Christie's and Sotheby's aren't being shy with the Old Masters. Pieces by Rembrandt, Raphael and Van Dyck are being offered at hefty prices, some records, that could bring in up to $133 million. If this happens, art collectors will have doubled last year's result ... and cast a strong vote in favor of an art market recovery.

The Christie's sale on Tuesday will include a portrait by Rembrandt and a sketch by Raphael. They are being estimated at 18 million pounds and 12 million pounds, respectively. According to Christie's, these are the highest estimates seen at auction, says Bloomberg News. The Sotheby's sale occurs on Tuesday, featuring a Van Dyck portrait that could fetch as much as 3 million pounds.

Unlike the volatile market for contemporary art, prices for the Old Masters have been relatively stable, as the supply is diminishing and demand is increasing.

According to Johnny van Haeften, an art dealer based in London, told Bloomberg News, "Prices at auction are very strong because there isn't much out there." He continues, "People don't want to sell at the moment. They're saying, 'If I let a painting go, where do I put the money? I'd rather keep it in a work of art.'" He bid unsuccessfully for two still life pieces by 17th century Dutch painter Adriaen Coorte. Both ultimately sold for more than 10 times their high-end presale estimates.

[Photo via Christie's]

Filed under: Auctions, Art

Old Masters Expected to Set Records at Sotheby's and Christie's originally appeared on Luxist on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The other day I heard about the new NASCAR show coming to cable called Inside NASCAR on Showtime. It will consist of 38 hour-long episodes reporting on the.
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Whether making your own lens hood to create custom bokeh, breathing like a sniper to get a blur-free photo, or angling your body to look the best in pictures, we shared some great photography hacks this year.

Software and Photoshop tricks are great, but they're a poor substitution for doing things in-camera. Over the last year we shared a variety of hacks for taking better photos, looking better in photos, and ways to get professional results without spending your rent money on camera accessories.

Create Your Own Bokeh for Beautiful Photo Effects

What's a bokeh you say? It's that oh-so-wonderful fuzziness in the background of photographs with a shallow depth of field and accompanying starry highlights. You can create you own bokeh effects with a little craftiness.

Position Your Tongue Properly to Look Good in Photos

We live in a culture of oversharing, so odds are someone, somewhere will be snapping and posting photos taken of you at various events. To help ensure you look your best, heed where you position your tongue.

Take Better Pictures by Treating Your Still Camera Like It's Video

People often lament that they "just missed it!" upon seeing they failed to capture a pivotal moment in the action. You can avoid missing the action by treating your still camera like a video camera.

Avoid Mediocre Portraits with These Tricks

You have a camera and a willing subject, but you're not sure how to break your portraits out of the flat blandness that plagues many snapshots. Avoid boring compositions with these tips.

Set Up a High Speed Photography Studio in Your Garage

Many a photography enthusiast has assumed the equipment necessary is far too expensive for quality high speed photography captures. A high speed capture studio on the cheap can be had with this handy guide.

Create Abstract Light Art by Snapping a Camera-Toss Photo

Making abstract wallpaper and gorgeous slow-exposure shots doesn't require a bunch of design apps or photography lessons. Learn how to literally toss your camera to make abstract light art.

Be A Better Photographer On Vacation

Whether you head 30 or 3000 miles away, you'll want to bring back great photos of your vacation. The New York Times posts questions and answers on how to achieve great vacation photos.

Take Better Self-Portraits

Taking a good self-portrait is both a handy skill and a way to expand your photographic repertoire. Save your next profile picture from the camera-held-at-arms-length cliche with these tips.

DIY Tennis Ball Photography Stabilization Unit

DIY web site Instructables details how to make an image stabilizing unit to supplement your steady hand using a tennis ball and a few nuts and bolts.

Shoot Better Nighttime Pictures

Daytime photo tricks don't always translate when you're trying to capture the perfect night shot. The Photography Bay web site outlines tips for taking a stellar post-sunset shot without relying on a tripod or expensive flash system.

Be More Photogenic by Forgetting About the Camera

When the camera comes out, a lot of people instinctively declare that they look awful in pictures. Learn how to be more photogenic and put your best face forward.

Breathe Like a Sniper to Take Better Photos in Low Light

Steady hands are critical to taking low light photographs. Breath like a sniper to make sure you snap the shot when your hand is least jittery.

Create a Basic Ring Flash

If the DIY Fiber Optic Ring Flash we wrote about required too many specialist parts for your taste, check out this much simpler remix. The construction is easy and done with common household items.

Use Composition Rules to Take Better Photos

Photography is a creative art, no doubt, but creative doesn't mean doing everything willy-nilly however you want. Use these basic rules of composition to give your photos an extra boost of visual appeal.

DIY Beauty Dish Enhances Your Portraits

Beauty dishes are great flash modifiers for portrait photographs, but even a cheap model will set you back at least $100. Skip it—a surprisingly effective DIY beauty dish costs less than $20.

Create Stunning High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photos

Gizmodo's John Mahoney explains how to take high dynamic range (HDR) photos so that the results of your photograph more accurately recreate what you were seeing when you snapped the shutter.

Create Studio Quality Photos Using Natural Light

You don't need a blockbuster budget to get high-quality light for your portraits. By coaxing the sun to help in your photographic endeavors, you can create stunning portraits on a tiny budget.

Make a DIY Photography Light Box with K'Nex

Lightboxes aren't just for the professionals any longer. Using them to illuminate your Craigslist and eBay listings can help make a sale, and amateur photogs can get professional-looking shots with one. Create your own using K'nex and a little know how.

Take Great Panoramic Pictures with Any Camera

Panoramic software has come a long way toward making panoramic images child's work. Great software or not, there's no substitution for good source material. Take better panoramic pictures with these tips

Take Better Pictures by Studying Studio Layouts

Whether you're interested in learning more about lighting to add to your photography skill set or you're just curious how proper studio lighting works, this handy guide will provide some photo-enhancing insight.

DIY Tilt-Shift Photography Lens

Tilt-shift lenses create a great miniature effect on photographs of everyday things. The problem? These specialized lenses are insanely expensive (think $1,000 range). This video from Make demonstrates how to make a DIY tilt-shift lens on the cheap.

Take Awesome Sunset Photographs

Sunsets are one of nature's more spectacular displays, and a good one is worth preserving with a photograph. Take pictures that will capture the perfect dusk moment with these photography tips.

Create a Flash Diffuser Using An Empty Cigarette Packet

The right flash can make or break your shot. Unfortunately, not all built-in flashes are created equal. DIY web site Instructables demonstrates how to create a worthy on-the-spot flash diffuser using an empty cigarette packet.

Make a DIY Macro Lens from Old Binoculars

A high-end macro lens for your camera can easily run upwards of a thousand dollars, but you can make a super-simple macro lens for a few bucks out of old binoculars.

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Have a favorite photography-related hack from 2009 that wasn't featured here? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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Filed under: Security, Utilities, Troubleshooting

LogMeIn has been around for quite awhile now as a very useful free remote access tool for casual users, as well as a commercial remote access tool for corporations. They've now taken the obvious step of putting their technology to use in the form of a screen sharing application called LogMeIn Express.

The idea here is that you can quickly share your Windows computer's screen with up to 100 viewers by sending them a short 12-digit code and directing them to the LogMeIn Express website. Entering the code will then open a Flash-based page containing the contents of your computer's screen. As the presenter, you need to install a small piece of native Windows software, but the installation process is quick and painless, and offers 256-bit SSL encryption.

LogMeIn Express competes with more full-featured commercial screen sharing tools like GoToMeeting and WebEx, and though it's a much more simple implementation, it stacks up well. GoToMeeting is significantly faster than most competitors due to it being based on Citrix's Terminal Services technology, but LogMeIn Express competes well with WebEx. It doesn't currently include conference calling features which both of the commercial options do, but it does include an in-session chat module, and the ability to pass control of the host computer to one of the viewers.

LogMeIn Express is still in beta, but is free for both commercial and non-commercial use.

LogMeIn Express offers simple screen-sharing solution originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WebEx - Remote access - GoToMeeting - Download Squad - Microsoft Windows
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As promised, the Spike VGAs offered the first look at the new Tron game. Actress Olivia Wilde introduced the teaser trailer for Tron Evolution, featuring what might be real in-game footage of some neon-accented dudes dueling, and a light cycle race. As seen in the movie trailer, the light cycles can curve now, which is blasphemous. See it for yourself after the break, courtesy of YouTube's brysi.

According to the trailer, Tron Evolution will be out Holiday 2010. We're guessing it'll coincide closely with the December 17 release date for the Tron Legacy movie. The teaser also suggests it'll be a prequel to the events in Tron Legacy. But probably after the events in Tron.

Update: High-quality version now posted after the jump above.

Tron Evolution premieres at VGAs, coming Holiday 2010 [update] originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not quite sure if you've noticed, but some pretty significant shifting is going on in the heart of Espoo. Just days after Nokia announced that it would be closing up its flagship shops in London, New York and Chicago, in flies this: a new Ovi Store is already in the works, and if all goes well, it'll be available for public use as early as next Spring. For those keeping tabs, that's right around a year after the (admittedly tumultuous) launch of the existing platform, which has yet to live up to the firm's own expectations according to George Linardos. In case you're wondering (and c'mon, you're wondering), Mr. Linardos is the head of products at Nokia's media group, and in speaking with the Financial Times, he confessed that the Ovi Store "had been outpaced by Apple." He also admitted that the chorus of complaints from end-users were driving the next version, noting that his company has "screens up in [their] offices running Twitter feeds [of gripes] all day long." In fact, he likened the act to "sitting there and getting punched in the face."

As for the next go 'round, he's looking to take a "tortoise and hare" approach when it comes to competing with Apple, who he himself claims "radically changed" the world around us when the App Store was introduced. As it stands, George sees the Ovi Store as a "jambalaya" of services, with Ben Wood -- an analyst at CCS Insight -- proclaiming that "none of those [work] properly." In the future, Ben has confessed that Ovi needs "to get all their ducks lined up, including hardware, software and services." So, what exactly will said ducks look like early next year? We're told that new features will include "in-application payments, a redesigned user interface that makes apps easier to discover and faster operation," and beyond that, the outfit is also looking to toss in recommendations based on the app purchases of their friends. This is definitely stirring stuff to hear from someone deep within Nokia's lairs, and it certainly makes us all the more excited to see what the next generation will bring. Nothing like a little competition in the market place to really light a fire up under someone's posterior, right?

Nokia taking Ovi Store criticism to heart, planning revamped version to rival App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

With the release of Icecrown Citadel in Patch 3.3 on Tuesday, it seemed like a good time to talk about loot policy. Everyone's going to be drooling over the upgrades in there, especially some of the unique items like Deathbringer's Will, and loot assignments may become heated affairs. This week's e-mail highlights an issue that could come up in your guild -- and why you should think twice before you let it happen. (FYI, to explain why he's talking about Ulduar loot, the e-mail was sent to me in October, and I responded to it then.)

I am an officer in a guild where our loot rules until recently seemed fair to me but now I am not so sure. I have been raiding with my guild for almost a year as part of the first team and the way our loot rules work is main spec then off spec NEED rolls, if no one needs, it gets D/E. You get 1 epic and 1 tier per run unless there is no one else who can use the item or every 1 that qualifies for the item has already won something in which case you get to roll again.

This system has always seemed fair to me even though I don't always win the item I want. In fact I haven't won a single upgrade since July. Where as other team members seem to keep getting better and better geared and I am getting left behind. There is a DK in our team who has out-rolled me 4 times for weapon upgrades. His weapon keeps getting better and better and mine just stays where it is.

Continue reading Officers' Quarters: Policy and practice

Filed under: (Guild Leadership) Officers' Quarters

Officers' Quarters: Policy and practice originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SportsBusiness Daily (subscription)

TNT Working On More Live Online Races SportingNews.com (blog) Right now, only the six Cup races that Turner owns the broadcasting rights to are available on NASCAR.com's Race Buddy. But Larry Daniels, COO of Turner ... More NASCAR Races Could Be StreamedSportsBusiness Daily (subscription) Turner Sports considers making more NASCAR races available onlinePennLive.com (blog) all 3 news articles »

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We're not sure if it's possible to Gyllenhaalify a game, but that's exactly how we'd describe what's happened to the Prince in the latest trailer for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. Premiering last night on the Spike Video Game Awards, the first footage from the game doesn't show us much in the vein of actual gameplay, but it does remind us repeatedly of the everlasting nature of sand. Unfortunately, we won't get to control Prince Dreamboat through Sandland until sometime in May. In the meantime, we have the trailer for you just after the break.

Get sandy with the first Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands footage originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TeliaSonera has today flicked on the green light for its LTE networks in Stockholm and Oslo, officially starting the countdown for LTE-enabled phones. For the moment, keen mobile webstronauts will only be able to hook up their laptop or other USB-equipped device via the Samsung-provided 4G modem, but 100Mbps download speeds on the world's first commercial LTE network are still nothing to sniff at. This rollout is in fact slightly ahead of schedule, and the other major cities in Sweden and Norway are likely to soon get treated similarly well, while TeliaSonera makes a point to mention it has a license to do similar damage to Finland's 3G operators. The US might not be too far behind, either, given that the modem in use in Scandinavia recently cleared the FCC. Now if only we had phones that could ride these massive waves we'd be all set.

TeliaSonera launches world's first LTE network, awaits phones eagerly originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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