Victorian features tasteful updates

This 1895 country Queen Anne Victorian in West Concord has a lot of its original charm, but has been updated with an expanded kitchen, master bedroom suite and bedroom/office addition.

The four-bedroom house at 1394 Main St. sits on a 16,000-square-foot lot that includes a large backyard and a two-car garage that opens onto a side street. One of the current owners, an interior designer, has restored the home to its Victorian glory while adding a high-end kitchen in a 1998 bumpout addition, turning the master bedroom into a suite and expanding another bedroom with a home office addition in 2004. The house, with new windows and an updated furnace, is on the market for $925,000.

The home's exterior is white clapboard and aluminum with black shutters and an octagonal turret with 
diagonally set windows. A flagstone walk flanked by hedges leads up to a large covered front porch.

The front door opens into a foyer with restored oak floors. To the right of the foyer is a sitting room with crown molding. To the left is a large Victorian living room with five windows, including a three-bay bumpout addition, crown molding and restored oak floors as well as a brick woodburning fireplace with a white wood mantel.

The expanded kitchen off this room features white cabinets, including a large pantry, and two cabinets with leaded-glass fronts and brown granite countertops. There's a wood-topped 
peninsula, a beautiful tin ceiling with recessed lighting and white beadboard backsplashes. High-end stainless steel appliances include a Jenn-Air electric burner/oven, refrigerator and dishwasher as well as a second oven, an Electrolux. There's a large eat-in area in a bumpout addition with a chandelier.

Off the kitchen is a wallpapered half-bath — redone in 1998 — with a white marble floor, beadboard walls and an antique vanity topped with black granite.

On the far right end of the kitchen sits a formal Victorian dining room with a glass chandelier hanging from a plaster medallion and chair rail wainscoting.

At the other end of the kitchen, a mud room leads out to a rear porch and a large backyard. At the end of the yard sits the garage and a driveway that holds three more vehicles.

Back inside, the house's four bedrooms are on the second floor, up a carpeted staircase with a stained-glass window on the landing.

The redone master bedroom suite retains its original wide-pine floors. An en-suite bathroom, added in 2004, has a green granite vanity with double sinks and a glass-enclosed steam shower with white subway tile walls and a green granite bench. There are also two walk-in closets, and right outside the bedroom are original built-in linen closets.

The large second bedroom was expanded with a connected home office with new pine floors and a wall-length built-in desk.

The third and fourth bedrooms are on the small side, but have restored oak floors and good-sized closets.

There is a second full bathroom on this floor, with beige ceramic tile floors, a pedestal sink and an off-white tiled tub and shower.

A stairway to the third floor leads to a heated attic home office. The rest of the attic space is unfinished, providing lots of storage space.

The home's basement holds a laundry room with a full-size Kenmore washer and dryer and a slop sink. The rest of the basement is unfinished with lots of storage space. It also holds the house's water heater and a 10-year-old furnace for an oil heating system fed through original radiators. There are two zones of central air conditioning in the home.

• Address: 1394 Main St., Concord
• Bedrooms: Four
• Bathrooms: Two full, one half
• List price: $925,000
• Square feet: 3,160
• Price per square foot: $293
• Annual taxes: $10,116
• Features: Original woodwork throughout including hardwood floors and moldings; expanded redone kitchen with tin ceiling, high-end appliances and large eat-in area; formal Victorian-style living, dining and sitting rooms; master bedroom turned into suite with granite bathroom in 2004; home office addition with built-in desk added to second bedroom; third-floor home office; updated oil heating and central air systems; basement laundry room; large backyard; two-car garage.
• Location: Three-tenths of a mile from shops and restaurants in West Concord center and the West Concord MBTA commuter rail station.
• Built in: 1895; kitchen expanded and redone in 1998; master bedroom suite and bedroom/office addition done in 2004
• Broker: William Raveis Real Estate agents Marjorie Gold at 617-549-0181 and Shari Jacobson at 617-512-5169.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Coin mimics your credit cards

I'm not one to pre-order a product before I've seen it in person. But yesterday I took the unusual step of paying $55 for a new form of digital payment technology called Coin that I won't even get my hands on until the summer.

Unlike so many mainstays of the trendy digital payment revolution, Coin (onlycoin.com) doesn't require retailers to do anything. They needn't install a new point-of-sale system, one of those little smartphone scanners or make any investment of time or money at all.

Unfortunately, retailer adoption has been the impediment to digital wallet technology exploding. It's up to consumers alone to make the leap.

And unlike so many newfangled digital payment services and methods, Coin solves a real problem that I actually have: the annoyance of having to carry all those darn pieces of plastic in my wallet. Coin is a card that acts like all of your current credit cards in one, and it's the only one you need to carry around.

No more fumbling through your wallet for the Visa or MasterCard because a particular merchant doesn't take American Express. Simply press a tiny button on the Coin to select which card to use. It's like smart plastic. Setting it up involves swiping your credit cards through a reader that Coin sends you along with the card.

Even cooler: Coin has a little Bluetooth signal that links it to your phone. If you happen to leave it at the store, your phone will notify you that your Coin is out of range.

It was striking to see how the future of digital payment technology played out at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week — the idea apparently being to make this more complex, not less. The conference featured several digital payment startups pitching biometric point-of-sale scanners.

In other words, you'd scan a fingerprint or your iris to confirm your identity when using a credit card, supposedly making data theft less likely. But I'm not sure biometric scans solve the underlying problem: data is vulnerable, whether it's a fingerprint or a credit card number.

Coin doesn't solve the problem of identity theft either. But I'm holding out hope that it will make one small aspect of my life just a bit easier, which is precisely what technology is supposed to do.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Zucker: GOP being run from Fox News headquarters

PASADENA, Calif. — The chiefs of CNN and Fox News Channel are throwing shots at each other, each suggesting the other's network is essentially out of the news business.

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes struck first, saying in an interview published this week that it was interesting for CNN "to throw in the towel and announce they're out of the news business." It was a reference to CNN President Jeff Zucker's efforts to expand CNN's offerings beyond breaking news.

"We happen to be in the business, as opposed to some other fair and balanced network," Zucker responded at a news conference on Friday.

He suggested that Ailes' remarks, published in the Hollywood Reporter, were silly and an attempt to deflect attention from "The Loudest Voice in the Room," a book on Ailes and Fox by New York magazine writer Gabriel Sherman that is being published this month.

Zucker said he hadn't read the book, but that from what he heard it confirmed that "the Republican Party is being run out of News Corp. headquarters masquerading as a cable news channel."

A Fox News spokeswoman said that Ailes gave his Hollywood Reporter interview in December, suggesting it had nothing to do with Sherman's book. She had no other comment on what Zucker said during a meeting with journalists who cover television on Friday.

Zucker, in charge at CNN for a year now, has taken note of flat ratings in pushing CNN to diversify. Non-fiction shows with chef Anthony Bourdain and Morgan Spurlock, ordered before Zucker came to CNN, are consistently among the networks' highest-rated shows. CNN has also beefed up its documentary film unit.

The films drew some barbs from Ailes, as well, particularly the successful "Blackfish," about killer whales. "I guess he's going to do whales a lot," Ailes said. "If I were Discovery, I'd be worried."

Zucker said CNN had several other new non-fiction series in the works. In March, CNN will premiere "Death Row Stories," a crime series produced by Robert Redford and Alex Gibney and narrated by Susan Sarandon. CNN is also continuing its concentration on the 1960s with a 10-part series beginning in May. Later this month, CNN will air "The Sixties: The British Invasion" in the days before the 50th anniversary of the Beatles performing on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Despite such efforts, Zucker said CNN's first priority remains news. A succession of CNN leaders over the past two decades have struggled to figure out how CNN could get a consistent audience during slow news periods. Fox and MSNBC, which appeal heavily to audiences on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have taken viewers away from CNN.

"CNN is not and never will abandon our first and fundamental brand equity, which is news and breaking news," Zucker said.

He also shot down reports that CNN is looking to get into the late-night entertainment business, perhaps by hiring Jay Leno when Jimmy Fallon takes over on NBC's "Tonight" show next month. Zucker was once Leno's boss when he was head of NBC Universal.

"That's really not a priority for us at this time," he said. "We have some other things I'd like to concentrate on first."

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Micro-units perfect fit for young pros

Micro-apartments aren't for everyone, but for young professionals starting out who embrace a leaner and more collegial lifestyle, it doesn't seem that it's that much of a compromise.

A recent tour of Factory 63 on Melcher Street in South Boston's Fort Point neighborhood, which has 23 "innovation micro-apartments," dispelled some misconceptions about a living experiment seen as a way to keep young professional people in the city. Factory 63's units are all rented and there's a waiting list. And, there are hundreds more of these units set to be built in an area dubbed the Innovation District.

"The idea here is to engage the community, especially the artists who live here, in a way that adds value for the residents," said Factory 63 property manager Jessica Ryan, pointing to Fort Point artists' work hanging on the walls and revolving exhibits by Design Museum Boston, which occupies a gallery in the common space. "We want to respect and hold on to what is already here in the neighborhood."

The common space is open to the public during business hours, and there are five artist live/work spaces in the building.

At rents ranging from $1,699 for a 374-square-foot unit to $2,450 for 597 square feet, the market-rate micro-apartments at Factory 63 are expensive, though the rent does include heat and central air conditioning, with only a $30-a-month electric bill. But residents feel the expense is worth it.

When Ross Chanowski moved into his 447-square-foot micro-unit last March, he was working in a big local ad agency that had just moved to the Seaport District. He said he could have rented a regular-sized apartment, but chose the micro-apartment instead because of the character of the building, a former shoe factory, and the focus on integrating living and working.

"I didn't just want an apartment, but a place to live, work, play, innovate and create," the 25-year-old Newton native said. "It's in a great neighborhood near downtown and I've gotten to know most of the people in the building, made friends and business connections. You don't just shut your door."

Phoebe K. Flemming is living in only 337 square feet, with her two dogs, in a unit at Factory 63 she won through a city lottery system, paying about $1,200 a month. She said initially she was skeptical about the smaller space because her Southie apartment had 700 square feet.

"This place has more of a neighborhood feel than I thought it would, and I liked the common space," said Flemming, a 31-year-old dietician consultant and executive director of the nonprofit South Boston Grows.

Developer Gerding Edlen's support of sustainability also appealed to her. The building is LEED Gold certified, with energy-efficient heating and cooling, appliances and fixtures.

"I like the idea of lean and green," Flemming said.

The Wi-Fi-enabled common space on the first floor has free coffee and tea, benches to work on, couches to sit on and long tables, and a conference room to hold business meetings. There is no charge to use the space.

The units at Factory 63 have wood floors and exposed brick, 13-foot wood-beam ceilings and two tall windows, which makes the spaces feel larger and less cramped. The galley kitchens have white Corian counters, a few cabinets and full-size stainless steel appliances. Walls divide the kitchen from the combination living/dining area and bedroom area, which has enough space for a queen-size bed. The bathroom is surprisingly roomy, with a space-saving stacked washer and dryer.

Living in such small quarters requires residents to be neat and orderly.

"You can't have a lot of stuff," Flemming said " I've spent the past few years decluttering my life."

Each resident does get an extra 9-square-foot storage cube on the bottom floor.

Flemming, whose living/bedroom area is smaller than Chanowski's, built a loft bed, which gives her more living space in the main room.

"I have two couches in there and friends come over all the time," Flemming said. "My place is kind of a focal point. But it is small and you have to adapt to that."

Chanowski said he does not feel that his place is too small to live and work in, or have a few people over.

"It's not just that I have to live my life lean here, I want to live my life lean," Chanowski said. "My idea is to live small and think big."

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Briar defends breach delay

The Briar Group is defending a six-week delay in notifying the public that its restaurant customers' credit card data were stolen last fall, saying it took that long to confirm hackers had breached its system.

But security experts say it shouldn't take that long to establish a breach has occurred, noting that the Briar Group had hired the well-regarded firm McGladrey LLP to investigate the matter.

"It doesn't take a month to identify a breach," said Al Pascual, senior analyst of security, risk and fraud at Javelin Strategy & Research in Pleasanton, Calif.

Meanwhile, two weeks after confirming the breach, the Briar Group still doesn't know the number of customer accounts accessed and how, or the exact timeframe in which it occurred.

"Our investigation into the nature and scope of the breach is ongoing," spokeswoman Diana Pisciotta said.

After receiving initial calls from customers about unauthorized credit card transactions on Nov. 15, the Briar Group said it immediately asked McGladrey to investigate. The company notified Attorney General Martha Coakley of the investigation on Nov. 21. The Briar Group, which owns 10 restaurants including Ned Devine's, Harp, Anthem and M.J. O'Connor's, only publicly announced on Dec. 27 that its payment system was compromised, and stated it believed the breach ran from "sometime in October" to early November.

"Investigations into potential security breaches can take a significant amount of time," Pisciotta said. "We notified customers once we were aware that an actual breach had occurred and had enough information to provide reasonable notice, which wasn't until late December."

It was the second security intrusion for the company, which in 2011 paid $110,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Coakley for its failure to secure customers' information in a 2009 breach.

Coakley spokesman Christopher Loh said in the current case, "Our investigation ... is focused on determining if any violations of state law and the prior consent judgment occurred, as well as the extent of the breach."

A good security team should have identified the breach quickly, but it's not uncommon for probes to take a month or longer, said Chris Morales, research director at NSS Labs, an information security research and advisory firm.

"It's not reasonable or practical, but it's really how long sometimes it takes," he said. "I've been to very large enterprises with very large security teams that are good that also have had similar issues. The whole industry still needs to change the way it does certain things."

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cambridge company wins NASA job

NASA has awarded Cambridge-based Charles River Analytics a contract to build a system that analyzes satellite imagery to detect major changes, including volcanic eruptions, so scientists can respond more quickly to environmental events.

The $750,000 contract, which follows on an initial $125,000 award in 2012, will be used to develop the system known as DIPSARS for Discovery of Interesting Patterns and Semantic Analysis in Remote Space, said Daniel Stouch, who heads up the project for CRA. It will use CRA's Object Detection Framework, which sifts through the mountains of satellite pictures and detects changes in real-time, Stouch said.

"As we learn more about our world and the physical and social processes in it, it's important to be able to perceive and understand events and phenomena from a global perspective," Stouch said.

CRA said the system will let NASA "process and analyze which data is relevant, important and interesting enough to prompt follow-on action." A NASA spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The ODF is best suited to quickly detect events such as volcanic eruptions, forest fires and algae blooms, Stouch said.

"It might be something you can see from space, but you might not see from the ground," Stouch said.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Center Plaza deal good sign for Boston

Shorenstein Properties is the new owner of Boston's landmark Center Plaza in a $307 million deal.

At $400-plus per square foot, the San Francisco real estate investment firm's purchase of the three Government Center buildings at 1-3 Center Plaza, totalling 717,128 square feet, from the Blackstone Group is another bullish sign for Boston's commercial property market.

"The market has significant momentum right now, and these big-ticket office buildings that weren't selling a couple of years ago are moving like hotcakes," said Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics in New York. "There's more equity funds running around the U.S. looking for properties today than there was at the peak of the market in 2007."

And as a gateway city, Boston is certainly on the top of everyone's list, he said.

"We believe this property is well-positioned to benefit from our ability to add value over time through hands-on management and leasing expertise," Shorenstein CEO Douglas Shorenstein said in a statement.

Beacon Properties developed Center Plaza starting in the late 1960s and merged with Chicago's Equity Office Properties Trust in 1997. New York's Blackstone bought Equity in 2007 and recently has been selling its office buildings.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Keolis to run commuter rail

The French company that will run Massachusetts' commuter rail system starting July 1 will face much higher penalties than the previous operator if trains don't run on time.

The state Department of Transportation's board of directors yesterday voted unanimously to award Keolis Commuter Services an eight-year, $2.69 billion contract, with the potential for two, two-year extensions that would bring the total to $4.28 billion.

"The new contract sets a 'no excuses' expectation that the operator will run the trains on time," MBTA General Manager Beverly A. Scott told the board. "In a major change, the new commuter rail contract does not include any incentive payments and, if performance standards are not met, imposes financial disincentives."

Keolis will be subject to penalties capped at more than $12 million per year for subpar performance such as late or dirty trains or trains without proper heating or air conditioning.

Under the current contract with the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., which has run the rail system since 2003, financial penalties are limited to $3 million per year and are offset by incentive payments.

The MBCR contract also automatically grants the company relief from on-time performance requirements if there is overcrowding on the platforms, disabled freight trains or slippery rail conditions caused by falling leaves.

The contract with Keolis will do away with this list of acceptable excuses for lateness and require the operator to provide supporting documentation if it believes an event is beyond its control, Scott said.

For the first time, 50 percent of the amount of financial disincentives will be tied to elements of customer satisfaction, such as cleanliness, heating and air conditioning, maintenance of staff levels and customer communications, she said.

The contract also will require Keolis to adhere to a strict maintenance schedule, increase daily inspection requirements and allow the MBTA to require the company to implement a remedial action plan if its performance fails to meet expectations, Scott said.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Ticker

Internet experts pull out of security conference

At least eight researchers or policy experts have withdrawn from an Internet security conference after the sponsor, Bedford-based RSA Security, reportedly used flawed encryption technology deliberately in commercial software to allow the National Security Agency to spy more easily on computer users.

RSA Security, owned by data storage giant EMC Corp., has disputed claims it intentionally introduced the flawed encryption algorithm, but otherwise has declined to discuss what a published report last month described as a $10 million government contract.

Akamai will stream Winter Games

Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies has been selected to stream the Winter Olympics by NBC, the companies announced yesterday.

All 98 events in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, next month will be streamed online and on mobile devices for the first time.

Macy's chopping 2,500 jobs

Macy's Inc. is cutting 2,500 jobs as part of a reorganization to sustain its profitability.

Shares rose 5.5 percent in after-hours trading yesterday.

The announcement comes on the heels of a strong holiday shopping season for the department store chain, which also runs the higher-end Bloomingdale's chain.

Macy's said the moves will save it $100 million per year and predicted a profit this year above Wall Street forecasts.

TODAY

 Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.

 Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates.

 Selected chain retailers release December sales comparisons.

TOMORROW

 Labor Department releases employment data for December.

  Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for November.

THE SHUFFLE

H. J. Knight International Insurance Agency has named Chris Petrie, left, of Milton to the position of account executive. Petrie will specialize in commercial property and casualty insurance.

 451 Marketing announced that Melissa Sciorra has joined its search marketing team as SEO account manager. Sciorra will focus on strategy development and execution of SEO accounts for 451 Marketing's growing list of consumer clients.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More

Madoff-related fraud to cost JPMorgan $2.5 billion

NEW YORK — For more than 15 years, there were signs something was amiss with what federal prosecutors in Manhattan call the "703 account" at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Money was being transferred back and forth for no reason. The account holder was recording double-digit returns on investments that were too good to be true. The bank itself was worried enough about possible fraud to withdraw its own investments from him.

The name on the account was Bernard Madoff and on Tuesday JPMorgan paid a steep price for keeping quiet about its suspicions.

Federal authorities announced the nation's largest bank will add to its other costly financial woes by forfeiting a record $1.7 billion to settle criminal charges alleging it turned a blind eye to the Madoff fraud, plus pay an additional $543 million to settle civil claims by victims. It also will pay another $350 million civil penalty for what the Treasury Department called "critical and widespread deficiencies" in its programs to prevent money laundering and other suspicious activity.

The bank failed to carry out its legal obligations to guard against money laundering while Madoff "built his massive house of cards," George Venizelos, head of the FBI's New York office, said at a news conference.

Madoff banked at JPMorgan through what court papers referred to as the "703 account." In 2008, the bank's London desk circulated a memo describing JPMorgan's inability to validate his trading activity or custody of assets and his "odd choice" of a one-man accounting firm, the government said.

In late October 2008, it filed a suspicious activity report with British officials. In the weeks that followed, JPMorgan withdrew about $300 million of its own money from Madoff feeder funds. The fraud was revealed when Madoff was arrested in December 2008.

"Despite all these alarm bells, JPMorgan never closed or even seriously questioned Madoff's Ponzi-enabling 703 account," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. "On the other hand, when it came to its own money, JPMorgan knew how to connect the dots and take action to protect itself against risk."

In a statement, JPMorgan said it recognized it "could have done a better job pulling together various pieces of information and concerns about Madoff from different parts of the bank over time."

It added: "We do not believe that any JPMorgan Chase employee knowingly assisted Madoff's Ponzi scheme."

Prosecutors called the $1.7 billion the largest forfeiture by a U.S. bank and the largest Department of Justice penalty for a Bank Secrecy Act violation.

The settlement includes a so-called deferred prosecution agreement that requires the bank to acknowledge failures in its protections against money laundering but also allows it to avoid criminal charges. No individual executives were accused of wrongdoing.

The agreement resolves two felony violations of the Bank Secrecy Act in connection with the bank's relationship with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, the private investment arm of Madoff's former business. The civil penalty was imposed by the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Criminal charges will be deferred for two years as JPMorgan admits to its conduct, pays the $1.7 billion to a fund established for victims of Madoff's fraud and reforms its anti-money laundering policies, prosecutors said.

A statement of facts included in the agreement describes internal communications at JPMorgan expressing concerns about how Madoff was generating his purported returns. As early as 1998, a JPMorgan fund manager wrote that the returns were "possibly too good to be true" and there were "too many red flags."

In more recent years, executives were disturbed by the fact that Madoff wouldn't let the bank examine his books, the statement of facts says.

"How much do we have in Madoff at the moment?" a bank analyst wrote in a 2008 email. "To be honest, the more I think about it, the more concerned I am."

When Madoff finally revealed to the FBI that his investment advisory business was a Ponzi scheme, fictitious account statements for thousands of clients showed $60 billion in assets. Of the roughly $17.5 billion in principal that was real, most of it was gone.

Since then, a court-appointed trustee has recovered more than $9.78 billion — including a portion of the JPMorgan civil payout — to redistribute to clients that invested directly with Madoff. The $1.7 billion criminal forfeiture and will go to a second victims' pool, already with $2.35 billion, that is processing claims from clients of so-called "feeder funds" that also invested heavily with Madoff.

The JPMorgan settlement is the latest in a series of major deals it has made to resolve its legal troubles. In November, the bank agreed to pay $13 billion over risky mortgage securities it sold before the financial crisis — the largest settlement to date between the Justice Department and a corporation.

The more than $2.5 billion that JPMorgan is paying comes from a company that reported $21.3 billion in net income for 2012. JPMorgan already has set aside $23 billion this year to cover settlement and litigation costs — including the $13 billion.

The settlement of criminal charges "is good, but still inadequate to stop what can only be called a one-bank crime spree," said Dennis Kelleher, the president of Better Markets, a group that advocates strict financial regulation.

"Once again, not a single individual working for JPMorgan Chase has been held accountable. Banks do not commit crimes; bankers do," Kelleher said in a statement. "Until individuals, including executives, are held personally liable, fined and jailed, the crime spree will continue."

Asked why no individual bankers were charged, Bharara said the settlement was the best option under the law.

"Obviously, the statement of facts recites in great detail some of the roles that various individuals played with the overall systemic failure," he said. "But in the interest of justice, you've got to look at every case individually and our view was at this point the obvious charge was against the bank. ... This is a statute directed against institutional failure and institutional deterrence and that's why it was brought the way it was today."

___

AP Business Writer Marcy Gordon in Washington contributed to this report.

16.30 | 0 komentar | Read More