Leila Lopes of Angola Wins Miss Universe 2011

Twenty-five year old business student Leila Lopes won the title of Miss Universe at last night's pageant in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Lopes, the first Angolan ever to walk away with the crown, handled the final question with poise and charm. Asked which of her physical traits she would like to change, she said she'd prefer to stay as she is. "Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing," she said. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."

(PHOTOS: The Best National Costumes of 2010)

The first runner-up was Olesia Stefanko of Ukraine, and the second runner-up was Miss Brazil Priscila Machado. Miss Philippines and Miss China rounded out the Top 5.

Lopes won over the audience by speaking in Portuguese at various points during the pageant. (Angola, like Brazil, is a former Portuguese colony.) She plans to continue her work raising awareness about HIV and campaigning for the rights of underprivileged children and the elderly. "I think now as Miss Universe I will be able to do much more," she said.
Lopes also made NewsFeed's list of the "best" national costumes for her ocean-themed dress covered in faux coral and plastic fish. The actual prize went to Miss Panama Sheldry Saez, who has several thousand birds to thank for her fashion forward plumage.
PHOTOS: The Best National Costumes of 2011

Sony Unveils Ultra High-Def 4K Projector: So Long 1080p!

You've finally picked up a monster-sized high-definition 1080p flatscreen for your entertainment center, you're plowing through your Blu-ray stacks of Lost or Friday Night Lights or Breaking Bad at a crisp, eyeball-thrilling 1920 x 1080 pixels, and then you see this: Sony's launching a projector that'll run at 4K, or 4096 x 2160 pixels.

Wait, what? 4096 wide by 2160 high? Isn't that some kind of digital cinema format? Why yes, yes it is. In fact it's the high-end of digital cinema formats. Most use 2K, or 2048 x 1080 pixels, only a tick better than your increasingly standard home theater's 1080p, so 4K's pretty much cutting edge. Films shot in 4K are fairly recent, too—think District 9, Knowing and The Social Network.

Meet Sony's VPL-VW1000ES 4K, but don't worry, you probably can't afford one. Sony says it'll ship this December for just shy of $25,000 (including installation). But oh what you'd enjoy if you had that sort of disposable income: a home theater front projector capable of displaying four times the resolution of HDTV.

Report: Facebook Doubles First Half Revenue to $1.6 Billion

You've come a looong way from the dorm room, Mark Zuckerberg. Reuters recently reported that Facebook's revenue has doubled to $1.6 billion in the first half of this fiscal year. I'm guessing Zuckerberg has forgotten about those instant noodles a long time ago.

The figure is nearly double what Facebook made in the first half of 2010. Reuter's source said that Facebook's net income was approximately $500 million, which would put it on target to make $3.2 billion for the year, with a net income of $1 billion. Spare a few dimes, my friend?

(MORE: As Facebook Hits A $50 Billion Valuation, Will It Go Public?)

ReadWriteWeb speculates that a big portion of Facebook's increase in revenue has come from a bigger share in advertising, though Facebook has started to diversify its investments. However, its projected growth rate at the moment would still fall short of expectations that the companywould surpass $4 billion this year.

Meanwhile, there is still no hint on when Facebook will go public (you know, if it ever does). But why worry about that now when Marky Mark can kick back in his homey crib? Oh hey, that's a nice ottoman. I can't believe I haven't noticed it before.

Good News: Netflix Now Works on Almost Every Android Phone

Netflix on Android: It's been a rocky, pot hole-filled road until recently. It wasn't until May of this year that streaming video features made it to certain Android handsets and, even then, the initial number of supported devices sat at just five.

Netflix promised to "aggressively" add to that list, and we now find that the app is compatible with all Android devices running versions 2.2 and 2.3 of the operating system. That ought to cover about 80% of Android smartphone users, says PCWorld.

Universal support for new Android tablets running version 3.0 (Honeycomb) is still a bit of an ordeal—some tablets have it, some don't—so it'd be nice to see that situation get worked out next. Getting everything running smoothly on Android phones is a good step, however, as those devicesrepresent a sizable chunk of the smartphone market.

Report Says iPhone 5 Might Be Out October 7

Since my mother, father, best friend, ex-boss, neighbor, neighbor's sister and even the guy who sells me my coffee keep asking me when the next iPhone is coming out, let me set the record straight: My name isn't exactly Steve Jobs, but I can tell you that people are whispering that it will finally be available in early October.

According to sources for blog 9to5Mac, the new iPhone might be here as early as October 7. The mentioned date has been making its way around several other news sources as well. The blog says that Apple has been looking at either the 7th or the 14th as a date for its official launch. But apparently everything has been going smoothly with the pre-distribution process, so as a result the tech company has reportedly been shooting for the earlier date.

There are also signs that the iPhone announcement will most likely happen in September, with rumors that pre-orders would most likely start on September 29 or September 30. While the 9to5Mac has the date pegged as the 30th, things still aren't yet set in stone. If true, though, this would obviously mean that Apple would decide on September for its fall event, instead of October.

Google Gobbles Up Zagat

Google has announced that it's acquiring Zagat Survey, the dining guide known for its 30-point rating scale and snippets of quotes from restaurant customers.

"Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world," Google's Marissa Mayer wrote on the official Google blog.

For years, Google built up its local business database by scraping information from competitors such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, whether they liked it or not. But lately, Google's been trying to gather its own information with Google Places, and in July the company removed all third-party reviews from its local Place pages. (However, Google still scrapes Yelp content in its Google Places iPhone app, TechCrunch has reported.)

Acquiring Zagat amounts to a shortcut for Google on the dining front. The search giant can now draw on Zagat's reviews, details, hours of operation and must-eat menu items to keep its Place pages up-to-date in more than 100 cities. The acquisition may also alleviate some of the difficulties Google has run into with user-generated content, such as mean-spirited businesses reporting their competitors as permanently closed.

Unanswered in Google's announcement, however, is what will become of the Zagat guide in its current form. Right now, users pay $25 per year for access to Zagat's ratings. But I can't imagine that Google will keep this information locked behind a pay wall, and if Zagat ratings are available for free through Google searches, I can't imagine many people wanting to pay a membership fee to see them. My guess is Google will keep offering paid Zagat memberships, but will ultimately let the program languish as the information migrates to Google's own search services.

Founders Nina and Tim Zagat said they will "remain active in the business as co-Chairs, helping to ensure that the combination of Zagat's and Google's assets and capabilities will maximize our product quality and growth."

Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz: 'These People F---ed Me Over'

When Carol Bartz announced that she'd been dismissed as Yahoo's CEO (over a phone call, no less), she quickly left her hotel and scribbled an email on her iPad to blast to the company's 13,400 employees.

It was a move so boldly 21st century that it made many (including us) like her a little bit more.

Now Bartz—a woman who once famously told TechCrunch's Michael Arrington to "fuck off" in front of a live audience—is speaking out on the incident, spouting off against her former employers in an article on Fortune.

(MORE: Yahoo Reportedly 'Open to Selling to the Right Bidder')

Earmuffs, kids. Here are the best bits:

On first learning of her firing from Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock over a phone call:

"I called him at 6:06,' she recalls. When he got on the line, she says, he started reading a lawyer's prepared statement to dismiss her.

"I said, 'Roy, I think that's a script,'" adding, "'Why don't you have the balls to tell me yourself?'"

And as Bostock finishes reading the statement?

When Bostock finished reading, Bartz didn't argue—"I got it. I got it," she told the Yahoo chairman. "I thought you were classier."

On her expectations as CEO:

"They want revenue growth," says Bartz about the Yahoo board, "even though they were told that we would not have revenue growth until 2012."

Note: During her 10 quarter reign, Yahoo's net income saw a 52% increase, according to The Atlantic.

...and how the board's indecision ended up hurting them:

She attributes the directors' impatience to the criticism they faced when they turned down a lucrative deal to sell Yahoo to Microsoft in 2007, before she arrived. "The board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country," Bartz says. "Now they're trying to show that they're not the doofuses that they are." 

What she thinks about her replacement, former finance chief Tim Morse:

"He's a great guy," she says. Morse was chief financial officer under Bartz, and now he is interim chief of a company whose stock has risen 6% since he replaced her. Asked whom she thinks the board might appoint long-term, she replies, "They should bring me in. I knew what to do."

And, of course, regarding the board that fired her:

"These people fucked me over."

You can read the whole story at CNN Money. It may be sheer coincidence, but in the hours since the article was published, Yahoo's stock has fallen sharply.