auctions

Sell your old stuff on Quick

Open up Quick and you'll see two paths you can take: Sell or Search & Buy. Selling an item using Quick is totally straightforward. Just hit List an Item and input all of the vital info, like Title, Price, Category, Description, Payment Options, Delivery Options, and Photos. You can snap a few new pics or import existing ones from your Gallery. If you're selling a fairly common item, there's a nice feature that lets you use Quick to search for it (either by keyword or scanned bar code), in order to autopopulate the item fields. Lastly, at … Read more

Original Apple-1 computer going, going for $150K-ish

You may, like so many, have lost 40 percent of your wealth recently, but I'm sure you've saved something for this.

Tomorrow, the nice people at Sothebys are auctioning an Apple-1 motherboard, the very motherlode of modern, beautiful computing.

What's morally uplifting about your potential investment is that this particular machine allegedly works. It is, so Sothebys says, one of only six in earthly existence that can do whatever it is Apple-1 computers were supposed to do. Add, subtract and look amazing at parties, I suppose. … Read more

Kodak files bidding plan to auction patent portfolio

Troubled photography pioneer Eastman Kodak filed a motion today for approval of confidential bidding procedures for the bankruptcy auction of its digital-imaging patent portfolio.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection in January, securing financing from Citigroup that allowed the company to continue operations as it restructures. The patents, crucial to the operation of cameras, phones, and other devices, could be useful for a company looking to buy some legal muscle.

Kodak's filing outlines a sales process in which only the identity of the winning bidder and the winning bid amount would be revealed once the auction for the 1,100 … Read more

Steve Jobs' 1974 memo to Atari to be auctioned

Before he co-founded Apple, Steve Jobs worked briefly at Atari, helping the game maker improve design.

Sotheby's is auctioning a handwritten memo penned in 1974 by then-19-year-old Jobs that describes changes Atari could make to its World Cup Soccer arcade game to add fun and functionality.

The present report, written for his supervisor Stephen Bristow, was meant to improve the functionality and fun of World Cup, a coin arcade-game with four simple buttons and an evolution from Atari's Pong game. Job's report is stamped "All-One Farm Design," a name appropriated from the commune he frequented … Read more

Spectrum auction compromise part of payroll tax cut bill

It looks like Congress will finally authorize incentive spectrum auctions.

Today, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate agreed on legislation that will authorize the extension of the payroll tax cuts and the unemployment benefits. And they also authorized the Federal Communications Commission to auction off wireless spectrum as part of the package. Revenue from the incentive auctions will be used to help pay for the tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

The spectrum auction was proposed as part of the 2010 National Broadband Plan. It calls for TV broadcasters who have wireless spectrum they aren'… Read more

Spectrum crunch: All talk, no action, and consumers suffer

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Roger Entner's bio below.

Spectrum is the fuel that runs wireless, and the country is quickly running out of it.

In fact, the U.S. will run out of spectrum capacity to support wireless broadband networks in the next three to five years. That's not just my opinion. The White House, the FCC, and Congress share it, which is remarkable in this era of never-ending disagreements inside the beltway.

So the hunt is on for more spectrum. But there are few options because spectrum is scarce, with most of it … Read more

How politics inflame the 'spectrum crisis'

Two years into a decade-long plan to free up wireless spectrum to handle an explosion in mobile data traffic growth, Washington politics are crippling the Federal Communications Commission's ability to reach any of its goals.

In March 2010, the FCC identified in its National Broadband Plan a dire need for more spectrum in the U.S. It outlined a timeline for getting 300 megahertz of spectrum in the pipeline by 2015 with an additional 200MHz opened up for auction by 2020. In total the plan would create 500MHz of new wireless spectrum that could be auctioned off, or nearly … Read more

Apple's founding contract sells for $1.35 million

The papers that legally launched the tech giant were sold today at auction for $1.35 million, significantly higher than presale estimates.

The three-page document marking the founding of Apple was expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000 at Sotheby's Fine Books and Manuscripts auction. Bidding began at $70,000 and ended a few minutes later with a telephone bid of $1.35 million (see video below). Buyer's premium brought the total cost to $1,594,500.

The winning bidder was Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive officer of Cisneros, according to Sotheby's (PDF).

The Apple document, … Read more

House subcommittee advances spectrum bill

A spectrum bill has passed through a subcommittee in the House of Representatives that authorizes FCC incentive auctions and also allocates spectrum to public safety.

On Thursday, the communications and technology subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the Jumpstarting Opportunity with Broadband Spectrum Act (JOBS Act).

The legislation authorizes the Federal Communications Commission to create an auction for selling wireless spectrum voluntarily released by TV broadcasters. And it also includes provisions for allocating spectrum and funding a nationwide public safety mobile broadband network.

Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who sponsored the bill, said it would help create 100,… Read more