Glasses

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

Pocket doors slide away to connect the indoors and outdoors at this sleek contemporary. Designed for entertaining, the modern house features a massive concrete fireplace, a glass-walled loft and walls of glass looking out onto the swimming pool and deck. Location: 1060 Woodland Drive, Beverly Hills 90210 Asking price: $6.995 million Year built: 2009 House size: Four bedrooms, 41/2 bathrooms, 5,868 square feet Lot size: 20,420 square feet Features: Porcelain tile floors, walnut floors, bar, breakfast bar, office, recessed lighting, media room, service entrance, alarm system About the area: In the first quarter, 60 single-family homes sold in the 90210 ZIP Code at a median price of $2.85 million, according to DataQuick.

Suddenly glasses seem to be all the rage. Scenesters are wearing oversized frames at the club, Tina Fey flaunts sexy librarian-style specs, and Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z have launched remarkable collections of Clark Kent-style eyewear. And, sure, you can go to LensCrafters to buy a serviceable pair in a cafeteria-type setting, or to Oliver Peoples for some high-class panache. But if funky boutique is more your style, a couple of independent spots in town are definitely not from the cookie-cutter.

Among all the special places inside his sprawling 10,700-square-foot mountaintop home, Daniel Coletti savors the vibe inside the living room most. It's a luxury dreamscape distinguished by mammoth walls of glass and Idaho-hewn stone. At night, he gazes out past the blue waters of an indoor-outdoor infinity pool and onto a vast citywide vista capped by the shimmering lights of the Strip. "It's like looking at a fire," his wife, Natalie, said. "You can't turn your eyes from it. " The property has another unique feature: Offered at $13.9 million, it's the most expensive residential listing in Las Vegas.

Judging from the plethora of eye-catching eyewear that's been getting face time over the last few years - be it on the European ready-to-wear runways or in the adjoining office cubicle - it's clear that glasses have gone from nerd necessity to chic accessory. It's a shift reflected in the current look-at-me trends - retro, vintage-inspired frames, chunky tortoise shells and geometric shapes that attract rather than deflect attention - and reinforced by the laundry list of fashion-focused brands with a presence in the eyewear arena.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — If you're over 45 and wear glasses, you've probably got more than one pair. Or you're using bifocals or progressive lenses. As most people get older, their eyes have more trouble focusing on objects that are close, which is why you need that extra help for things like sewing, drawing — or reading this article. But it's a hassle to juggle multiple pairs of specs. And some wearers of traditional progressive lenses find their vision can be blurred or distorted in certain situations, such as when they look down at the ground.

Kids' television, which has the license to be fanciful and strange in ways that grown-up TV does not, is a place where anything can happen. But it often seems a place where the same few things happen again and again. Such it is with "How to Rock," a new prefab Nickelodeon sitcom-musical for tweens whose first two episodes premiere Saturday back to back. The work of experienced hands — show runner David Israel is a veteran of "3rd Rock From the Sun" and the wonderful "Grounded for Life" — it is, almost inevitably, not terrible.

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Paul Rosenfield, writing about Cary Grant, asked us to name two other actors "who had the confidence to wear glasses." Let's disregard Robert Mitchum, Michael Caine and numerous other men; consider Mia Farrow, who wore glasses throughout "Zelig," or Shelly Hack, who did the same in "If I Ever See You Again." There's Sophia Loren, who's worn them on several national TV shows (yes, she has endorsed a line of frames, but why not?); such part-time bespectacled beauties as Cybill Shepherd (in "Taxi Driver" and "Silver Bears")

Google 's Project Glass -- the newly unveiled concept headgear that would superimpose graphics on your view of the world -- immediately made me think of Steve Martin's glasses in "The Jerk. " The ones that made him cross-eyed. With the new augmented-reality headgear, cool graphics pop up on a small screen a few inches from your right eye. Would those of us 40 and older have problems refocusing ? Honestly, just thinking about it makes my head hurt. But it's early yet. Perhaps the middle-aged can request built-in progressive lenses -- the virtual suggestion box, after all, is open.

A 1928 Tudor once owned by Broadway star Mary Martin is on the market in Bel-Air at $10.5 million. Nicknamed the Peter Pan House for the role that the former resident is often associated, the two-story plus basement house sits on about an acre with a guesthouse and swimming pool. Features include leaded-glass windows, half-timbered details and a gabled roof. There is a library/study, a breakfast room, seven bedrooms and five bathrooms. Martin, who died in 1990 at 76, also was known for stage roles in "South Pacific" and "The Sound of Music.

We met at the Santa Monica outpost of the Bodega wine bar. Though it was fairly dark inside, I recognized his face at the bar. I waved and walked toward him. As he stood up, his body did not match his face, or any of his online pictures. He was not the same guy surfing in the wetsuit, or wearing the tux, or looking all skinny with his bushy brown hair. He must have gained 50 pounds, maybe more. Beneath his beige button-down shirt I could see man boobs. "Shall we get a table?" he asked.

Judging from the plethora of eye-catching eyewear that's been getting face time over the last few years - be it on the European ready-to-wear runways or in the adjoining office cubicle - it's clear that glasses have gone from nerd necessity to chic accessory. It's a shift reflected in the current look-at-me trends - retro, vintage-inspired frames, chunky tortoise shells and geometric shapes that attract rather than deflect attention - and reinforced by the laundry list of fashion-focused brands with a presence in the eyewear arena.

WASHINGTON — There were no silver spoons, but lots of school loans. Grandmother worked her way up the ranks at the bank. Later, it took two incomes to pay the condo mortgage and the bills. If all this doesn't sound familiar, it soon will. As he heads into a faceoff with Republican Mitt Romney, President Obama's speeches are revisiting parts of the life story that helped propel his rise. There are nods to his humble beginnings, his hardworking grandmother and the stresses of debt — in short, stories that best connect with the middle-class voters his reelection may depend on. "Michelle and I, we've been in your shoes," the president told students Tuesday at the University of North Carolina as he called on Congress to extend a break in school loan interest rates.

Nicholas King was an actor and an assistant to renowned Hollywood photographer Bob Willoughby in the late 1950s when a close friend of Willoughby stopped by his home with intriguing news. The friend, film editor William Cartwright, had visited the famed Watts Towers for the first time and was surprised by what he saw. The unique work of folk art, created over 33 years by Italian immigrant Simon Rodia, had been abandoned since he moved away in 1954. His former house had burned down, the gates to the walled property were open and unguarded, and the grounds were littered with refuse left by unwanted visitors.

If Apple does use metallic glass in its next iPhone, you might not have to keep hiding the device from your toddler and clumsy cousin and actually hand it over to them with some confidence.  That's because it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Liquidmetal, or metallic glass, looks like glass but is far from fragile. It can resist bending, scratching, denting and shattering, according to the scientists responsible. We spoke with William Johnson and Marios Demetriou, the lead researchers on this material at Caltech, as Liquidmetal gets renewed attention following a report in Korean IT News that Apple is experimenting with it for upcoming devices.

McDonald's will recall about 12 million "Shrek" drinking glasses because federal regulators found they contain the toxic metal cadmium, which poses health risks. The glasses have been sold for $2 apiece at McDonald's restaurants across the country as a promotional tie-in with the movie "Shrek Forever After." Purchasers will be advised to keep them away from children and to return them to McDonald's for a refund. The recall, which will be officially announced Friday by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, was set in motion by an anonymous tip to Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough)

McDonald's Corp. is offering $3 refunds to customers who bought "Shrek" drinking glasses, the promotional items recalled last week because they're tainted with cadmium. Starting Wednesday, customers can fill out a refund slip and return the glassware to any McDonald's restaurant, the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company said. The glasses sold for $1.99 with a food purchase and $2.49 without. The 16-ounce glasses featuring characters from "Shrek Forever After" were recalled June 4 in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

MUSIC When the Village Voice's year-end music poll was topped by the Bay Area-based Tune-Yards (a.k.a. Merrill Garbus), the cries of "Who?" in some circles were deafening. Deserving of an audience beyond true believers and rock critics, the big-voiced Garbus mixes up Afro-pop and folk with an experimenter's ear for chance creation while looping herself on a sampler. Also headlining this stopover between Coachella sets is St. Vincent, whose knotty songs take on more blood and grit live courtesy of the guitar pyrotechnics of mastermind Annie Clark.

A celebration following the Boston Bruins' 1-0 overtime win over the Washington Capitals on Thursday evening took a turn for the rowdy. As Bruins fans celebrated their team's dramatic win, they pushed out a pane of glass that encircles the ice and it fell on David Krejci's head. Each pane reportedly weighs about 125 pounds. Krejci remained on his hands and knees for a few moments before standing up. He did not participate in Friday's practice.  "I got a little sore neck but other than that I am good and I'll play tomorrow," Krejci told reporters on Friday.