Last year's Monday playoff between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate was about the most thrilling televised golf ever -- and that was before we knew how messed up Tiger's knee was. This year, by Saturday afternoon we were convinced this would be the biggest U.S. Open stinker ever, but surprise! Monday's rain-delayed chase to the final hole was compelling stuff. In both cases, at least you got to skip out of the office and catch lunch at a sports bar where an impromptu gallery of chicken wing eaters could cheer for David Duval's charge.

via cbssports.com

But to win, Tim Hudak must overcome Liberals' personal, aggressive campaign strategies Has Tim Hudak got what it takes to be the next premier of Ontario? That's what Ontario Progressive Conservatives will have to decide later this month as they weigh the merits of four contenders for the party leadership. The Niagara-area MPP is often described as the front-runner and he certainly exudes confidence about the outcome. And for good reason. He has the endorsement of the party establishment, including former premier Mike Harris.

via ottawacitizen.com

RealNetworks has extended the Moblin version of its RealPlayer streaming media player to support a variety of netbook-oriented processors and Linux distributions. RealPlayer for Mobile Devices will be offered with Ubuntu, as well as fast-boot "instant-on" distributions from Xandros, Phoenix Technologies, and DeviceVM (pictured), says Real.

via linuxdevices.com

THE increasing availability of digital TV and video services online is opening up a whole new dimension in cheap home entertainment that goes beyond traditional TV services, DVDs and games consoles. Technology pundits have long predicted that the PC will eventually replace the TV as your front room's "media centre" so that you can surf the internet, download content and watch TV online from your sofa instead of sitting at a desk.

via independent.ie

AT&T (NYSE: T) issued a press release announcing its intent to purchase certain Alltel assets as well as some Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Rural Cellular assets from Verizon Wireless. Under the terms of the deal, AT&T will pay $2.35 billion to acquire licenses, network assets and 1.5 million subscribers in 79 regions which include rural areas of Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.

via intomobile.com

THE increasing availability of digital TV and video services online is opening up a whole new dimension in cheap home entertainment that goes beyond traditional TV services, DVDs and games consoles. Technology pundits have long predicted that the PC will eventually replace the TV as your front room's "media centre" so that you can surf the internet, download content and watch TV online from your sofa instead of sitting at a desk.

via independent.ie

The digital media, comprising Internet and mobile phones, continues to be the fastest growing medium in the country, albeit a small contributor to the overall ad expenditure. In 2008, this medium grew by 74% to Rs680 crore. Digital media will be much less affected by the economic slowdown than other media. Also See Room for Growth (Graphic) The players Web portals: Web portals can be divided into three broad categories—search engines such as Google.com, horizontal portals such as Yahoo.com and vertical portals such as MoneyControl.com.

via livemint.com

Almost two million PCs globally, including machines inside UK and US government departments, have been taken over by malicious hackers, reports BBC News.
Security firm Finjan traced the giant network of remotely-controlled PCs back to a gang of cyber criminals in Ukraine. The cyber criminals, who have not been caught, were selling access to the compromised machines on a hackers' forum in Russia. A thousand machines were being sold at a time for between $50 and $100.

via itweb.co.za

It's been a little while since AOpen last popped up on our radar, but the company certainly hasn't stopped cranking out tiny media PCs in the interim, and it looks like it might have a winner on its hands with its new XC Encore OE700 model. While the core specs of your choice of Core 2 Duo processor and up to 4GB RAM aren't exactly anything remarkable, the system does employ a number of measures to ensure it stays as quiet as possible, including a Smart Anti-Vibration System that dampens hard drive noise, and a new case design dubbed SNSS.

via engadget.com

TG Sambo Korea (Averatec for US people) recently came out with a 26" all-in-one desktop computer for multimedia users. The nice looking LLUON B2 is based on quad core processor, and features nice specification. What's on offer? Well, you get an Intel Core 2 Quad processor, 320GB HDD, dedicated graphics card, e-SATA port, built-in stereo speakers and a microphone. No word on pricing.

via pclaunches.com

Globaltel Media, a mobile application company, on Monday unveiled its plan to market a PC widget that connects PC and cell phone users via a text-based chat connection between the two. The San Diego, California, company touts the technology as “the long-awaited killer app” that connects 1.5 billion PC users and 3.2 billion mobile phone users with mobile messaging.

via redherring.com

PC makers on Monday launched desktops that incorporate the latest technologies to work alongside Intel's new Core i7 chips, which have received praise for their speedy performance. Gateway, Dell and Falcon Northwest are offering the latest hardware, such as graphic cards and Intel's new 80G-byte solid-state drive, in PCs to take advantage of Core i7. The PCs, which will come preloaded with the 64-bit Windows OS, are geared toward users, such as gamers, who want cutting-edge desktops.

via pcworld.com

In addition of launching two widescreen HD monitors, Acer Japan recently released a desktop computer in the Japanese market. The Aspire L3600-A10 is an Intel powered machine with 2.2GHz Celeron 450 processor running under its hood. Also on the offer is 18.5-inch 16:9 monitor with 1366 × 768 pixels resolution. The monitor provides high contrast ratio of 10,000:1 thanks to Acer's very own ACM (Adaptive Contrast Management). As for other specs, you get up to 2GB memory, Intel G31 Express chip set, 160GB HDD, DVD Burner, and Windows Vista Home Premium.

via pclaunches.com

Although the new cross over cable from Belkin may sound preachy to some it's actually quiet cool. The Belkin Switch to Mac cable is meant to recreate on a Windows machine the Mac's built-in Migration Assistant, which is used to transfer user accounts, applications, network and computer settings, files and volumes between Macs. Migration is also an optional process when initializing a new Mac. The cable comes with the Migration Assistant software for the Windows XP or Vista PC end that will ostensibly move all the default PC folders.

via newlaunches.com

The Shuttle XPC 7800H is a media machine for people who doesn't ming paying big bucks for a nicely specced multimedia computer. The 7800H is based on dual core AMD Athlon processor, and offers attractive configuration including a Blu-ray Combo drive, a card reader, hybrid TV tuner card, WLAN and a remote control. Users that want even higher performance than the built-in NVIDIA GeForce 8200 GPU already provides, can also equip the free PCI-Express X16 slot with an even larger graphics card.

via pclaunches.com