iPad’sdominance limits apps for other tablets

Q. When are companies going to start writing applications for tablet computers other than the iPad? I own a Pandigital tablet, and when I try to download apps, I’m told they’re either for the iPad or iPhone.

LeRoy Hilton,

Oro Valley, Ariz.

You can expect more apps for non-Apple tablet computers when those devices gain more market share. How soon, or if, that will happen is anyone’s guess.

People who write apps are motivated by the revenue they’re likely to get. They can maximize that revenue by focusing on the tablet computer that is owned by the largest number of people.

Right now, the best opportunity for app writers is the iPad, which in the first three months of 2012 accounted for 68 percent of the 17.4 million tablet computers sold worldwide, according to market research firm IDC. The iPad’s chief competitors, in order of market share, are tablets made by Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo and Barnes & Noble. Pandigital is further down the list.Q. I recently bought a Kindle Fire tablet computer, and I’m disappointed that it cannot be read in the sunshine as other Kindle devices can. Is there anything I can do to make the screen more readable outdoors, such as buying an anti-glare screen protector?

Mary Jo Ready,

Shoreview, Minn.

An anti-glare protector won’t help. The issue is that your Kindle Fire’s LCD, or liquid crystal display, screen is lit from inside, but isn’t bright enough to compete with sunlight. Your only outdoor options are to raise the screen brightness and find some shade. A video that explains how to adjust screen brightness can be found on Amazon’s help pages, at http://www.tinyurl.com/7289vlo. Q. My Windows task bar was always at the bottom of my screen, but the other day it went to the top for some reason. How can I get it back to the bottom of the screen?

Kathleen Gignac,

Bartow, Fla.

The task bar can be dragged to a new location using your mouse. Left-click a blank space on the task bar and, while holding down the mouse button, drag the bar to the bottom of the screen.

You can skip this manual process if you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista. Just go to http://www.tinyurl.com/c7qwp8 and click the automatic “fix it” button. That will return the task bar to its default position at the bottom of the screen.

If you have problems with either of these techniques, the task bar may have become “locked” in its current position. There are directions on the same Web page that explain how to “unlock” the tool bar’s location so it can be moved.

Contact Steve Alexander at Tech Q&A, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55488-0002; e-mail steve.j.alexander@gmail.com.

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Son of slain Miami Gardens car wash owner: ‘He put his own life before someone else’

When Dameion Peart got the phone call from his uncle, he didn’t believe it. He drove to his father’s Miami Gardens car wash to see for himself. He hoped the news wouldn’t be too bad, or maybe the shooting happened someplace else.

He pulled up, saw flashing lights and police tape, and knew it was true.

His father, Errold Peart, had been trying to protect a customer Sunday afternoon from armed robbers at the car wash he ran at Northwest 191st Street and First Place.

The robbers turned their gun on Peart, killing him.

“He put his own life before someone else,” his son said.

Now, Peart’s family began the unexpected task of planning a memorial. He was five days away from his 60th birthday.

He won’t get to see his daughter, Mishka Peart, 23, graduate from the University of Miami’s medical school.

“It’s just sad,” Dameion Peart said. “It was unnecessary.”

When the community heard of the shooting, they started dropping by the scene. They were the ones who lived nearby, longtime customers and friends, each with their own tale of how his father had helped them through the years.

They talked about the times Peart, 59, didn’t charge for carwashes to people short on money. They told Dameion Peart, 32, how his father would give money to people who needed help paying for water and electricity, never asking for the money back.

They shared stories about people who couldn’t get jobs because they had convictions — until Peart gave them work.

One of the younger employees told him it was Errold Peart who convinced her to go back to school.

“He was a very good, kindhearted person and a good father at the same time,” Dameion Peart said. “The community where his business is located, he really helped them out here.”

Errold Peart hailed from Jamaica, where he played cricket and worked at one point at a school for problem children, his son said. He eventually came to the United States, where he continued to play cricket for the USA national team.

Peart represented the USA in five matches at the 1990 International Cricket Council Trophy in the Netherlands, where the batsman was the team’s leading scorer, ESPN reported. The USA made it through the first round that year before losing in the second, according to ESPN.

At first, Peart worked with an airline, his son said, but later decided to open his own business.

He started the car wash more than a decade ago, his son said. He chose the location because it was near a busy stretch of U.S. 441 and near Florida’s Turnpike, the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 95.

“It was like a landmark,” Dameion Peart said. “Everyone knew him.”

But Peart worried about safety.

“He didn’t like guns. But every year, around this time, for the past three years he got held up at gunpoint and people tried to rob him,” Dameion Peart said. “The last time they even followed him home.”

So Errold Peart got a concealed weapons permit.

On Sunday afternoon, he noticed a pair of young men trying to rob a customer. Errold Peart went out to try and stop it, his son said, only to be shot himself.

The men ran away, leaving behind the customer and a bleeding Peart.

Miami Gardens Police still were looking for the suspects on Monday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

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Why Daniel Radcliffe Prefers To Film in Canada

As Daniel Radcliffe continues to segue out of the colossal film franchise that made him a star, Harry Potter, he is broadening his acting career and exploring new locations outside of Harry Potter's U.K.-based sets. While filming the upcoming Horns throughout Canada, Radcliffe told ET Canada why he prefers filming there.

"What is very impressive about Canada is that people don't generally do English accents as much around me as they do in America," Radcliffe said to ET Canada's Erin Cebula. "I could film in Canada again anytime, any day of the week very, very happily."

VIDEO: What Daniel Radcliffe Fears the Most

In Horns, based on a 2010 book bearing the same name, Radcliffe plays a man ("Ig Perrish") who spontaneously has horns extending from his head after his girlfriend was mysteriously murdered. While moviegoers will get an up-close look at his character's life in the film, he reiterated that he doesn't feel as though the public should be granted an in-depth view of his personal life.

"Good actors don't really seek out paparazzi attention and all of that stuff, but to a certain extent, it's unavoidable," the 23-year-old actor said. "I don't think anyone knows me knows me, but I think they have a sense of what I'm like as a person and [I] think that's good, but I don't think the day-to-day details of people's lives--as I've said many times--need to be known."

VIDEO: First ET Interview: Daniel Radcliffe

While Radcliffe may prefer the way he's treated by Canadians, he'll be honored this winter in the U.S. when another of his upcoming films, Kill Your Darlings, premieres at this year's annual Sundance Film Festival, which marks a first for the British actor.

"That'll be the first time that I've actually had a film in a film festival, really," he said with a smile. "That's really, really exciting for me. That's a very big moment."

Horns is set for release in 2013.

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US hearing for DSK set for December 10

AFP/Getty Images

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, left, and Nafissatou Diallo.

A hearing in the civil case of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been set for December 10, after reports he will settle with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault.

"If the case is settled, this will be announced in open court on that day," Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon told AFP on Monday.

The hearing is set for 2:00 p.m. McKeon said he expects the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, to be present, and for Strauss-Kahn to skip the proceedings.

If Strauss-Kahn, 63, and Diallo, 33, agree on the still undisclosed terms of the settlement, the one-time favorite for the French presidency would put to an end his sordid 18-month legal battle in the United States.

Strauss-Kahn's attorney William Taylor told AFP on Friday that negotiations were ongoing but refused to give details of any pay-off.

He called a report in France's Le Monde newspaper that Strauss-Kahn was ready to pay Diallo $6 million if she drops her civil suit "dramatically inaccurate."

Until now, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers repeatedly said they would not agree to a deal and called Diallo a gold digger. Her legal team insisted equally strongly that she wanted her day in court to confront her alleged abuser.

Diallo's allegation of attempted rape in May 2011 triggered a stunning fall from grace for Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as close to announcing he would run in an upcoming French presidential election.

Criminal charges were quickly brought, and then thrown out when Manhattan prosecutors said Diallo's testimony wouldn't stand up in court.

Meanwhile, Diallo filed her own civil lawsuit in a Bronx court, alleging that the 63-year-old leapt on her, naked, and forced her into oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn -- who says a hurried, but consensual, sex act took place in his luxury room -- returned immediately to France after the criminal case disintegrated.

However, by then Strauss-Kahn's career was in tatters, his marriage was on the rocks and he soon faced a string of other sex-related investigations by French authorities.

In France, Strauss-Kahn will learn December 19 if he is to face further investigation into pimping charges arising from allegations that he and associates arranged sex parties with prostitutes.

His lawyers have filed a request for the charges to be dismissed.

French prosecutors last month dropped an investigation into Strauss-Kahn's alleged participation in a gang rape after the woman involved said she had consented and was not pressing charges.

Strauss-Kahn has also been accused by 32-year-old author Tristane Banon of trying to rape her in 2002, but investigators who probed the allegations concluded that while there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Miami-Dade proposes spending $1.5 billion over 15 years to cure sewer system woes

Six months into negotiations with federal regulators over Miami-Dade’s aging sewer system, the county has come up with a $1.5 billion, 15-year plan to rebuild pipes, pumps and sewage treatment plants that in some cases are almost 100 years old.

County leaders devised the proposal in an attempt to fend off a federal lawsuit, and potentially millions of dollars in fines, for not abiding by the federal Clean Water Act. The county also has proposed replacing or repairing a good portion of the 7,500 miles of sewer lines that regularly rupture and spill millions of gallons of raw waste into local waterways and Biscayne Bay.

Before any work is to begin, the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency — which put the county on notice in May — must accept the county’s terms. The plan, referred to as a consent decree, also must be endorsed by a majority of county commissioners. That could come as soon as late January or early February.

One of the largest repair jobs would be a $555 million reconstruction of the controversial wastewater treatment plant on Virginia Key. Entire concrete structures would be rebuilt, and pump stations and electrical systems would be replaced. The plan calls for spending another $394 million on similar fixes to two other wastewater treatment facilities, in Goulds and North Miami.

Another $408 million would be spent replacing and rehabbing the county’s 1,035 pump stations, and miles of transmission lines that run to and from the plants.

The plan has already garnered some criticism.

The Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers, clean-water activists who filed to join the federal action against the county, say spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild on Virginia Key is a waste, because the spit of land is likely to be under water within 50 years.

The group points to a recent study by the journal Science that showed the polar ice caps in Greenland are melting at three times the rate originally believed. They also say a climate change compact Miami-Dade agreed to with three other counties — which accepted a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that shows sea levels will rise 3 feet by 2060 — shows the Virginia Key plant could be in peril.

“Doubling down on Virginia Key the way they’re doing it is just stupid,” said environmental attorney Albert J. Slap, representing the Waterkeepers. “There’s not a dime in it for armoring the plant, or raising it. It’s on a barrier island.”

Doug Yoder, deputy director of the county’s water and sewer department, didn’t dispute the Army Corps findings, and said the county could abandon the Virginia Key plant for a new plant on the western edge of the county if federal regulators make such a demand.

“We certainly don’t want to spend a lot of money fixing up a facility we’ll soon abandon,” he said.

Most of the costs for the overall plan will be covered through county revenue bonds, Yoder said, meaning a future increase in water rates and debt service bills. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been warning for months that rate hikes are in the offing.

To meet demands from the feds, the county also must abandon by 2027 an outflow system it now uses that dumps up to 120 million gallons of sewage each day miles offshore. The county has until July 2013 to come up with an alternate disposal method.

A project cited in the new plan that had not been publicly addressed previously is the installation of 7,660 linear feet of sewer mains in an industrial area just below State Road 112 and between Northwest 27th and 37th avenues, which now depends on septic tanks. The job of hooking up local businesses there to county sewers would cost a little over $2 million.

Federal regulators began talks with Miami-Dade in May after a series of massive raw sewage spills released more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste throughout the county. DOJ and the EPA, along with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, sketched out the 78-page consent decree.

Four times between October and December 2011, the sewage treatment plant on Virginia Key alone ruptured, spilling more than 19 million gallons.

The county also has agreed to pay a $978,000 fine for past spills within 30 days of the plan being accepted, with about half the money going to the DOJ and the other half to the state.

DOJ spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment Friday.

In October, the county denied 12 permit applications in the Coconut Grove area by businesses that wanted to install sinks, toilets or showers. The county said it was imposing a moratorium on new sewage outflow from a Coconut Grove-serving pump station.

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Hands-On With the World-Changing $40 Tablet

Aakash2

The Aakash2 is available for $ 40.41 (2,263 rupees), but the government of India will subsidize half the cost for schoolchildren. The tablet is conceived as a tool to help end India‘s rampant illiteracy. Aakash2 will bring school-age children connectivity and unprecidented access to books.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Zynga Holiday Campaign Turns Virtual Goods Into Real-World Donations]

The Aakash2, the second generation of the monumental, ultra-cheap tablet from Indian manufacturer DataWind, arrived in the U.S. Wednesday, with a welcome at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.

DataWind is hoping to prove to the tech and development communities that the $ 40 Aakash2 is faster than its predecessor, the original Aakash, which was much-criticized for its glacial processor.

[More from Mashable: The Top 5 Gadget Innovations of 2012]

You may be wondering what exactly you can put in a tablet that sells for just $ 40.41. The 7-inch Android-powered device has 512 MB of RAM, a 1 Ghz processor, 4 GB of flash memory, a multi-touch capacitative screen, front-facing camera, an internal microphone and speakers. The Aakash2 includes a USB hub, an adapter cable, a wall charger and a 12-month warranty.

Sunseet Singh Tuli, DataWind’s CEO and the visionary behind the tablet, points out that Aakash2 wasn’t conceived for the same demographic as the iPad. It’s developed out of the requisite “frugal innovation” that guides India and the developing world.

“Frugal innovation isn’t about creating an iPad killer, it’s about creating an iPad for him,” said Tuli, pointing to a presentation slide of a lower-class man who’s primary motivation is to receive an education. “This is not a straight commerce effort — it’s an educational effort.”

Even the tablet’s name — Aakash, which means sky in Hindi — references that it was created to awaken students’ potential. The government of India has committed to subsidize 50% of the cost of the device for students, making it available for roughly $ 20.

According to DataWind, the technological breakthrough of the Aakash2, which is why the device can be made so inexpensively, is twofold. First, much of its memory and processing power is transfered to backend servers. Second, the parallel processing environment speeds the user experience in remote areas and congested networks.

The Aakash2 also eliminates hardware features deemed unnecessary for the target audience, such as bluetooth and the HDMI interface. It uses open source software to cut costs, as well.

“This tablet seeks to empower the world’s neediest and bridges the digital divide within our society,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s permanent representative to the U.N. at the launch event. “To us, Aakash2 is the epitome of such high end innovation and excellence.”

The Aakash to was designed and developed in Canada, though it was conceived, assembled and programmed in India. DataWind and the Indian government have received criticism because the process is not entirely domestic, though both said they are committed to moving more of the production process to India when cost allows.

The Indian government has committed to equipping all 220 million students in the country with low-cost computing devices and Internet access over the next five years. To put that number in perspective, just 250,000 tablets were sold in India in 2011. It will cost $ 1.6 billion per year at the rate of equipping 40 million students for each of the next five years. The national government has committed to covering half the cost — $ 800 million per year — and will count on state governments and institutions to cover the remaining 50% of costs. Though it sounds like a daunting figure, $ 800 million is only 5% of India’s annual education budget.

“More and more schools in some of the most impoverished areas are using technology, text messaging and mobile applications to enhance the quality of education and open new doors,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday. “Our challenge is to leverage the power of technology and bridge the digital divide.”

During Wednesday’s event at the U.N., Tuli presented Ki-moon with an Aakash2 tablet for each of the U.N. ambassadors.

Not surprisingly, other countries throughout the developing world have noticed the Aakash tablet’s potential. Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil and Panama have all expressed interest in bringing the low-cost tablet to their students.

“The next arms race is to equip our children with knowledge and information,” Tuli said.

If you’re wondering when you can get your hands on an Aakash2 in the U.S., DataWind plans to begin selling the device in the U.S. in early 2013.

Do you think this low-cost tablet has the power to bridge the digital divide and combat illiteracy? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Val Chmerkovskiy on 'Dancing with the Stars' Season 15

Now that Dancing with the Stars is over, professional dancer Val Chmerkovskiy is revealing his retrospective thoughts on his third season on the show, which concluded in a third-place ending for him and actress Kelly Monaco. Chmerkovskiy developed a tight relationship with Monaco over the season, but admits that he had his sights on another partner in the beginning.

Chmerkovskiy originally joined his brother Maks on the celebrity dancing show as a pro dancer for Season 13, eventually placing eleventh with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis. After placing tenth with Sherri Shepherd the following season, he became discouraged and secretly aspired to be paired with one of the All-Stars season's least capable dancers.

PIC: Val Chmerkovskiy Checks In To 'General Hospital!'

"Going into the season, I had very different views and my imagination was taking me in a different way. My expectations were very, very different," the 26-year-old Latin dance specialist said. "I was really happy to the idea of Bristol Palin, only because I was so discouraged with my last two seasons."

The Ukraine native then explained that he was daunted by the show's first All-Stars season, which was packed with six former Mirrorball Trophy winners, and if he were to lose with a less capable dancer like Palin, the responsibility for be eliminated would lie with his partner and not him.

Palin eventually finished in ninth place with Mark Ballas after four weeks of dwelling at the bottom of the leader board. While finishing ninth would have been a slight improvement for Chmerkovskiy, he instead made a drastic leap and danced with Monaco to his first finals.

RELATED: Maksim Chmerkovskiy Quitting 'DWTS'

While fan voters typically vote for the show's celebrities, Val's skin-flashing performances, including stripping down to a Speedo in the pair's "surfer flamenco," may have carried the two throughout the weeks despite scores that generally hovered around the middle of the leader board.

Although the show is now over, Chmerkovskiy will be putting his half-naked body on display once again in an upcoming guest role on General Hospital, on which Monaco has starred since 2003 and acted in over a thousand episodes. While he's been criticized for continually taking his shirt off on TV, Chmerkovskiy claims it's not his idea to do so.

"I'm getting all the [flak] for it like it's my idea. They told me specifically, 'Show up [with] no shirt; you're coming out of a gym,'" he said. "I'm just doing what people ask. I'm giving the people what they want."

VIDEO: Melissa and Tony Ecstatic after Winning 'DWTS'

Chmerkovskiy will appear on General Hospital's December 10th episode, airing at 2 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT on ABC.

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WATCH: girl suffers 'painful' dolphin bite at SeaWorld

ATLANTA — An 8-year-old Georgia girl says it "really, really hurt" when a dolphin snatched her hand in its mouth while she fed the animal as part of an attraction at SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla.

But Jillian Thomas of Alpharetta says was concerned that the dolphin didn't get sick from eating the paper carton she held. In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America Monday, Jillian said she prayed for the dolphin after the attack.

Jillian suffered three puncture wounds to her hand. Her father Jamie, who was with her at the theme park when the dolphin lunged from its pool Nov. 21, described his reaction this way: "Instant fear."

SeaWorld officials said in a statement that the safety of their guests is paramount, and that they are taking the situation seriously.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

Read More..