... a rather graphic display of the motor sport phenomenon called drifting. Originating in Japan over a decade ago, drifting was first practiced illegally on treacherous mountain roads. The drifter's goal was, and is, to put the car into controlled slides, maintaining speed and angle of attack through the curves. Unlike races, drifting competitions are judged events, and winning takes a combination of speed, angle and excitement. With the addition of synchronized tandem or "battle" drifting -- the main event at Laguna Seca -- the stakes, and risks, increase sharply.

"At any point you can crash," he said. "There's a big risk, and that's the biggest thrill of it."

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new finance minister, said that the government would move actively to keep jobs and crucial industries on French soil. But for the first time, he also called on European governments to join forces to keep the core of the economic bloc from turning into "industrial deserts."

"There are great companies in Europe, with a savoir-faire of the highest standard. We have to support them. Neither France nor Europe can become industrial deserts. Solutions exist."

Analysts warn that the strategy will do nothing to stop manufacturing jobs from leaving Europe -- and may well backfire.

"He is fighting against windmills -- the process of disindustrialization is inevitable. Those countries who slow that process pay. The problem is not that there is disindustrialization in France, but that it isn't happening fast enough."

India's economy is spawning a growing middle class, a host of world-class companies, a booming stock market and a new image for this nation of more than one billion people.

But those very reforms and conditions are also reducing the prospects of some of its citizens.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking re-election on the strength of an economy that grew at a breathless 10.4 percent [!?!] in the first quarter of this year.

With greater efficiencies, global competition, cheap capital and new technology, private companies are doing more with fewer employees.

Over time, the social consequences of jobless growth will become more severe.

Now, even without visiting Cambridge, you can experience some of the exciting research, teaching, and public addresses making news at Harvard University.

Each of the 41 programs offered on this site contains edited video and multimedia ranging from 45 minutes to 3 hours in length. We hope you enjoy this way of strengthening your connection to the intellectual center of the University.

MIT World is a free and open site that provides on-demand video of significant public events at MIT. The archive contains 180 videos, including:

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator.

A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.

Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. Its objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media.

Newspaper circulation edged down in the latest six-month reporting period -- a continuation of a decade-long decline.

"It's a result of having multiple media choices these days."