” to be manufactured not at its Fremont factory, which is already running at capacity producing other Tesla cars, but at its enormous Gigafactory 1 facility in Nevada. He added that the new SUV will share “about 75 percent” of its components with the Model 3, and as a result the cost of the Model Y production line “should be substantially lower than the Model 3 line in Fremont.” The production ramp is also expected to be faster. Speaking later in an earnings call, Musk said that the buoyant mid-size SUV market means the Model Y volume could be 50 percent higher than the Model 3. Tesla delivered around 140,000 Model 3 vehicles in 2018, with the other 110,000 sales split between the more expensive Model S and Model X autos. Musk has said previously that Tesla would take the wraps off the much-anticipated Model Y on March 15, 2019, though it’s not clear if that date still stands. For now, all we have are a couple of stylized teaser images revealing, well, not much at all … except that the vehicle may ditch sideview mirrors for cameras. If that’s the case, it’ll have to convince regulators that such a design poses no safety risk. Pricing for the Model Y isn’t known at this stage, though it’s been suggested the base model could cost around $40,000. Musk’s comments regarding the Model Y came as Tesla reported profits for two consecutive quarters for the first time in its 16-year history. The latest profit registered at $139 million for the closing three months of 2018, with revenue of $7.2 billion — a new record for the company. In his letter to investors, Musk confirmed that looking ahead, Tesla will “continue to develop our main projects, such as Gigafactory Shanghai, Model Y and Tesla Semi,” while also working to expand its Supercharger network.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://bit.ly/2p4eJdC January 31, 2019 at 03:36AM
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Nintendo’s Mario Kart mobile game won’t launch until the summer https://tcrn.ch/2DKPmZ3 It’s been a long year for Nintendo fans waiting on Mario Kart to come to mobile and, unfortunately, more patience is required after the game’s launch was moved back to this summer. Nintendo announced plans to bring the much-loved franchise to smartphones one year ago. It was originally slated to launch by the end of March 2019, but the Japanese games giant said today it is pushing that date back to summer 2019. The key passage sits within Nintendo’s latest earnings report, released today, which explains that additional time is needed “to improve [the] quality of the application and expand the content offerings after launch.”
It’s frustrating but, as The Verge points out, you can refer to a famous Nintendo phrase if you are seeking comfort. Shigeru Miyamoto, who created the Mario and Zelda franchises, once remarked that “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” There’s plenty riding on the title — excuse the pun. Super Mario Run, the company’s first major game for the iPhone, showed its most popular IP has the potential to be a success on mobile, even though Mario required a $9.99 payment to go beyond the limited demo version. Mario Kart is the most successful Switch title to date, so it figures that it can be a huge smash on mobile if delivered in the right way. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 31, 2019 at 02:35AM
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Partech is doubling the size of its African venture fund to $143 million https://tcrn.ch/2Sez7f4
Jake Bright Contributor
Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa.
Partech has doubled its Africa VC fund to $143 million and opened a Nairobi office to complement its Dakar practice. The Partech Africa Fund plans to make 20 to 25 investments across roughly 10 countries over the next several years, according to General Partner Tidjane Deme. The fund has added Ceasar Nyagha as Investment Officer for the Kenya office to expand its East Africa reach. Partech Africa will primarily target Series A and B investments and some pre-series rounds at higher dollar amounts. “We will consider seed-funding—what we call seed-plus—tickets in the $500,000 range,” Deme told TechCrunch on a call from Dakar. “In terms of sectors, we’re agnostic. We’ve been looking at all…sectors. We’re open to all plays; we have a strong appetite for people who are tapping into Africa’s informal economies,” he said. African startups who want to pitch to the new fund should seek a referral. “My usual recommendation is to find someone who can introduce you to any member of the team. We receive a lot of requests…but an intro and recommendation…shortcuts one through all that,” Deme said. Headquartered in Paris, Partech has offices in Berlin, San Francisco, Dakar, and now Nairobi. To bring the Arica fund to $143 million the VC firm tapped a number of other funds, several undisclosed corporate venture arms, and development finance institutions. They include Averroes Finance III, the IFC, the EBRD, and African Development Bank. Deme would not list figures, but confirmed “the IFC and European Bank for Reconstruction committed the largest amounts.” On why players like the IFC, which has its own VC shop for African startups, would place capital with Partech, Deme explained, “many have existing mandates to co-invest…others may not know this territory as well and would rather invest in another fund” with regional experience. Partech used that experience in 2018 to make 4 investments in African startups (2 undisclosed). They led the $16 million round in South African fintech firm Yoco (covered here at TechCrunch) and a $3 million round in Nigerian B2B e-commerce platform TradeDepot. Partech Africa joined several Africa focused funds over the last few years to mark a surge in VC for the continent’s startups. Partech announced its first raise of $70 million in early 2018 next to TLcom Capital’s $40 million, and TPG Growth’s $2 billion.
Africa focused VC firms, including those locally run and managed, have grown to 51 globally, according to recent Crunchbase research. As for a bead on total VC spending for African tech, figures can vary widely. By Partech’s numbers, compiled from an annual survey it does on Africa, 2017 funding for African startups reached $560 million. Partech hasn’t released its 2018 Africa VC estimate but it will now be up some $70 million more from its own recent raise. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 31, 2019 at 02:35AM
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Stephen King's The Stand Is Coming to CBS All Access http://bit.ly/2BaOtYc  It’s been 25 years since Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand was adapted into a live-action format. Since then Hollywood has continually been trying to do it again. Now, it’s finally happening. The CBS All Access streaming service has ordered the epic story of good and evil as a 10-episode limited series. “I’m excited and so very pleased that The Stand is going to have a new life on this exciting new platform,” said King in a statement published by Variety. “The people involved are men and women who know exactly what they’re doing; the scripts are dynamite. The result bids to be something memorable and thrilling. I believe it will take viewers away to a world they hope will never happen.” Advertisement Josh Boone and Ben Cavell will write the series and executive produce, with Boone (The Fault in Our Stars, The New Mutants) directing the episodes. It’s the culmination not just of five years of work trying to bring The Stand to the big screen for Boone (he first signed on to the project in 2014) but really, a lifetime of passion. He first read the book when he was 12, his Baptist parents burned it, he wrote to King about the incident, and King personally sent him more books. The Stand tells a huge story starting with a disease nicknamed Captain Trips wiping out most of humanity. It then follows the survivors who are forced to band together to fight against (or for) an ancient evil in a battle to save the world. It’s a story that, obviously, is way too big for one movie, which is why it was first adapted into a six-hour miniseries. At one point Boone envisioned it as four movies, and later, as one movie as a conclusion to a longer television show. It’s unclear if this TV show is the entire story, just part of it, or a set up to a movie. All we know is it’s 10 episodes. Advertisement Long-form TV feels like just the right medium for The Stand, though, and Boone seems like the right person for the job. If he does the material even an iota of justice (something the 1994 series struggled to do), it’ll be a special series. For more, make sure you’re following us on our new Instagram @io9dotcom. Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com January 31, 2019 at 01:54AM Samsung posts fourth-quarter profit drop warns of weak demand until the second half of 20191/31/2019
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Samsung posts fourth-quarter profit drop, warns of weak demand until the second half of 2019 https://tcrn.ch/2Ts5sMQ Samsung Electronics reported its largest quarterly profit decline in two years during its earnings report today. As the Galaxy maker warned in its earnings guidance earlier this month, its results were hurt by slower-than-expected demand for semiconductors, which had bolstered its earnings in previous quarters even when smartphone sales were slow. Samsung’s forecast was also dour, at least for the first half of the year. It said annual earnings will decline thanks to continuing weak demand for chips, but expects demand for memory products and OLED panels to improve during the second half. The company’s fourth-quarter operating profit was 10.8 trillion won (about $9.7 billion), a 28.7 percent decrease from the 15.15 trillion won it recorded in the same period one year ago. Revenue was 59.27 trillion won, a 10.2 percent drop year over year. Broken out by business, Samsung’s semiconductor unit recorded quarterly operating profit of 7.8 trillion won, down from 10.8 trillion won a year ago. Its mobile unit’s operating profit was 1.5 trillion won, compared to 2.4 trillion won a year ago. Smartphone makers, including Samsung rival Apple, have been hit hard by slowing smartphone sales around the world, especially in China. Upgrade cycles are also becoming longer as customers wait to buy newer models. This hurt both Samsung’s smartphone and chip sales, as “overall market demand for NAND and DRAM drop[ped] due to macroeconomic uncertainties and adjustments in inventory levels by customers including datacenter companies and smartphone makers,” said the company’s earnings report. Samsung expects chip sales to be sluggish during the first quarter because of weak seasonality and inventory adjustments by its biggest customers. The company was optimistic about the last two quarters of 2019, when it expects demand for chips and OLED panels to pick up thanks seasonal demand and customers finishing their inventory adjustments. Digital Trends via TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com January 31, 2019 at 01:51AM
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Turns Out Destroying Society Is Immensely Profitable http://bit.ly/2Si7QIz  In a somewhat unbelievable feat considering Facebook’s absolute shitshow of a year in 2018, the social media company—freshly off of a new scandal involving a teen-targeting “research” app—reported record profit in its Wednesday earnings call. CNBC reported that Facebook surpassed estimates by analysts on earnings and revenue, with the company reporting a net income of $6.88 billion—up from $4.27 billion the year before—shaking out to $2.38 per share (and over estimates of $2.19). The company saw its revenue increase 30 percent to $16.91 billion, which beat out analyst estimates of $16.39 billion. Additionally, monthly and daily active user metrics continue to grow, with daily users hitting 1.5 billion and monthly users reaching 2.3 billion. Advertisement As far as user growth, the figures reported by the company pretty much fall in line with expectations by analysts. But they also follow what was an exceptionally tumultuous year for the company—one in which public relations problems were a near-weekly occurrence. In fact, this last week alone was a clusterfuck for Facebook. The company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published an embarrassing column in the Wall Street Journal that insinuated users don’t trust Facebook because they don’t understand it. Then TechCrunch reported that Facebook has been targeting teenagers for a “Facebook Research” VPN that preys on their mobile and web browsing data. That’s in addition to the revelation last week that Facebook was for years wittingly letting kids make charges to their parents’ credit cards without their knowledge. There is, of course, all of the other stuff that tainted Facebook’s reputation last year. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data fiasco happened in 2018, as did allegations of its complicity in the Myanmar genocide, as did many, many data-swapping and privacy scandals that seemingly wouldn’t quit. And don’t forget about the election interference that Zuckerberg has claimed is impossible to do away with completely. Advertisement How does Facebook survive a year like this? Who the fuck knows! Just kidding—it’s because it holds hostage the data of billions of users who willfully fork over their most personal information, including their age, gender, religious and political affiliations, interests, contacts, location, shopping habits, etc., which the company then uses to serve them ads specifically tailored to their perceived interests. Advertisers will pay exorbitant amounts of money to reach their demographics, and Facebook holds a monopoly on that information. It’s as Zuckerberg himself wrote in his op-ed last week: “In an ordinary transaction, you pay a company for a product or service they provide. Here you get our services for free—and we work separately with advertisers to show you relevant ads.” It may not be selling your data, but it’s profiting off it to the tune of billions. Maybe this is the year Facebook will get to work on all of the problems it’s been promising to fix. But then again, why would it when the company’s managed to do so well by being so awful? [CNBC] Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com January 31, 2019 at 01:06AM
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Watch this SpaceX ship come tantalizingly close to catching rocket parts http://bit.ly/2t5ofC5 
When you really think about it, isn’t it mind-blowing that SpaceX can land a rocket back on the ground after a mission? Upright. The private space company, led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, has pretty much perfected the landing procedure of its first-stage booster for its reusable rocket system. But it’s having a much harder time nailing the process for recovering the fairing, and is yet to pull it off. It is, however, getting tantalizingly close, as this week’s effort shows …
The fairing is the nose cone that protects the payload during launch, and SpaceX has built a ship called Mr. Steven for catching it. Yes, we said “catch.” You see, Mr. Steven is basically a ship with a massive net over the top of it, and its job is to sail into position to save one of the two fairing parts from landing in the sea. To be clear, the cone comes down in two sections, with the team currently focusing on perfecting the catching process for one part while fishing the other half out of the sea. Once it’s perfected the system, SpaceX is expected to invest in a second ship. The impact and briny ocean water can damage the fairing, and seeing as it costs around $6 million to make it from scratch, SpaceX is understandably keen to use it more than once. Mr. Steven, which is 62 meters long and 10 meters wide, is yet to catch the fairing despite several trial runs and three attempts during actual SpaceX missions. To improve its chances of catching the fairing, the team last year increased the size of Mr. Steven’s net by around four times, so it now it covers an area of about 3,700 square meters. The fairing as a whole is around 13 meters tall and 5 meters wide, and tips the scales at a hefty 1,000 kilograms. SpaceX has equipped each of the two sections with cold nitrogen thrusters to help them stabilize during their descent. The system then deploys a GPS-equipped, steerable parafoil (something like a parachute) at around 5 miles above sea level. This slows it down enough for Mr. Steven to get into position, but the final seconds of the operation are proving tricky. As you can see from the video above, the latest test out in the Pacific this week came very close to working out. The fairing even touches the edge of the net before sliding away and falling into the sea. But considering that its very first effort missed by a distance of several hundred meters, the team is clearly making good progress.
Digital Trends via Digital Trends http://bit.ly/2p4eJdC January 31, 2019 at 12:38AM The MuseConversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes Is Almost as Cruel as It Is Boring | Dead1/31/2019
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The Muse Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes Is Almost as Cruel as It Is Boring | Dead http://bit.ly/2TsMrdb The Muse Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes Is Almost as Cruel as It Is Boring | Deadspin An Interview With The Local TV Producer Fired For A Graphic Calling Tom Brady A “Known Cheater” | Splinter Jonah Peretti Cautions Against Leaks in Leaked Audio of BuzzFeed All-Hands Meeting | The A.V. Club You, me, and toxicity | The Root ACLU Sues Entire School District For Being Racist AF | Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com January 31, 2019 at 12:36AM
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Sheryl Sandberg: The Teens 'Consented' to Putting Facebook Spyware on Their Phones http://bit.ly/2G0Ja1w  On Tuesday, news broke via TechCrunch that Facebook ran a sketchy “Research” program involving paid participants who downloaded an app onto their phones that was capable of monitoring virtually everything that they did—including in some cases teens as young as 13, who were recruited via social media ads that appeared designed to keep Facebook’s involvement low-profile. The app appeared to be a version of Facebook’s awful Onavo Protect VPN, the iOS version of which got yanked from Apple’s App Store last year for violating rules on data collection. Apple responded soon after by revoking Facebook’s enterprise developer certificates, saying the Research app functioned via exclusive tools supposed to be used only for internal development purposes, not distribution to consumers. That threw the Facebook’s iOS development programs into chaos, infuriating Facebook staff. But beyond the inter-corporate drama, Facebook is also facing immense criticism for paying teenagers to install a program capable of monitoring everything from private messages and browsing histories to app messages on their devices. Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s defense? The teens “consented.” “So I want to be clear what this is,” Sandberg told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Wednesday. “This is a Facebook Research app. It’s very clear to the people who participated. It’s completely opt-in. There is a rigorous consent flow and people are compensated. It’s a market research program.” Advertisement “Now, that said, we know we have work to do to make sure people’s data is protected,” Sandberg added, repeating a thoroughly unconvincing line that has been rolled out so many times amid Facebook’s constant scandals that it has barreled into self-satire territory. “It’s your information. You put it on Facebook, you need to know what is happening. In this case the people who chose to participate in this program did.” “But we definitely have work to do and we’ve done it,” Sandberg said, just to hammer home that line. When Boorstin asked whether Facebook regretted not pulling the app before Apple had revoked its certificates, Sandberg replied by saying Facebook had done so as soon as it realized it was not “in compliance.” Advertisement “Well of course, as long, as soon as we realized we weren’t in compliance with the rules on their platform, we pulled it,” Sandberg said. “The important thing is that the people involved in that research project knew they were involved and consented.” That’s quite an interesting response, because TechCrunch reported on Wednesday that Apple told them it had the Research app blocked before Facebook could “voluntarily” pull it down. Facebook had also originally told TechCrunch that the Research app was not in violation of Apple enterprise developer certificate policies, and early Wednesday morning, a Facebook spokesperson declined to explain to Gizmodo why it was pulling the app if that was the case. Then there’s the fact that Facebook had users sideload the app and avoided submitting it through TestFlight, Apple’s beta testing system, which requires Apple review. Advertisement Facebook also seemed caught completely off guard by Apple’s decision to revoke their certificates, according to Business Insider, which obtained internal Facebook communications that appeared to show staff blindsided. That does not exactly back Sandberg’s narrative that this was an orderly process in which Facebook made a genuine mistake and quickly moved to resolve the matter with Apple. As for whether the teenagers involved in the program “consented,” legal minors cannot sign contracts without parental or guardian consent. Facebook has insisted that all participants below the age of 18 submitted parental consent forms, but it would be impossible for Facebook to remotely verify that the teens just didn’t fill them out themselves without extra steps. For example, researcher Amanda Lenhart described the intensive process required to ethically conduct research on minors’ online habits for Pew Research Center in 2013:
And that’s just for polling, not invasive monitoring. While speaking with TechCrunch, Facebook also compared the Research app to focus groups run by Nielsen and comScore. Unlike Facebook’s program, Nielsen surveys are invite-only and not advertised to the general public. They also write this on their privacy FAQ:
Elsewhere, the Nielsen process has been described as elaborate and generally requiring the involvement of numerous Nielsen staff who install equipment and conduct follow-up surveys. Advertisement Conversely, BBC reporter Dave Lee tweeted that he was able to sign up for Facebook’s Research program and told to download the app using a birthday in 2005, all without being asked for any kind of parental consent form at all.
A technical expert consulted by TechCrunch, Guardian Mobile Firewall security researcher Will Strafach, also told the site that few participants in the program would have the technical knowledge to “reasonably consent” to the scale of the surveillance. Advertisement “The fairly technical sounding ‘install our Root Certificate’ step is appalling,” Strafach tells us. “This hands Facebook continuous access to the most sensitive data about you, and most users are going to be unable to reasonably consent to this regardless of any agreement they sign, because there is no good way to articulate just how much power is handed to Facebook when you do this.” Nothing about Facebook’s side of the story holds up here, but hey. It has some work to do. Digital Trends via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com January 30, 2019 at 11:42PM |
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