All New Nissan URGE : A Thunderball

Do you want to know the real concept behind the Nissan URGE. Its the presigious Xbox 360, which powers All-New Nissan URGE Car. A Motorcycle-inspired roadster which delivers a futuristic driving experience using "Project Gotham Racing 3."

In 2005 - Nissan North America Inc.(NNA) and Microsoft Corp. merged automobile design and gaming technology to create the first-ever fully integrated gaming system within a vehicle.

10th year for the EURO in the european markets

10 years ago, European countries have launched its grand experiment with a shared currency and watched it plunge in value before recovering.

As the anniversary approaches of the January 1st, 1999, arrival of the euro, economists say the new currency is finally fulfilling its promise as a way to lower borrowing costs, ease trade and tourism, boost growth and strengthen the European community.

And doing it amid a global financial crisis that, for the moment, underlines the safety in numbers that comes from joining one, big currency.

"After 10 years it has truly created a zone of security and stability," French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said in mid-December. "From all these points of view, the euro has in fact proven wrong the forecasts some made against the euro 10 years ago."

When it was launched for non-cash purposes in 1999, just 11 countries were on board Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Notes and coins were added on January 1, 2002, and the original 11 have been joined by Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Slovenia, with Slovakia slated to join on Jan. 1, bringing the total to 16. Now, some people in longtime holdouts such as Sweden and even strongly euro-skeptic Britain are beginning to reconsider the question. Full celebration here

Santa Clause killed at least 8 people at Covina party

LA Authorities said that Mr. Pardo, dressed in a Santa suit, opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then set the house ablaze. He is later found dead of a gunshot wound.

As he had in years past, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo volunteered to serve as an usher at his church's midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Pardo, however, was miles away from the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church as the religious service got underway. He drove a rental car from his home in Montrose to the Covina home of his ex-wife's parents. Shortly before 11:30 p.m., dressed as Santa Claus, he approached the front door with a large, wrapped package.

Inside the two-story home at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, his ex-wife, her parents and about two dozen others were enjoying their annual holiday party.

An 8-year-old girl ran to answer his knock. When the door swung open, Pardo, 45, shot her in the face with a semiautomatic handgun, stepped into the house and opened fire on the revelers. Amid the chaos, he doused the house with a flammable liquid contained in the package -- a pressurized fuel tank, about 2 1/2 feet tall. Read full article

Celtics win 17th straight NBA records

Ray Allen scored 27 and Kendrick Perkins added a career-high 25 points as the Boston Celtics rolled to their 17th straight victory, 126-108, over the Chicago Bulls.

Rajon Rondo had 15 of Boston's 40 assists and the defending NBA champions improved to a league-best 25-2 this season. Kevin Garnett scored 17 and Paul Pierce had 16 for the Celtics, who can equal a couple of records if they win at home against the New York Knicks Sunday.

The 17-game run is the second-best in franchise history, joining the 1959-60 squad. The team record victory streak is 18, established during the 1981-82 campaign. Also, the best a team has ever started in the NBA before a third loss is 26-2, set by the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers and equaled by the 1969-70 Knicks. Both of those teams went on to win the NBA title.

"Our mentality has always been, since last year, to take it a game at a time," said Garnett. "That's what we've been focused on. We have a Knick team that's coming in Sunday, better team, a more well-rounded team and a confident team."

Perkins went 12-of-15 from the field, all part of a 59.5 percent shooting effort for the Celtics, who forced 20 turnovers and used a 41-point third quarter to pull away. More photos

Barack Obama Focuses Domestic & Reshapes White House

President-elect Barack Obama has finished building a cabinet of prominent and strong-willed players on Friday, but he is putting together a governing structure that will concentrate more decision making over his top domestic priorities in the White House.

With new offices in the White House to coordinate health care, urban policy and energy initiatives, Mr. Obama has signaled that he intends to keep real power over domestic issues close at hand. The collective moves shift the political center of gravity farther away from the cabinet, a trend that has accelerated under presidents of both parties in recent years.

At the same time, Mr. Obama’s reorganization suggests a willingness to tolerate, and even encourage, competing power centers within his administration, but it is unclear how that will work in practice. Not only is he creating new positions with authority over key areas, he is filling his West Wing with people of stature equal to or even greater than the members of his cabinet, including two former cabinet officers and a former Senate majority leader.

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, said issues like health care and energy “are so fundamental to our ability to right the economy in the long term that he knows he’s going to have to drive a lot of that. And he wants a high-powered staff in the White House to help him do that.” Complete coverage here

Friday Night Brings "Year's Biggest Full Moon"

This Friday night will bring the biggest full moon of the year as Earth's natural satellite reaches its closest point to our planet. Earth, the moon and the sun are all bound together by gravity, which keeps us going around the sun and keeps the moon going around us as it goes through phases. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days. But the orbit is not a perfect circle.

The moon's average distance from us is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km). Friday night it will be just 221,560 miles (356,567 km) away. It will be 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during the year, according to NASA. See Moon Pictures here.

India with Limited Options, Presses Pakistan for Terrorism

On Thursday , Even as Indian officials lambasted Pakistan as the “epicenter” of terrorism and dismissed its crackdown on extremist groups as inadequate in the wake of last month’s attacks in Mumbai, they all but ruled out the prospect of a military confrontation.

Rather, Pranab Mukherjee, the Foreign Minister told members of Parliament that it would take time for India to turn off the tap of support for militant groups operating across the border, and that war was “no solution.”

“We shall have to patiently confront it,” he said. “We have no intention to be provoked.” His words signaled India’s delicate and somewhat circumscribed options. If it were to carry out even limited military strikes against Pakistan, it would be likely to lose the support of its allies, namely the United States, which fears that Pakistan would then divert troops from its western border with Afghanistan to its eastern one with India.

Second, India confronts a weak civilian government in Pakistan, which, as Indian officials have long acknowledged privately, has little muscle to counter the powerful military and spy agency. Complete story here

Bank of America : Cutting up to 36,000 jobs

On thursday, Bank of America said that it plans to cut up to 36,000 jobs over the next 3 years as the financial giant adjusts to a recession and completes the pending acquisition of brokerage firm Merrill Lynch & Co.

This comes as the latest wave of mass layoffs in the troubled financial sector, which has been crippled by the credit crunch and the failure of large institutions such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc . More than 220,000 jobs already have been lost across the sector this year, according to labor-tracking firm Challenger Gray & Christmas and to reflect the current recessionary environment," the bank said in a statement. The weak economy "is affecting the level of business activity," it added.

Still, the bank said it continues to do business actively with all of its clients and has attracted deposits and new customers. It also stressed that it's still actively offering loans through all of its credit product lines.
Bank of America's reductions represent one of the largest rounds of layoffs in the history of the financial-services industry. Citigroup Inc. said last month that it plans to cut about 50,000 staff.

Challenger Gray said last week that the financial sector cut 91,356 jobs in November, the second-worst month for industry layoffs since September 2001. The news from Bank of America came the same day that the U.S. Labor Department reported that the number of first-time filings for state unemployment benefits jumped by 11% to 573,000 last week -- marking the highest point for jobless claims in 26 years. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits rose by 338,000 to stand at 4.43 million. Full Article Read here

Britney's Circus Act Again Tops the Charts

This is happening for the first time in the last five years, Britney Spears topped the Billboard 200. Her new album Circus sold more than half a million copies for the week ended Sunday.

This gives Spears the second biggest female bow of the year, topping debut weeks by Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Janet Jackson and Beyoncé and only trailing Taylor Swift. Once the final retail receipts are counted, the album should claim the seventh biggest bow of 2008.

Back in October, Britney set the stage for her comeback when "Womanizer" became her first Hot 100 chart-topper since "…Baby One More Time" a decade ago. "Womanizer" also set the record for the biggest digital sales debut by a female artist (286,000 copies) since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking downloads in 2003. Watch Full coverage

40th birthday for Computer Mouse

This time computer mouse(three button) is celebrating its 40th anniversary today after first being unveiled by Douglas Engelbart at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) in 1968.
The original mouse had two wheels set at right angles to each other and the computer plotted the distance each wheel moved. Then in 1972 Xerox PARC came up with a ball mouse, the design for which remained popular for decades.

Englebart developer the mouse while at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), one of the largest research institutes in the world. “Doug Engelbart once said, ‘the better we get, the better we get at getting better.’ That concept, combined with his creation of perhaps the most innovative interactive computing tools ever developed, has been a personal inspiration to me,” said Curt Carlson, Ph.D., SRI president.

“Doug and his team exemplified the disciplined approach to innovation used by SRI researchers today. By focusing on a very important problem, capturing the genius of the team, and continuously improving their tools, they accomplished a tour de force unlike any other in the field. Silicon Valley, the computing industry, and society are indebted to Doug and his team.”

The first mouse was made of wood and had a single button, a design copied by Apple until recently, and was used to highlight text on a written document. Complete history here..

Advanced YouTube : Less Sex, More Symphony

YouTube announces this week promising less sex and more symphony. Youtube Symphony Orchestra will accomplish the latter, offering classical musicians worldwide a chance to perform in an "online orchestra" packed with some of the industry's biggest names. As for the former, a set of new standards will attempt to keep adult-oriented content away -- or at least make it slightly harder to find.

YouTube is inviting musicians from across the globe to send in demo tapes of themselves performing two songs -- "The Internet Symphony," a composition written by Chinese composer Tan Dun for the competition, and a second piece of their own choosing. The winning performers will work with Dun and San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael to prepare for a performance at Carnegie Hall -- which, of course, will be broadcast worldwide on YouTube. Pianist Lang Lang and members of the London Symphony Orchestra will help lead the rehearsals.

Entries are being accepted from now through January 28, 2009. Professional classical musicians from all over the world will help select semifinalists from their own regions. Then, an online vote will determine the final Symphony Orchestra members.

The winners will spend three days at a YouTube-sponsored classical music summit in New York, which will end with the Carnegie Hall performance. Read full article

Condoleezza Rice arrives India to ease tension

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Foreign Minister) has arrived in India on 02 Dec,2008 hoping to ease tensions between India and Pakistan after last week's attacks in Mumbai. She is to hold talks with India's prime minister and foreign minister. She is due in Pakistan on Thursday.

Earlier, unnamed US officials said the US had warned India about a possible threat a month before the attacks. The head of the US intelligence has also implied that Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Toiba was responsible. Islamabad has denied Indian allegations that the attackers, who killed almost 200 people, had Pakistani links.

Last week's attacks at multiple locations in Indian's financial capital, Mumbai, stunned the country with many describing it as India's 9/11. A senior state department official said Ms Rice would pressure the two neighbours to co-operate to fight terrorism. She has urged India and Pakistan to remain in contact and work together to find those behind the attack.

On Tuesday, a US official told the Associated Press that the Indian authorities had been told of an apparent plot to launch an attack on Mumbai from the sea. Mumbai police chief Hassan Gafoor later appeared to confirm the report by saying that there had been a known threat to at least some of the locations targeted, including the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Complete news here

Attack on Mumbai - Commandos storm Jewish center

Gunfire erupted on Friday when commandos began an operation to free Israelis held by suspected Islamist gunmen in Mumbai, while guests were also being evacuated from a luxury hotel in India's financial heart, witnesses said.

Heavily armed Indian commandos, their faces covered by balaclavas, rappelled from helicopters onto the roof of a Jewish center in what television reports said was an assault by the paramilitary National Security Guard to flush out the militants. The Jewish center was one of three pockets in Mumbai where Indian forces were battling die-hard militants more than 24 hours after brazen, coordinated attacks killed at least 121 people.

A Reuters witness said troops fired into the Jewish center, apparently to provide cover, as commandos made at least three sorties and took up positions on the roof. The building is in a crowded part of the city, making a frontal assault difficult.

Not far away, another Reuters witness said hotel guests including foreigners were being evacuated from the besieged Trident-Oberoi Hotel, one of two luxury hotels where police said militants were still holed up with an unknown number of hostages. Read the full coverage here

Dating Disasters : Britney Spears Opens Up

It's all work for everybody whether its US president and is no play for Britney Spears as she prepares for the release of her new album, Circus. "I feel like an old person now," she says in Rolling Stone's next issue, out Friday. "I do! I go to bed at, like, 9:30 every night, and I don't go out or anything."

And when she does find time to go on a date, Spears says the experience makes her wish she had just stayed home. "Right when we got there, we just knew it was just bad," Spears tells Rolling Stone of one recent bad date. "He looked like an older version of Harry Potter, but skinnier. … So I had to get dessert first.

"And the other date I had, the guy was really, really tall and a lot older. … We're trying to ask him questions, like, 'OK, you're into martial arts, so what kind of martial arts are you into?' And he was like, 'Oh, all kinds.' "

So instead of partying and dating, Spears is focusing on promoting Circus, which comes out Dec. 2 – her 27th birthday – with a live performance that day in New York City on Good Morning America. Her first single, "Womanizer," has been slowly climbing the charts, and Spears debuted the album’s title track Tuesday on Elvis Duran’s Z100 morning show in New York City. Click here for the complete article

Osama Bin Laden's driver sent Yemen to finish final sentence

An ex-driver for Al-Qaida's head Osama bin Laden was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to his homeland of Yemen to serve out the remaining 32 days of his sentence, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Salim Hamdan, the first man to go before a U.S. war crimes trial since the end of World War II, was flown from the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to Yemen.

Hamdan was convicted on Aug. 6 of providing material support to terrorism, and the military said it could keep him locked up indefinitely if it considered him to be a continued threat. Instead, he was sent home early. A Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said the decision was made by the White House.

Hamdan was sentenced at the war-crimes trial to 5 1/2 years in prison. Being credited with five years and one month for time already served means his sentence ends on Dec. 27, according to the Pentagon. "As part of a transfer agreement with the United States, the remainder of Hamdan's sentence will be served in Yemen," the Defense Department said in a statement.

Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, told The Associated Press that he was surprised to learn the U.S. was transferring Hamdan to Yemen so soon. Read exact news here

Oil steady near 22 months low in Asia

Oil prices were steady near 22-month lows Wednesday in Asia as investors paused to examine the extent of global economic weakness, which has sent crude down more than 60 percent in four months.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery was up 8 cents to $54.47 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Singapore. The contract Tuesday fell 56 cents to settle at $54.39, the lowest since January 2007. "Market sentiment is still bearish, but not as bearish as a week ago," said Clarence Chu, a trader with market maker Hudson Capital Energy in Singapore. "Volatility has come down and the market is consolidating a bit."

Stock markets have served for the past few months as a barometer of investor perceptions about the health of the global economy. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.8 percent Tuesday as Hewlett-Packard Co. said fourth quarter and 2009 results will exceed analyst expectations.

Most Asian stocks, however, fell Wednesday. Japan's benchmark Nikkei index fell 0.7 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 0.5 percent and the Korea Composite Stock Price Index slid 1.9 percent. Complete story here

Officially Japan's Economy in Recession

Japan, the world's second-biggest economic nation, has fallen into recession, the government said Monday. The country's gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.4 percent from July to September, marking the second consecutive quarter of negative growth -- the technical definition of a recession. Japan's previous recession was in 2001, after the collapse of the dot-com bubble in the United States.

Japan's economy minister warned that the situation could worsen: Collapsing sales of Japanese goods in the United States and Europe amid the global downturn threaten to make the country's export-dependent economy even weaker in coming months.

"Downside risks to the economy are growing further, and Japan is in a very serious situation," Kaoru Yosano said at a news conference. Complete article here.

James Bond, Breaking Record, Topped Box Office

James Bond brushed off some lackluster reviews to sell an estimated $70.4 million in tickets at North American theaters, setting an opening-weekend record for this 46-year-old film franchise.

“Quantum of Solace,” starring Daniel Craig as 007, arrived in the United States unusually late; MGM and Sony Pictures released it overseas in late October. The move may have contributed to strong domestic sales. By withholding the hotly anticipated picture from fans in the world’s largest movie market, the studios stoked an online frenzy.

The movie’s global cumulative gross through Sunday was $322 million, according to Sony. “It’s an extraordinary opening that speaks to how much audiences have embraced Daniel Craig as Bond,” said Rory Bruer, Sony’s president for domestic distribution.

The stronger-than-anticipated opening is a relief to the two studios because of the picture’s outsize cost. The combined production and marketing budgets are estimated at about $400 million, although Sony places the number lower because of tax credits. MGM in particular was counting on a strong opening; a hit of this size helps shore up its financial footing. Read full story here

Read new public website of Obama

Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.

Within 24 hours of last week's historic vote, his transition team rolled out change.gov, a Web site that promises to be "your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration." The site is still a little thin on content, but there's a blog, a newsroom and a countdown to the January 20 inauguration.

Visitors can fill out a form to share their stories about what the election meant to them, or they can give their vision of an Obama presidency. They can even apply for a job. The Web site is an extension of Obama's online strategy during the campaign. As a candidate, he had four times as many friends as his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, on MySpace.com. Obama had almost 3 million supporters on Facebook and put together a massive database of e-mail addresses -- some 10 million. Obama even announced Sen. Joe Biden as his choice for vice president in a text message to supporters....Click to read full post

India wrap-up border-gavaskar triangular series, beat Australia

India survived a valiant fightback from Australia to win a thrilling second Commonwealth Bank final by nine runs and claim the series 2-0.

Irfan Pathan took two wickets in the final over with Australia needing 13 to win in Brisbane, after a half-century from James Hopes had inspired the hosts' fightback. Chasing 259 after Sachin Tendulkar posted a classy 91, Australia struggled to recover from the loss of Adam Gilchrist, who scored two in his final international innings, and skipper Ricky Ponting for one.

Matthew Hayden (55) and the middle order provided some resistance to set up a nailbiting finish but the India bowlers skittled the tail to clinch victory. After his brilliant innings of 117 provided the platform for India's victory in Sydney, Tendulkar struck 91 before being superbly caught by Ricky Ponting off the bowling of Michael Clarke. Yuvraj Singh made a quickfire 38 and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni 36, although the tourists would have been disappointed that they did not record a bigger score having been well set at 205 for three with just over 10 overs remaining.

Dhoni won the toss and decided to bat but India struggled to get going initially because of some tight bowling from the Australians. Having been dropped by Ricky Ponting early on, however, Tendulkar soon got into his stride by punching Stuart Clark through mid-on for four before clubbing another off the back foot through the same area. The 'Little Master' was beginning to look in the mood and lifted Mitchell Johnson over the slip cordon to the fence before repeating the dose with a straight drive in the left-arm seamer's following over. Tendulkar brought up a 70-ball half century with a single off Clark before steering another boundary off Johnson.....Read more here

Thousands protest gay-marriage ban in Los Angeles

Outside the gates of a Mormon temple, Kai Cross joined more than 2,000 gay-rights advocates in a chorus of criticism of the church's role in a new statewide ban on same-sex marriage.

Once a devout Mormon who graduated from Brigham Young University, the 41-year-old Cross was disowned by his family and his church after he was outed as a gay man in 2001.

"They are on the losing side of history," Cross said Thursday of the church's opposition to gay marriage. Cross and other protesters blame leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for encouraging Mormons to funnel millions of dollars into television ads and mailings in favor of Proposition 8.

The ballot measure passed Tuesday, which was sponsored by a coalition of religious and social conservative groups, amends the California Constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual act. It overides a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly gave same-sex couples the right to wed.

The protest came amid questions about whether attempts to overturn the prohibition can succeed and whether the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California over the past four months are in any danger.

For Cody Krebs, 27, four months was not enough time to fulfill his "intense hope" to marry one day; he and his boyfriend have been together for little more than a year, so they aren't ready to wed.

On Thursday, Krebs dodged eggs hurled at protesters from an apartment building. He said he'd seen worse growing up in Salt Lake City.

"It's important to come out like this because it gets the gay community into the public eye," Krebs said. "I feel like this has started a lot of conversations that had to get started."

The demonstration began outside the temple in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and noisily spilled through the western side of the city, with chants of "Separate church and state" and "What do we want? Equal rights." Some protesters waved signs saying "No on H8" or "I didn't vote against your marriage," and many equated the issue with the civil rights struggle. Read more here

Illinois hopes 'Obama buzz' will boost tourism

Tourism officials in Illinois say they expect a boost from Barack Obama's election, and they're doing what they can to capitalize on the Obama buzz.

A Chicago tourism Web site invites travel-planners to "experience the city the Obamas enjoy." The Illinois Bureau of Tourism plans to launch a three-day getaway featuring Obama sites. And in Springfield, tour guides at the Old State Capitol may get new scripts.

Catherine Williams volunteers as a Chicago Greeter for Chicago's tourism office. She leads walking tours and gets visitors as close to the Obamas' Hyde Park home as the Secret Service will allow.

A hand-lettered sign in one Chicago bookstore window congratulates "longtime customer" Obama. A nearby restaurant has sold 3,000 T-shirts that read "Obama Eats Here." For more click here