World's first Ferrari Park opens in Abu Dhabi

Posted July 23, 2010

(ABU DHABI-AFP) - A year after its first Formula One race, Abu Dhabi hopes to lure even more tourists with "Ferrari World" -- a grandiose theme park that is the first of its kind for the iconic Italian carmaker.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi announced on Monday that the park will open in 100 days featuring a record-breaking roller coaster ride meant to emulate the feeling of being in a Ferrari F1 car.

Sitting next to the futuristic Yas Marina circuit that hosted Abu Dhabi's inaugural Grand Prix race in November 2009, the sprawling complex will be the world's largest indoor theme park.

Due to open on October 28, little more than two weeks before this year's Abu Dhabi GP, it will be housed under a massive triangular red roof on the 40-billion-dollar Yas Island development.

Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital, hopes the park will help to draw tourists from around the globe along with several other ambitious projects including state-of-the-art branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums.

Ferrari World spreads over 86,000 square metres (925,696 square feet), while the red roof bearing the world's largest logo of Ferrari's prancing horse stretches over 200,000 square metres (2.15 million square feet).

Among its 20 attractions are two roller coasters, including the F1-themed Formula Rossa which is set to be the fastest ever reaching a top speed of 240 kilometres (150 miles) per hour.

The second of the roller coasters, which stretch beyond the building's perimeter, features two tracks with Ferrari-shaped trains.

Right in the centre of the building, out of a big funnel which is the only area with daylight, visitors can experience the space-shot G-force Tower.

Elsewhere, a Ferrari California Spyder convertible takes visitors through Bell'Italia, a reproduction of the Italian countryside with model villages and tourist highlights like the lagoon of Venice, the Colosseum, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

A large replica of the Maranello factory demonstrates the manufacturing process from the design stage to the finished product.

Motoring enthusiasts will even be able to experience the inside of a Ferrari V12 engine in another ride.

Abu Dhabi hopes such features will boost tourism in the desert emirate.

-AFP/Relaxnews

Gaultier celebrates strong, seductive women

Posted July 16, 2010

(PARIS-AFP) - "Perhaps it was pretentious, but they say couture is like a Stradivarius, a bit aggressive, a bit of a rebel, but a virtuoso," muses Jean-Paul Gaultier at the end of his couture show for next autumn-winter on Wednesday.

For a finale his bride, in a trenchcoat, pulled out a violin and after a brief warm up, struck up in a convincing mime to a tape of the wedding march.

It was yet another collection celebrating women in full control of their powers of seduction - like burlesque artiste Dita Von Teese, who came down the catwalk in a powder pink corset boned in black, watched admiringly by her companion Louis-Marie de Castelbajac, sitting next to his designer father in the front row.

"It's really just an excuse," explains Gaultier. "Dita likes taking her clothes off to be better dressed."

He said his entire collection aimed to show the internal structure of clothes like the corset worn by Dita.

The first spontaneous bursts of applause were for a long skirt in tweed picked out with black and white ostrich feathers, which looked airy despite the weight of the material.

Warm fabrics predominated, like a tantalisingly tactile fox stole and a cognac leather suit with pockets fastened with purse clasps.

A grey-blue pullover and pants ensemble had breasts enhanced by black sable, reminiscent of the cones he created for Madonna all those years ago. More fur emphasised the model's derriere.

-AFP/Relaxnews

Philips launches widescreen Cinema 21:9

Posted June 22, 2010

If you're one of those who get distracted by the black horizontal bars on the screen (called letterboxes) when watching DVD movies, Philips has launched in the Philippines an HDTV that addresses this problem. The Philips Cinema 21:9 is 56-inch wide-screen LCD full HDTV that mimics the screen proportions of a movie theater screen. As the first of its kind, Philips 21:9 certainly leaves other LCD TV makers scratching their heads, asking, “Why haven't we thought of that?”

Unlike most HDTVs in the market, which have a 4:3 frame, it follows the wide-screen movie aspect ratio of a regular cinema, which is 21:9. Now that's the real wide-screen.

The Philips Cinema 21:9 has a panel resolution of 1260 x 1080. In a press preview, this TV has lived up to its promises of an immersive cinematic viewing. In fact, it may have even displayed more vivid and sharper moving images than in poorly projected movie cinemas, thanks to its Perfect Pixel HD Engine that enhances each pixel to match the surrounding pixels better, resulting in a more natural picture. The 200Hz refresh rate of this TV also created an impressive rendering fast action scenes, beating most HDTV sets with 120Hz (except Sony Bravia's 240Hz image processing rate).

Forget about 3D TVs for now. With the Cinema 21:9, Philips may have just created a game-changer in the HDTV category. No word yet on the local price, but in Europe, where it was first launched, it is said to sell for about 4,000 euros or Php232,000.

CORRECTION:This is an updated version of the Tech stocks article that came out in Highlife magazine (June 2010). In the magazine, the new Philips HDTV was written Philips Cinema 12:9. The correct panel resolution is 21:9, hence the name should be Philips Cinema 21:9.