Jelly Bean update for DROID RAZR HD and MAXX HD set to roll out next week

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George Clooney on Ben Affleck's Campaign for Sexiest Man Alive

George Clooney and Ben Affleck have both directed big budget Hollywood movies and during a recent roundtable discussion, they revealed their thoughts on directing themselves as actors.

In this sneak peek of The Envelope Directors Roundtable sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, Affleck points out that contrary to popular belief, there are only a handful of examples of directors acting in their own films.

VIDEO: Ben Affleck Calls the Success of Argo a 'Dream'

Affleck's latest combo film is the box office hit Argo, but in 2010 he took the acting-directing plunge on the crime thriller The Town. "I don't have any great wisdom about that," he said when asked by a moderator how he approached the dual role. "You know, for me it's about shooting enough footage that I have to work with in the cutting room."

The question is also posed whether Affleck consulted Clooney -- who had directed Good Night, and Good Luck in 2005 -- for advice. "Ben and I... when we first started talking, mostly he was campaigning at the time for Sexiest Man Alive," Clooney joked. "And he wanted some tips -- I worked with him," he continued, adding also that he also "worked with Matt (Damon), who also got it (Sexiest Man Alive)."

RELATED: Ben Affleck Sideswipes Car, Leaves Note

George did have some serious remarks on acting in the same movies he directs. "I will say this about directing yourself, there is this weird thing that happens -- which is, you try desperately not to do more takes on yourself than you do on other actors. Because you just feel like such a schmuck if you do it," he said. "So you have to have this understanding with the actors that you're going to break that rule."

Watch the video to also hear George give his thoughts on Affleck's performance as actor-director in Argo.

VIDEO: George Clooney: Brad Pitt's a Very Good Kisser

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'Devil' made firebug burn elderly woman to death

The evil firebug who burned an elderly woman to death in her elevator last year now claims he takes directions from the devil.

Jerome Isaac, 48, was set to be sentenced today for the horrific murder of Dolores Gillespie, 73 – but then the judge revealed his hellish hallucinations.

Isaac said he “hears voices” and “the devil tells him what to do” to Probation Department officials, said Justice Vincent Del Giudice – who postponed the sentencing so Isaac could undergo a psyche evaluation.

"I want to know if he’s making this up, malingering — or if he is actually delusional," Del Giudice said.

The decision upset the victim's daughter, who burst into tears after hearing that sentencing would be delayed.

"It's just not fair. They already know he's not crazy. The sentencing shouldn't have been delayed," said Sheila Hillsman, the daughter of the victim.

Gillespie, a generous, churchgoing woman, hired Isaac for odd jobs but had to fire him after he stole from her. Isaac was so angry he ambushed her in her elevator in December, spraying gasoline onto the helpless woman.

He then used a barbeque lighter to set her alight, and then – as her screams echoed through the building – threw a Molotov cocktail on her.

Isaac faced a sentence of 50 years to life for his heinous crime.

jsaul@nypost.com

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Saying thank you to your boss can pay dividends

This season for counting blessings had barely begun when high-profile Miami event planner Karla Dascal got a message from her company’s controller, Raul Duran. He’d sent to her a text that read, at least in part, “Thank you for the opportunity to work and earn a living. I am so grateful.”

Dascal actually receives communication from Duran expressing the same sentiment all year long. And she’s certain that among all her employees it’s Duran’s appreciation — and not incidentally his positive outlook — that makes him absolutely indispensible to her company.

“Gratitude is one of the most powerful things,” says Dascal. “The three problems we all feel are ‘I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, I’m not competent.’ But gratitude has the power to change everything.”

That’s why researchers are now saying that — like Duran — we should all be showing plenty of appreciation to our supervisors during the holiday season and beyond. It won’t just advance our relationships but can even improve how bosses view our on-the-job performance. With any luck, better work will bring bigger paychecks.

Thing is, if your feelings of gratitude are to be effective, you’ll have to actually express them — and in a way that doesn’t make everyone around you cringe because you’re brownnosing. (Ah, ha.) And it gets trickier: Feelings of appreciation are practically impossible to fake. But experts who reveal the psychology behind it all say once you adapt the right the mentality, the money may follow.

“We found that saying ‘thank you’ works because it makes a boss feel, ‘What I’m doing is worthy and makes a positive difference,’ ” says Yeri Cho, a researcher at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. “Bosses have a lot of power but that doesn’t mean they always feel competent. And there’s a tendency in those cases for the boss to act in self-defense — sometimes they even denigrate their employees. Gratitude reduces those tendencies.”

She found this out by pulling over 180 subjects into a lab and assigning them the job of supervising make-believe — they didn’t know that — subordinates named Taylor, who would be assembling a table. The Taylors “drafted” a work plan for their supervisors to evaluate and send back. The supervisors, in return, got a note from Taylor saying either, “Dear Supervisor, I received your feedback. Best, Taylor” or a nearly identical message that included the phrase “Thank you for your feedback.” Later, some of those supervisors got a message from the examiner — who could be considered, say, a CEO or a client — telling them their competence level fell below the average.

Even so, it was the supervisors who had received the ‘thank you’ from their subordinates that then rated those employees as being more competent and more intelligent.

“Bosses mistreat employees when they feel insecure, even if they have power that’s coming from their role as a boss,” says Cho. “But saying ‘thank you’ mitigates that.”

It’s tough to say exactly how or why gratitude changes our physiological and mental states, says Dr. Suzanne Lechner, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, because the research is in its infancy. But there’s good reason to assume that — like other positive feelings — both giving and receiving appreciation balances our levels cortisol, the stress hormone.

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Keys man gets prison for illegal lobster harvest

KEY WEST --
(AP) — A Florida Keys man has been sentenced to more than a year in federal prison for illegally harvesting spiny lobsters from artificial underwater habitats.

The 16-month sentence was imposed Wednesday on Manuel Ravelo Jr., 40, of Big Coppitt Key. Ravelo had earlier pleaded guilty to illegally harvesting lobsters from about August 2007 to March 2009.

As part of his plea, Ravelo removed 200 artificial lobster habitat sites he had used in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is illegal to use artificial habitats to harvest spiny lobsters, and it is also illegal to alter the seabed of the Keys marine sanctuary. The sanctuary covers about 2,800 square miles.

Authorities say Ravelo made about $390,000 in the scheme, which also involved two wholesale lobster dealers in Key West.

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A 'Home Improvement' Reunion on 'Last Man Standing'

Fans of the hit '90s show Home Improvement have another reason to tune into Tim Allen's current ABC sitcom Last Man Standing -- Allen's former Home Improvement BFF Richard Karn (who played Al) is set to guest star!

Karn will play Bill, a "gruff good old boy" and the Outdoor Man's (Allen's outdoor sporting goods store in Denver, Colorado) original architect, TV Line is reporting. In the episode, Bill gets dumbfounded when he learns he may be losing the account to a young, attractive woman -- who he assumes got the job because of her good looks.

Video: 'Last Man Standing' Takes Politics Head-On

The episode is set to air in early 2013.

Related: Will Rider Strong Be on 'Girl Meets World'?!

And clearly, it's a good time to be a '90s television fan. It was announced Monday that Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel of Boy Meets World fame, will be reprising their roles in the beloved show's new spinoff, Girl Meets World.

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No verdict in model castration-slay trial

A Manhattan jury has begun deliberations in a grotesque, boy toy-on-sugar-daddy mutilation murder.

Jurors got the case in the mid-afternoon today, and deliberated for less than two hours before breaking for the day at 4:45 p.m.

Tomorrow is expected to be their first full day of weighing the fate of handsome young Portuguese underwear model Renato Seabra, 22, who admits he bludgeoned, then castrated alive, his lover, Carlos Castro, 65, in their Times Square hotel room as they vacationed together away from their native Portugal in February of 2011.

Seabra lawyers say Seabra had suffered a sudden-onset mental breakdown, and did not know his actions were wrong when he bashed Castro in the head with the hotel room computer monitor, gashed his face with a corkscrew, strangled the older man, stomped on his head wearing two successive pairs of sneakers, and then castrated the still-breathing, but likely unconscious victim with the same corkscrew.

Doctors had confirmed in the hours after the gruesome killing that Seabra was manic, grandiose, disorganized, and otherwise mentally ill. But prosecutor Maxine Rosenthal concluded her summations today by urging jurors not to be fooled by these findings, which she said could simply be "the results of having just brutally killed someone."

Sure, Seabra seemed agitated and stressed, and had racing thoughts, and was not making sense, the prosecutor told the six-woman, six-man panel. But "What," she asked, "could be more stressful than committing a murder?"

Seabra faces a maximum of 25 years to life if convicted of murder, and an indeterminate term in a locked mental health facility if found not guilty of murder by reason of mental disease or defect.

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Miami-Dade pending home sales spiked in October

Despite a dearth of homes and condos on the market in Miami-Dade County, pending sales rose 67 percent in October with 4,172 residential properties going under contract compared with 2,488 a year earlier, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.

The number of pending sales rose 18 percent in October from September.

In a statement, Martha Pomares, chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors, said “The Miami real estate market is poised for another record year that would suprass the all-time sales record set in 2011. Strong demand persists despite the shortage of housing inventory, and listings are increasingly selling at a more rapid pace, driving in significant price appreciation.’’

With strong demand and little on the market, properties are selling for closer to their asking price and sellers aren’t inclined to offer discounts. For October, single-family homes in Miami-Dade sold at 95 percent of the original listing price, while condos went for 97.1 percent of original listing price on average, the Miami Realtors said. In October 2011, single family homes fetched 91 percent of listing price on average and condos got 93.6 percent of listing price.

Pending sales are a forward indicator based on the number of contracts signed over a given period.

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Convicted al-Qaida recruit Jose Padilla faces resentencing in Miami

Jose Padilla, the convicted terrorist who once called the Fort Lauderdale-area home before joining the ranks of al-Qaida, faces up to life in prison at his resentencing Monday in Miami federal court.

But his defense attorney hopes a judge Wednesday will postpone the sentencing until January, so Padilla can improve his mental health by visiting with family members in the meantime at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.

Padilla, 42, is serving a 17-year prison at the maximum security prison in Florence, Colo.

“Since his arrest in May of 2002, the government has systematically attempted to destroy Jose by psychologically torturing him and imprisoning him under the severest of conditions,” Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, who represented Padilla at his 2007 trial, wrote in court papers.

“Not surprisingly, this psychological torture has taken a toll on Jose.”

Federal prosecutors voiced strong opposition to the delay, unless Padilla’s defense lawyer were to request a competency examination of his client.

Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that the one-time “enemy combatant” — perhaps better known as the “dirty bomber” — should receive harsher punishment reflecting his extensive criminal record.

The appellate court found that U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was too lenient when she “unreasonably discounted” his criminal history before lowering a potential 30-year-to-life sentence.

Padilla, born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, was a former Chicago gang member with 17 arrests and a murder conviction before becoming a recruit for al-Qaida, according to federal prosecutors.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the controversial case back to Cooke to resentence Padilla, who trained with al-Qaida the year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to trial evidence.

Caruso appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Cooke “imposed a fair and reasonable sentence.” But the high court declined to hear his petition.

The appeals court in Atlanta, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the terrorism convictions of Padilla and two others: Adham Amin Hassoun, a Palestinian who had met him at a Broward mosque in the 1990s; and Hassoun’s colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a U.S. citizen of Jordanian descent. They were sentenced to 15 years and eight months, and 12 years and eight months, respectively.

All three defendants, convicted of conspiring to support Islamic extremists overseas, sought a new federal trial based on claims of improper testimony by the lead FBI agent and a terrorism expert, along with insufficient evidence and other allegations. Padilla also challenged Cooke’s decision to reject a motion to dismiss his indictment based on “outrageous government conduct” while the former enemy combatant was held in a Naval brig before his transfer to Miami to face terrorism charges in 2006.

Padilla was held without being charged in the South Carolina brig for 3 1/2 years — time that the Miami judge cut from his sentence.

The appellate court, in an opinion written by Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina and joined by Judge William H. Pryor, sided with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. Prosecutors, who were seeking life imprisonment for Padilla, appealed Cooke’s 17-year sentence. They argued the judge’s prison term was 13 years below the low end of sentencing guidelines — 30 years.

The appellate court wrote that Cooke’s punishment “reflects a clear error of judgment about the sentencing of this career offender.” The court noted that his codefendant, Hassoun, had no prior criminal history but received a sentence that was “only” 20 months less than Padilla’s.

Cooke “attached little weight to Padilla’s extensive criminal history, gave no weight to his future dangerousness, compared him to criminals who were not similarly situated, and gave unreasonable weight to the condition of his pre-trial detention,” Dubina wrote.

In a dissent, Appellate Judge Rosemary Barkett countered that Padilla’s sentence “should not be disturbed.” Barkett said “doing so simply substitutes sentencing judgment for that of the trial judge” with the inherent authority.

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Microsoft CEO defends its innovation record, financial results

BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company’s record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders’ meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc‘s iPad.

Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world’s largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad. Gates was silent throughout the meeting, attended by about 450 shareholders.

“We’re innovating on the seam between software and hardware,” said Ballmer, asked why his company had fallen behind rival Apple. “Maybe we should have done that earlier.”

A month ago, Microsoft launched the Surface tablet – its first own-brand computer – but has not revealed sales figures.

In the tablet market, “we see nothing but a sea of upside,” Ballmer said, an acknowledgement that until now Microsoft has effectively had zero presence in the tablet market.

“I feel pretty good about our level of innovation,” he added.

Ballmer said smartphones running Microsoft’s new Windows software were selling four times as much as they did at this time last year. Microsoft has never given sales numbers of Windows phones, primarily made by Nokia, Samsung and HTC.

Windows currently has 2 to 4 percent of the global smartphone market, according to various independent data providers. Its overall market share will not likely grow in proportion to its own sales, given that sales of other smartphones – mostly running Google’s Android system – are also growing quickly.

Ballmer, flanked by Gates and Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein, was asked by several shareholders to explain Microsoft’s lackluster share price, which has been stuck for a decade, and has been outperformed by Apple and Google Inc stock in recent years.

“I understand your comment,” he told one shareholder. He went on to explain that Microsoft had “done a phenomenal job of driving product volumes” and was focusing on profiting from that growth.

He suggested that whether investors recognized that value at any given time was out of his hands.

“The stock market‘s kind of a funny thing,” he said, adding that Microsoft had handed back $ 10 billion in dividends and share buybacks to investors in the last fiscal year.

Several shareholders at the meeting in Bellevue, an upscale suburb of Seattle, complimented the executives on how they had grown and managed the company.

Microsoft’s shares rose almost 18 percent during fiscal 2012, which ended in June of this year, compared with a 3 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500.

Despite such fluctuations, Microsoft’s shares stand around the same level they did 10 years ago.

To see a graphic on U.S. tech share price performance, 1990 to present, click on http://link.reuters.com/rug53t

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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