Face-lifted Honda City launched in India

Honda Siel Cars India launched a face-lifted version of the Honda City. The City now gets a restyled front and rear bumper, redesigned tail lamps and new 10-spoke alloy wheel design (available in certain variants).
The new additions include cruise control, turn indicators on rear view mirrors, chrome fittings on the central console and electric sunroof. It now also gets ground clearance of 165mm, up from the 160mm for the previous gen City. It will also be available in two new colors, Carnelian Red Pearl andSparkling Brown Metallic.
The engine specifications remain the same for the new City, a 1.5-litre E10 compliant petrol engine producing 118PS of power. The new Honda City will now be available in five variants - Corporate, E, S, V ( MT/AT) and V (Sunroof) MT/AT.
The Corporate edition gets all black interiors while the E variant onwards gets beige interiors. Standard safety features are ABS, brake assist and dual airbags. Bookings for the new City will start immediately at all Honda dealers nationwide however deliveries will begin from January 2012.
The price of the new City range (ex-showroom Delhi) is:
Corporate MT – Rs. 6.99 lakh
E MT – Rs. 7.7 lakh
S MT – Rs. 8.2 lakh
V MT – Rs. 8.7 lakh
V AT – Rs. 9.42 lakh
V (Sunroof) MT – Rs.9.5 lakh
V (Sunroof) AT – Rs.10.22 lakh

Liege attacks: Lone gunman brings terror to streets of Belgian city with hand grenade attack

The killer was named as Nordine Amrani, 33, a known criminal and gun-lover who launched his rampage for reasons that police were still trying to fathom.

They stressed that Amrani had no known links to terrorism or any history of mental illness or violent crime, but it did emerge that he was released on parole last year from a 58-month sentence for possessing a cache of weapons and 2,800 cannabis plants.

His victims were two teenage boys aged 15 and 17, a man aged 20 and a 75-year-old woman. A 17-month-old girl later died of her wounds in hospital. The city's mayor said the teenagers were celebrating finishing their exams and were heading to the Christmas market when they were killed. Around 120 were injured.

Didn't want to be just a figurehead: Kumble

Former India captain Anil Kumble on Tuesday said he resigned as National Cricket Academy's chairman as he didn't want to be just a "figurehead" when none of his plans found support from other committee members.

Almost two months after a controversy broke out over an apparent conflict of interest, Kumble stepped down and his resignation was accepted by the BCCI's Working Committee, which met here on Monday.
"I had a plan which didn't have much alignment with other committee members. I didn't want to be just a figurehead," Kumble told reporters here.
Asked why his plans didn't find support with others, Kumble said, "I don't know but I was very keen to contribute and even put together a proposal."
Punjab Cricket Association's general secretary M P Pandove will be the caretaker chairman of the NCA till a full-time appointment is made.
Initially, "lack of time" was said to be the reason why Kumble stepped down as NCA chairman but on Monday, the retired leg spinner said that he was left with no other option.
"I had a three-year vision to make NCA a better academy.
I had made 10 presentations during my tenure as chairman with the hope that my vision could be accepted. Even on Sunday I had discussed this at the NCA meeting in Chennai. But it was not in alignment with the rest of the committee," Kumble said.
"I felt that it made no sense to be a chairman when I was not being heard. I had no other option but to move on in life," he added.

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Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/anil-kumble-after-resigning-as-nca-chief/1/164123.html

Who will be evicted from Bigg Boss this week?

In a dramatic change in the nomination process, Bigg Boss gave relatives of housemates who went into the house on Monday, the power to nominate members for eviction this week.
Amar Upadhyay is top of the list with four nominations, followed by Shonali Nagrani with three votes.
So, the eviction battle is between Shonali and Amar
Who of the two you think is going to be evicted? Cast your vote at the end of the slideshow!
Shonali Nagrani
Shonali was accused of exaggerating her angry exchange with Pooja Misrra before housemates. Host Sanjay Dutt clearly informed Shonali that she was wrong in telling the housemates that she had hurt her eye in the fracas.
Later, she was punished for not following Bigg Boss's orders and told she can never become a captain.
Recently, when filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt entered Bigg Boss, she told him of the anguish she had experienced when Vishesh Films made her wait for a project and at the last moment rejected her. Mahesh got upset and apologised to her.
She's also said that she feels uncomfortable when co-contestant Amar Upadhyay hugs her and that it is indecent and weird.
Her boyfriend Shiraz Bhattacharya, who entered the house on Monday, was concerned about this and told Shonali not to make unsubstantiated allegations against anyone. He added that Amar was a married man and she should not talk like this about him on national television.
When Amar asked her for an explanation, she started crying. Will this save her from eviction?

Sony Ericsson's Nozomi just loves the camera

It's the phone with the daft name – or at least it is if you know it by the name Sony Ericsson Nozomi and not the more Westernised other name it's doing the rounds under – the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc HD.

But whatever it's called, it can't seem to steer clear of the cameras right now, and its latest publicity initiative is to be snapped from all sides – and even sans cover – in the most revealing set of snaps we've seen thus far. Just to remind you in case you're getting excited right now – this is a phone we're talking about.

Sony Ericsson has been ploughing the single-core furrow for an awful long time now, so hearing that it's finally sussed what this whole dual-core business is all about is welcome news. Well OK, it's more Qualcomm's fault, but anyway.

The point is the Nozomi has been confirmed in the latest leak as having a nifty piece of 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon action going on, together with a 4.3-inch 720p display and 1GB of RAM.

Switching to the photos, they reveal a pretty much bog-standard Sony Ericsson design approach, which is not to say the Nozomi is unattractive, it's just not overly exciting.

More interesting, however, is the fact that it'll only play nice with Micro SIM cards and appears to have no removable battery, nor any space for a microSD card.

Further spec action is claiming a 12-megapixel camera, which we'd assume has some sort of Exmor flavouring to it, and 16GB or 32GB of on-board storage, which lessens the blow of there being no removable storage, though not by much considering it will also be coming with Full HD video recording.

We're disappointed, though to be honest not surprised, to hear that it'll only be Android Gingerbread and not Ice Cream Sandwich running the show on the OS front. That does at least suggest that we're not looking at months before the Nozomi hits the big time. Or we bloody hope not, anyway.

One last thing – a quick trip to Wikipedia confirms Nozomi as meaning “wish” or “hope” in Japanese. Now isn't that nice?

Nokia Cheap With Lumia Lighting Up Demand

Nokia’s stock took a hit last Thursday and declined by more than 6%. The broader market sold off heavily on European concerns and it now looks like the the first version of the Lumia phone will be a lower end version sold through T-Mobile rather than AT&T as some had speculated.
The company also announced plans to sell off its luxury subsidiary Vertu. ^[1] With the stock down 20% or so during the last month, we believe that it’s discounting the potential impact from the Lumia line of smartphones.

DigiTimes came out with a report that component suppliers in Taiwan expect orders from Nokia to grow 20% in 2012 as the demand for Lumia smartphones increases. ^[2]
Lumia smartphones are the first devices that Nokia has introduced based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.

Vodafone launches Smart Android 3G smartphone in India

Vodafone India has announced the launch of Vodafone Smart, a 3G Android phone for their customers in India. This smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm incorporated Snapdragon S1 processor and runs on Android 2.2.1 OS. The Vodafone Smart is designed for tech savvy customers, providing them access to mobile apps, games, Internet and social networking platforms on-the-go.

Attractively priced at Rs. 4,995, Vodafone Smart will enable customers to enjoy hundreds of Android applications on the handset, which comes with two years of warranty. Vodafone subscribers will also enjoy a special introductory limited period offer of Double Data Benefit on their 3G subscription. 

The highlighted features of the Vodafone Smart are:

• Android 2.2.1
• 2.8-inches TFT capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 240 x 320
• 3G, Edge, GPRS, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi tethering, Bluetooth
• GPS with A-GPS
• 2MP camera with video recording capabilities
• MicroSD slot expandable up to 32GB
• Stereo FM and MP3 playback support

Apart from the above mentioned specifications, one gets a 2GB memory card free, along with the handset. The Vodafone Smart is available at all leading retail outlets, Vodafone stores and Mini stores across India.