First, it was coffee, tea and juice. Next, it was music CDs. Now, following the footsteps of Apple, Google, Yahoo and other media providers, Starbucks Corp. will soon expand its entertainment offering by promoting movies, DVDs and soundtracks at its 5,500 coffee stores worldwide. “Over the past year, we viewed countless films and spoke with…
For the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, it takes a global village of international fashion fushion to clothe the Olympic athletes. That’s because the U.S. team will wear hats with a French design made by a Canadian company. Reciprocally, Canada’s hockey team will wear uniforms that were designed south of the border in America. Want…
The only way to describe the housing situation in Las Vegas is to light a stick of dynamite next to your ear. It is a boom of at least that magnitute. Most of the development is happening around the perimeter of the city, but in the plans for the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino are highrise…
My home town, San Francisco, may be bracing for the next big quake. But while we’re waiting, we have 801 public hotspots to read about quake predictions, preparedness drills and the like. This total is substantially more than New York (643), Chicago (501), Houston (393) or Atlanta (369) in the top five. Obviously, one of…
How’s this for chutzpah? In Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, an ex-California realtor ran a dominant ad offering pre-construction pricing on affordable housing — on the Intracoastal Waterway in Ft. Meyers, Florida, the fastest-growing area in the U.S. The Monaco Resort and Spa is a 300-unit waterfront hotel and condo with a posh spa and resort…
The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd. has released the list of hotels that have qualified as the Leading Spas Announced for 2006. Only 85 spas passed the rigourous, anonymous inspection process. Among the hotels to make the list for 2006 are Hotel Martinez in Cannes and Le Meurice in Paris, Mont Cervin Palace in…
Research in Motion, makers of Blackberry devices, was dealt a setback today after the Supreme Court turned down a request to review a major patent infringement ruling against it. The move takes away yet another barrier between BlackBerry users and service interruptions. There are more than 4 million users of the BlackBerry e-mail service. Research…
Oh to watch the world go by from 40,000 feet. When I fly I love gazing down at the hills, mountains, lakes, streets and tiny, tiny cars. Then I doze and miss a few hundred miles at a time. Today that’s okay, because now I can catch up on what I missed wtih Google’s free…
Napa Valley is known globally as one of the world’s best areas for growing wine grapes. Soon, it may be renowned as home to one of the first hotels to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership on Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification. Developer Wen Chang and architect Todd Jersey have collaborated on…
While dancers in bikinis bared their bellies for the crowd outside, Paris Hilton put on a wild, wild show at the gala opening of Jet Nightclub, Mirage’s 20,000-sq.ft. party center. She made a scene — and a statement — by screaming on the phone with her friend Stavros Niarchos. Then, she reportedly climbed atop of…
Since 1980, a small restaurant in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood has thrived on word-of-mouth, despite its location in an alley and its competition from more fashionable restaurants on nearby Union and Chestnut Streets. The Brazen Head had a very small sign on its door, no neon lights and no advertising. Yet, it filled up…
One review called the San José Hotel in downtown Austin “an exercise in class, comfort and urban renewal” and “a welcoming Texas comfort that underlies the hotel’s signature austere sytyle.” This 1939 edifice has been transformed from a motor court into a 40-room, bungalow style, garden hotel in the city’s hippest hood, complete with Jo’s…