For all those drivers that hate parallel parking and anything else that requires the reverse gear, Nissan could one day have the car for you.

The leading Japanese carmaker recently unveiled the Pivo 2, a battery-powered concept car with a fully rotating cabin that makes going backwards obsolete, since the driver can turn to face the direction they need to go.

Its wheels also turn 90 degrees, making parking easier.

“With this easy-to-handle car, you can feel comfortable while driving,” said Masahiko Tabe, senior manager of the advanced vehicle development group at Nissan Motors.

“You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills.” The car is as yet not for commercial sale.

The futuristic, three-seat car also comes with a robotic device that Nissan said monitors the driver’s expression using censors and tailors its conversation accordingly.

The device, able to converse in English and Japanese, can help an angry driver overcome road rage or wake you up if you’re prone to dozing behind the wheel, the car makers said.

“Are you sleeping? There’s a cafe 500m ahead,” the device said during a demonstration of the car last week. The Pivo 2 will be showcased at the Tokyo Motor Show later this month.  Story by Rueters

Back in January at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show ) 2008 in Las Vegas, Panasonic introduced the world’s largest HDTV plasma TV. It’s a whopping 150 inches!

This new concept design from Panasonic is called the “Life Screen”, and for good reason, the objects on-screen are life-size. This plasma TV has the equivalent resolution of 4 1080p HDTV’s. The total resolution of the Life Screen is 4,096 by 2,160 pixels, which gives this TV a diagonal screen size of 150 inches (12 ft. 6 inches), and it’s 11 feet wide!

Maybe the most impressive feature of this 150 inch behemoth is the fact that it’s only about 1 inch thick. Yeah, you will need to clear out about 66 square feet of wall space to mount it, but at least it will only stick out about 1 inch from the wall!

We have no doubt this thing will look sensational upconverting your 1080p HD movies.

A 450,000 square feet luxury shopping centre has opened on the Las Vegas Strip at The Palazzo Resort-Hotel-Casino. The shopping center, Shoppes at the Palazzo, houses more than 60 luxury brands such as Anya Hindmarch, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Montblanc and Jimmy Choo, as well as department store Barneys New York. It is owned by General Growth Properties.

Daniel J. Sheridan, executive vice president of General Growth Properties, Inc., said that the center was setting the new standard on the Las Vegas Strip for luxury retail.

“Home to an 85,000-square-foot Barneys New York and more than 60 premier luxury brands, The Shoppes at The Palazzo comprises one of the city’s most comprehensive and luxurious retail offerings to date,” he said.

The Shoppes at the Palazzo also offers nearly a dozen dining venues such as a gourmet wine bar, a French steakhouse, an Italian café and a restaurant fusing Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine.   Read more…

Photo by Bloomberg

Ever wanted to rub elbows and chit-chat with your favorite chef?  You could have had your chance a few weeks ago, in scenic Pebble Beach, California.

More than 3,000 people attended the four day event, paying as much as $4,750 per person to eat and meet one of 133 world’s famous chefs and sommeliers.

You could have watched Thomas Keller glaze vegetables, maybe see Jacques Pepin slather caviar on a blini, and get up close and personal with the Mondavi family.

This was the first-ever Pebble Beach Food & Wine event, triple the size of its long-running predecessor, the Masters of Food and Wine at the nearby Highlands Inn.

“People are more educated about food and wine than ever before,” says organizer David Bernahl.

Epicurean obsession may have started with the Food Network, which he calls “a gateway drug,” but now “people have surpassed Rachael Ray and Paula Dean. They’ve moved on to the hard stuff – they’re making foam at home or at least know how to order it in a restaurant. I have more friends who discuss their culinary experiences than what happened at the basketball game.”   Full article

Amazingly, the price of beer went up sharply over the weekend in Oregon, hitting $707 a bottle. All for medical research.

Portland, Oregon brewer Alan Sprints, donated five 12-ounce bottles of his 1994 Hair of the Dog Dave to a charity auction to benefit Parkinson’s disease research and support patients of Parkinson’s disease.

Do the math, and it’s $4,242 a six-pack or around $58 an ounce. The bottles ended up selling for prices ranging from $478 to $707, during the rare beer auction, which corresponded with a beer festival and silent auction.

Combined, the events raised $15,000 in honor of British writer and journalist Michael Jackson, who died last year of a heart attack after suffering from Parkinson’s.  Full article

The White Tiger Habitat is one of many attractions at The Mirage Hotel and Casino, and one that is a must see. You will leave here having a whole new respect for these gentle giants of the wild.

When you first enter this tropical atmosphere, surrounded by palm trees and lush foliage, you quickly notice it’s a different world that is exotic, enchanting and full of adventure lies before you. The exquisite animals enjoy relaxing in their environment, which was modeled after their natural habitats.

The open-air home of Siegfried & Roy’s Royal White Tigers is available for public viewing throughout the day and evening. Siegfried & Roy have dedicated their lives to preserving these rare animals, and their efforts have helped save them from total extinction.

A perfectly matched pair of these beautiful animals were bequeathed to this country in 1958 by the Maharaja of Rewa. In turn, Siegfried & Roy were able to secure two offspring, establishing their own Royal White Tiger breeding line.

Unlike conventional tigers, which have black and gold markings, the white tiger is white with black stripes, pink paws and ice-blue eyes. The purest of these animals are snow white and have no stripes.

The White Tiger Habitat contains many features designed to enhance the comfort of the animals and provide spectacular viewing for guests. The open-air environment features a swimming pool with fountains and simulated mountain terrain for the tigers’ enjoyment and the public’s entertainment.

The facility’s white setting gives the animals a sense of security by allowing them to blend into the background, and special slanted glass affords better viewing, eliminates glare and helps control the temperature.

The Royal White Tigers are rotated continuously in and out of the facility throughout the day. When not appearing in the Habitat, they enjoy their own spacious living environment and can be seen in the lush tropical environment of Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat.

It’s not often that you hear of a quarter-billion-dollar project in Las Vegas that does not involve poker tables, trendy nightclubs or luxury condominiums. But the Las Vegas Springs Preserve — 180 acres of museums, theaters, gardens and trails — is just that.

The project, above, a few miles west of the Strip, had been in the works since the late 1990s.

In June of 2007, the city opened the most unlikely of attractions: the Las Vegas Springs Preserve. The 180-acre tract about four miles northwest of the Strip marks the spot where a natural spring helped give the city its name (“the meadows,” in Spanish). Though the spring all but dried up half a century ago, it’s now the heart of a new non-gaming attraction that aspires to be the Central Park of las Vegas.

“Definitely not your traditional or stereotypical Las Vegas experience,” said Jesse Davis, the marketing and public relations manager for the preserve. It is a “100 percent non-gaming attraction,” he added for safe measure.

The project (www.springspreserve.org) is in an area filled with underground springs that helped give rise to, and later sustain, the desert city.

In 1978, the area was added to the National Register of Historic Places. One section, the Origen Experience, will trace the history of the Las Vegas Valley, and will include a complex with three museum galleries; an indoor IMAX-type theater; and an outdoor amphitheater with about 2,000 seats.

A separate section of the preserve, the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, will focus on the state over all, and is expected to be completed in 2008.

Another feature of the project is also decidedly un-Las Vegas: a collection of five buildings constructed of materials including straw bales and rammed, or compacted, earth. The Desert Living Center is intended to be a model and a learning center for sustainable and conscientious living, Mr. Davis said.

But what might turn out to be some of the most popular parts of the project are its botanical gardens and trails, both free. Desert gardens are being completely redesigned and expanded, and there will eventually be about two and a half miles of trails for those looking to stretch their legs after hours playing blackjack.

The all-new, second-generation 2009 Infiniti FX, which goes on sale at Infiniti dealers in the United States and Canada in June 2008, is a radical expression of sport and utility — offering exceptional levels of power, refinement and driving exhilaration.

“While continuing to offer Infiniti’s class leading technological advances, the all-new 2009 FX is, like it’s predecessor, a unique blend of sports car performance and SUV functionality,” said David DeFilippo, Circle Infiniti, West Long Branch.

“Although pricing has not yet been announced for the 2009 FX, the vehicle has always been an outstanding value when compared to other luxury crossover vehicles, such as the BMW X5, the Lexus RX350, and the Acura MDX It offers an unmatched level of aggressive styling, performance, and luxury car comfort.”

Created as a fusion of luxury, performance and the utility of an SUV, it offers head-turning styling and an advanced sports platform, along with a choice of a new 390-horsepower 5.0-liter 32-valve DOHC V8 engine with VVEL (for Variable Valve Event & Lift) or 303-horsepower 3.5-liter 24-valve DOHC V6.

Each engine is paired with standard 7-speed automatic transmission featuring Adaptive Shift Control (ASC) and available solid magnesium paddle shifters.

The 2009 FX is also offered with available Intelligent All-Wheel Drive, double-wishbone front/multi-link rear suspension and large four-wheel disc brakes, along with available Continuous Damping Control (CDC) suspension system, Rear-Active Steer and 21-inch Enkei super lightweight aluminum-alloy wheels.

“The Infiniti FX combines sporty performance with the utility of an SUV — an unbeatable combination that we’ve taken to even higher levels with the new second-generation FX design,” said Mark Igo, vice president and general manager, Infiniti. “For 2009, FX continues the technology leadership that was a hallmark of the original, including a new, advanced 5.0-liter V8 design, 7-speed automatic transmission and an incredible array of innovative safety features designed to reduce the stress of everyday driving.”

What luxury car we drive often tells the world more about us than we think. Do you sit behind the wheel of a fast, sporty vehicle or ride in comfort in a timeless classic car? As 2008 begins zooming forward, let’s take a look at what are the top 10 luxury cars from ForbesAutos.com.

As people shopped for luxury cars on ForbesAutos.com during 2007, they looked into the future for a taste of what they desire. During the fourth quarter, three vehicles not even on sale yet were among the top 10 most researched luxury vehicles on the site.

Two of the future models, the 2009 BMW M3 and 2009 Jaguar XF , were ranked No. 1 and No. 3, respectively. The third ’09 model, Audi’s upcoming remake of its best-selling A4 Sedan, earned sixth place in the popularity contest for October, November, and December, despite not going on sale until the fall.

The remaining entries on the Forbes’ latest list of vehicles most researched on ForbesAutos.com were consistent with those choices from prior periods.  Full article

Ivanka Trump is the daughter of former fashion model and athlete Ivana Trump and multibillionaire business mogul-cum-pop culture celebrity Donald Trump.  Ivanka was born in 1981.

She inherited both the traffic-stopping glamour of her mother and the staggering fiscal wealth of both parents — reason enough for her to be selected as one of the chief participants in the 2002 documentary Born Rich, a glimpse into the lives of some of the wealthiest young heirs and heiresses in the world — helmed by Jamie Johnson, prince of the Johnson & Johnson empire.

Trump landed on the cover of Seventeen Magazine at the age of 16, which marked the beginning of a glossy and prestigious career as a fashion model. She then attended Georgetown University and Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating magna cum laude with a degree in economics.

As a young adult, Trump became a frequent guest star on talk programs, news magazines, and reality series such as Late Night with David Letterman, Entertainment Tonight, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Project Runway (appearing as a guest host in 2006). She also hosted the 15th Annual Miss Teen USA Pageant in 1997.

In 2005, Ivanka joined her father’s business organization, working in real estate development.

Starting in 2006, Ivanka began to appear on her father’s popular reality show The Apprentice, becoming a regular boardroom judge the following year, replacing Carolyn Kepcher starting with the sixth season of the series.

The Plaza Hotel is one of most famous hotels in the world. It’s a landmark hotel and occupies the west side of Grand Army Plaza, from which it derives its name, and extends along Central Park South in Manhattan.

The Plaza has completed a $400-million, three-year renovation to restore the hotel’s grandeur. Now tea at the Plaza is all about the food.

The harpist is back, playing lovely music and alternating with a classical guitarist. The lush, palm trees still decorate the Palm Court — the name of the lobby dining room where tea has been served since the hotel opened in 1907.

At $60 a person, it’s one of the city’s more expensive afternoon teas. There’s an alternate tea menu at the Plaza that includes lobster, black truffle, caviar and a chocolate pot de creme is even more, at $100.  Full article