Turner mania: Painter’s depiction of Rome goes for record £30.3m |
- Turner mania: Painter’s depiction of Rome goes for record £30.3m
- Suspected US Ebola patient transferred to Atlanta hospital
- NYT Video: Welcome to the age of the digitally connected baby
- Sony Pictures still reeling from major cyber attack
- Lady Gaga reveals shocking teenage rape trauma
- Rare dinosaur skeleton on view at London museum
| Turner mania: Painter’s depiction of Rome goes for record £30.3m Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:55 PM PST
"Rome, from Mount Aventine," depicting the river of the Italian capital bathed in morning light, sold for £30.3 million (RM164m) at the Sotheby's auction. Four bidders competed for the 1835 painting, described by the auction house as one of Turner's "supreme achievements." The identity of the buyer was not announced. "This painting, which is nearly 200 years old, looks today as if it has come straight from the easel of the artist," said Alex Bell of Sotheby's old master paintings department. "The hairs from Turner's brush, his fingerprint, the drips of liquid paint which have run down the edge of the canvas, and every scrape of his palette knife have been preserved in incredible detail." It was the highest price paid for a pre-20th century work by a British artist and beat the previous record set for a Turner painting — £29.7 million paid for "Modern Rome — Campo Vaccino" in 2010. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, the work was last sold in 1878, when it was bought from a friend and patron of Turner's by Archibald Primrose, later to become British prime minister. The auction house said the sale "coincided with a wider moment of Turner mania." A biopic about the painter by Mike Leigh was released in October, and netted star Timothy Spall the best actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of the artist. A major exhibition of the Romantic painter, famous for his English landscapes and paintings of Rome and Venice, opened at Tate Britain in September. — AFP  |
| Suspected US Ebola patient transferred to Atlanta hospital Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:50 PM PST
The patient will be monitored and observed for signs of infection. The hospital said it did not have a time of arrival and was unable to share more details "out of respect for patient privacy and in accordance with the patient's wishes." It did not say where the patient is currently located or when he or she returned to the United States. The announcement comes one day after US health officials designated 35 hospitals nationwide, including Emory, as Ebola treatment centres. Emory treated the first two Americans who contracted Ebola while working in West Africa, which is suffering the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded with 17,111 confirmed, suspected or probable cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and 6,055 deaths, according to the World Health Organisation. — Reuters |
| NYT Video: Welcome to the age of the digitally connected baby Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:44 PM PST Duration: 3:03, Published 4 Dec 2014 New devices and wearables like the MonBaby and the Mimo allow you to track baby's breathing, temperature and heart rate all from your phone. — New York Times |
| Sony Pictures still reeling from major cyber attack Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:42 PM PST
Some employees at the Sony Corp entertainment unit were given new computers to replace ones that had been attacked with the rare data-wiping virus, which had made their machines unable to operate, according to a person with knowledge of Sony's operations. In a memo to staff seen by Reuters, studio co-chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal acknowledged that "a large amount of confidential Sony Pictures Entertainment data has been stolen by the cyber attackers, including personnel information and business documents." They are "not yet sure of the full scope of information that the attackers have or might release," according to the memo first reported by Variety, and encouraged employees to take advantage of identity protection services being offered. Their concern underscores the severity of the breach, which experts say is the first major attack on a US company to use a highly destructive class of malicious software that is designed to make computer networks unable to operate. Government investigators led by the FBI are considering multiple suspects in the attack, including North Korea, according to a US national security official with knowledge of the investigation. The FBI said Tuesday that it is working with its counterparts in Sony's home country of Japan in the investigation. That comes after it warned US businesses on Monday about hackers' use of malicious software and suggested ways to defend themselves. The warning said some of the software used by the hackers had been compiled in Korean, but it did not discuss any possible connection to North Korea. Sony's troubles The hack, which was launched November 24, only affected computers with Microsoft Corp's Windows software, so Sony employees using Apple Inc Macs, including many in the marketing department, had not been affected, according to the person familiar with Sony's operations, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the attack. Sony Pictures Entertainment shut down its internal computer network last week to prevent the data-wiping software from causing further damage, forcing employees to use paper and pen. The studio has brought some systems back on line, focusing first on those from which the company generates revenues, including those involved with marketing and distributing its films and TV shows, according to the person. The hack comes at a tough time for Sony, following soon after a denial-of-service attack on Sony's PlayStation Network in August. Sony was also victim of a notorious 2011 breach that compromised data of tens of millions of PlayStation Network users. It also comes just as the company's CEO Kazuo Hirai is trying to grow the entertainment business to help offset losses in its mobile division. He has been under pressure to prove the segment's growth potential after rejecting a proposal by US hedge fund Third Point to spin it off last year. Forensic investigation People claiming responsibility for this latest attack have posted high-quality digital copies of yet-to-be-released Sony films and what they claim are sensitive data about its operations and employees on Internet download sites, making them freely available to the public in a series of releases over the past five days. Sony's holiday musical "Annie", which is due to be released December 19 in the United States, was available for download on a popular piracy site on Tuesday evening. Daniel Clemens, chief executive of cyber security firm PacketNinjas, said he has reviewed the files released to date and believes they were stolen from Sony. He said he found business contracts as well as Social Security numbers, salary information and medical data about employees. "This is a horrible compromise," Clemens said. The US national security official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters on Tuesday that the forensic investigation is in its early stages, and that no clear suspects have emerged. The technology news site Re/code reported November 28 that Sony was investigating whether hackers working on behalf of the North Korean government were responsible for the attack as retribution for the company's backing of the film "The Interview." The comedy, which is due to be released in the United States and Canada on December 25, is about a CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang denounced the film as "an act of war" in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June. — Reuters |
| Lady Gaga reveals shocking teenage rape trauma Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:41 PM PST
"I don't want to be defined by it," the pop star said. "I'll be damned if somebody is going to say that every creatively intelligent thing I ever did is all boiled down to one dickhead that did that to me." Lady Gaga, 28, said that the rape took place when she was 19 and that she has gone through years of therapy. She did not go into detail but said that the aggressor was 20 years older than her. "It happens every day. It's really scary and it's sad and it didn't affect me as much right after as it did about four or five years later," she told radio host Howard Stern. "I didn't tell anybody — I didn't even tell myself for the longest time," she said. "Then I was like, you know what, all this drinking and all this nonsense, you have to go to the source, otherwise it won't go away." The singer, who later became known for her gaudy outfits and outspoken social commentary, said that she did not report the rape. She said she saw her aggressor once more when she ran into him at a store and that she became "paralysed by fear." Lady Gaga revealed the rape as she discussed her song "Swine" from her 2013 album "Artpop." She performed the song at this year's South by Southwest festival, where she rode a mechanical bull in a suggestive fashion and had a collaborator vomit on her. "The song is about rape. This song is about demoralisation," Lady Gaga said in her radio interview Tuesday. "I want this chick to throw up on me in front of the world, so that I can tell them, you know what? You could never, ever degrade me as much as I could degrade myself and look how beautiful it is what I do." — AFP |
| Rare dinosaur skeleton on view at London museum Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:35 PM PST
The near-complete fossilised remains of a Stegosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur, were bought by the museum in the United States last year. The 5.6-metre (18-foot) long skeleton is made up of some 300 bones and will be displayed close to one of the museum's entrances. "Complete dinosaur specimens are really rare and this one is almost complete," said Paul Barrett, a dinosaur specialist at the museum. It is 150 million years old and was found on the grounds of a ranch in Wyoming in 2003 and it was brought to London in December 2013. The London museum said that unlike the more widely known Tyrannosaurus Rex, very few Stegosaurus remains have been found. "It's only known from a handful of skeletons in other museums that aren't nearly as complete as this one," Barrett said. The first specimen of the species was found in the United States in 1877 by the US paleontologist Charles Marsh. — AFP |
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