Orange County Register Mobile story - Blufftop mansion's price cut $25 million

Portabello, the sprawling, 20,000-plus square-foot, two-level blufftop home in Corona del Mar is back on the market with a listing price chopped by a third.

Owner Frank Pritt, a computer software mogul, is now reportedly asking $49.6 million for the residence that boasts its own theater, bowling alley, soda shop and jewelry store. It also features an outdoor grotto, two pools and an upper-deck whirlpool tub with a see-through plastic bubble on the bottom. (Click on photos above for larger views!) When the home first went up for sale four years ago, it?s $75 million asking price was the county?s high and the second-highest in the nation.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

"Mr. Pritt purchased three oceanfront lots in 1996 for $13 million, with a total of 325 feet of oceanfront, and built the house over about six years. He says he?s selling because his youngest children are out of college; he now lives in Seattle. He took the house off the market about a year after its 2006 listing. Despite the size, he says ?it?s really a pretty cozy house,? with the everyday living spaces designed to feel intimate."

Study: Mixing school-age kids and computers makes for bad stuff

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/07/12/study-mixing-school-age-kids-and-computers-is-bad-stuff/

Studies are showing that free computers provided to school age kids are associated with lower grades in school.

Microsoft, Kin, and the future

http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/?dc=gbb&c=CKXB-6K-26IC&i=-8787154665778909931&n=1

"Maybe that next great idea hasn't shown itself just yet to Microsoft. Or maybe that's why we're seeing a complete reboot of the Windows Mobile brand as Windows Phone? Mobile is the obvious choice for that next big idea. Hell, it already is a massively big idea (just ask Apple and Google). But it's going to get even bigger. And mobile computing in particular is going to get more important to the fabric of society. Microsoft undoubtedly realizes this, and that's why it's okay that they're re-entering the game so late. The big prize is still there for the taking.

But unlike with Windows 25 years ago, Microsoft faces one very big challenge this time around if mobile is the next great idea they're going to pursue: Google. Google's Android platform is more or less taking the role that Windows took during the PC wars of the 1980s. They're the more open variety of Apple's popular but closed idea. They're the ones going for massive market share while Apple continues to prefer tight controls over its system.

Microsoft can't get away with the licensing fees that they got PC vendors to pay for Windows this time around because the Android software is free. And again, Microsoft is already coming late to the game. So that leaves Microsoft with no clear outlet to make money in mobile since they'd neither be selling hardware nor selling software licenses (again, if they truly hope to compete with Android). What does that leave? Mobile search? Maybe — but again, that's Google's game plan and Microsoft is going to have a hard time playing catch up there.

The touchscreen tablet computing revolution is also a problematic area as Microsoft's next idea. Again, there they'll be facing both Apple and Google. The latter is starting to ramp up Android tablet ideas, and soon, Chrome OS too. Microsoft can offer a full-fledged OS (a flavor of Windows 7) to run on tablets — but will anyone want that? Or will native apps win out?"