Source: Richard Alleyne, telegraph.co.uk

Simon Cowell has suffered a rare setback after rap metal act Rage Against The Machine snatched the Christmas number one from his X Factor winner Joe McElderry.

The band topped the chart with their 1992 hit Killing In The Name after an internet campaign to keep Cowell's acts off the festive top spot.
McElderry, 18, who took his defeat graciously, said: "Fair play to the guys who have organised the Facebook campaign - it's been exciting to be part of a much-hyped battle and they definitely deserve congratulations."

Thanking all the fans who bought his single, he went on: "This time last year I never thought for one minute that I'd win The X Factor, never mind about having a debut single out, so I'm just delighted to be in the charts.

"It's been such an incredible couple of months and I got the best Christmas gift I could ever have asked for in winning The X Factor."

Killing In The Name sold more than 500,000 copies in the past week while McElderry's The Climb chalked up sales of 450,000 - a bonanza for record company Sony and retailers.

Killing in the Name was not available on CD and is the first download-only Christmas number one, as well as achieving the biggest download sales total in a first week ever in the UK charts.
On Friday Rage Against The Machine's lead was just 9,000 copies, but sales then soared by 200,000 to secure victory.

Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot said: "Congratulations to Rage Against The Machine on their number one - as we have seen in recent years, overhauling any X Factor winner in the race for the Christmas number one is no mean achievement.

"The popular support we have seen for the record this week has been truly amazing - and handed them two all-time records.

"But congratulations too should also go to Joe McElderry. In taking the number two spot, he has still achieved one of the highest weekly sales of any single this year - in almost any other year, 450,000 copies would have given him the Christmas number one.

"Through this week, these two tracks have accounted for more than 950,000 single sales, a fact which is truly remarkable."

Gennaro Castaldo, from high street retailer HMV, said the bad weather could have prevented McElderry fans getting to the shops to buy his CD.

He went on: "This is a truly remarkable outcome - possibly the greatest chart upset ever. Everyone thought the momentum was with Joe going into the weekend, but, clearly, off the radar a whole load of people were downloading the Rage track right up to the last minute as they sensed they might pull off a shock.

"It's not so much that Joe lost the race - sales of his single have matched those of recent X Factor winners, and he shouldn't take this personally; this is all about the stunning impact of the Rage Against The Machine internet campaign in galvanising music fans to protest against the dominance of the reality show in recent years."

The expletive-laden song is a "powerful protest", he said, and added: "Rage Against The Machine may not be the ideal expression of the Christmas spirit - and many people will have preferred a more appropriate song to top the festive charts, but their anti-corporate message proved a perfect vehicle through which to register such a powerful protest."

The past four Christmas number ones were by X Factor winners; Alexandra Burke's version of Hallelujah last year was one of the biggest selling festive singles ever.

However, Cowell kept a hold on the album chart as Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream remained at the top spot for a fourth week.`

Watch this cool and funny video.. Take a break from your stressful routine!!

Source: Jansen Ng, Insidetech.monster.com

Intel has repeatedly stated that it believes the future of computing lies in many-core CPUs. The company will be releasing its six-core Gulftown chip based on 32nm Westmere technology next year, and it is still working on its Larabee many-core GPU.

Several years ago, Intel showed off its 80-core Teraflops Research Chip. That chip was highly experimental, with only simple floating-point cores. Three years later, Intel has something much more advanced.

Intel calls its new 48-core IA32 processor a “single-chip cloud computer” (SCC) because of the way it resembles cloud datacenters, claiming that it “rethinks many of the approaches used in today’s designs”. The SCC consists of 24 “tiles”, with two IA32 cores and a router per tile creating a mesh network with 256GB/s of bandwidth.

Each tile (2 cores) can run at its own independent frequency, and groupings of four tiles (8 cores) can each run at their own voltage. The SCC can run all 48 cores at one time over a range of 25W to 125W and is capable of selectively varying the voltage and frequency of the mesh network as well. The SCC also features four integrated memory controllers capable of addressing 64GB of DDR3 DRAM, and was built on Intel’s current 45nm high-K metal gate process.

Cloud datacenters currently run most of the internet, and can use tens of thousands of computers connected by a physically cabled network. They are capable of distributing large datasets and working them in parallel. The SCC uses a similar approach, with all the parts integrated on a single 567mm2 chip, which is approximately the size of a postage stamp.

“With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud datacenter of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today, saving significant resources on space and power costs,” said Justin Rattner, the head of Intel Labs and Intel’s Chief Technology Officer. “Over time, I expect these advanced concepts to find their way into mainstream devices, just as advanced automotive technology such as electronic engine control, air bags and anti-lock braking eventually found their way into all cars”.

Although the hardware is impressive, it is the software that will determine how well the SCC works. Creating software with just a couple of threads is difficult enough, but applications written for the SCC will have new capabilities like dynamically managing which cores are used for a given task at a given time. Related tasks can be executed on adjacent or nearby cores, and the SCC is capable of passing results from one core directly to the next in an assembly line. Voltage and clock speed can also be individually controlled through software. Intel says that parallel programming approaches used in cloud datacenter software have been applied when designing the SCC.

Researchers from Intel, HP, Yahoo, and several research institutions have been working on an open cloud-computing research testbed project named Open Cirrus, which has begun porting cloud applications to the SCC using Hadoop, a Java software framework which supports data-intensive, distributed applications.

Intel says that the long-term research goal is to “add incredible scaling features to future computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces”. The company plans to work with several dozen industry and academic research partners around the world next year by manufacturing and sharing 100 or more SCC chips for hands-on research in developing new software applications and programming models for future many-core processors.

“Microsoft is partnering with Intel to explore new hardware and software architectures supporting next-generation client plus cloud applications,” said Dan Reed, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Extreme Computing.

“Our early research with the single chip cloud computer prototype has already identified many opportunities in intelligent resource management, system software design, programming models and tools, and future application scenarios.”

The SCC was co-created by researchers working at Intel Labs locations in Bangalore (India), Braunschweig (Germany) and Hillsboro, Oregon research centers. More details on the chip’s architecture are scheduled to be published in a paper at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in February.

Cyber Army trying to tweets twitter? :)

Twitter was hacked by Iranian Cyber Army last December 18. The hackers managed to play around with DNS or Domain Name server. Which means that users that will visit twitter by typing twitter.com in the address bar will be directed to Iranian Army Cyber Space. DNS is the way in which IP addresses are being converted to URL 's or address name. Instead of typing IP addresses in the address bar (ex. 192.168.0.0), it will be convenient to type the website name like twitter.com or facebook .com. Therefore, each website or URL have it's own unique IP address behind their name.

Source: Rachel Ellis, Jacksonville Celebrity Headlines Examiner

TMZ has reported,Actress Brittany Murphy died early this morning after going into full cardiac arrest and could not be revived. She was 32.The Los Angeles City Fire Department says they received a call to a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to her husband, Simon Monjack. Brittany Murphy's mom discovered her unconscious in the shower. We're told when paramedics arrived, they quickly determined Murphy was in full cardiac arrest and immediately administered CPR. Murphy was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Most recently Brittany's husband Simon Monjack was hospitalized for health problems and she was also dropped from "The Caller" a film she had been working in. It is true that 32 is very early for a person to die suddenly but Perez Hilton has already blamed her death on drug use. Is it too soon to start saying that?

Brittany Anne Murphy, born November 10th, 1977, was an American actress who starred in such films as "Just Married", "Girl, Interrupted", "Sin City", "Riding in Cars with Boys", "The Dead Girl", "Happy Feet", "Clueless," "8 Mile," and "Don't Say a Word." In May 2007 she married screenwriter Simon Monjack in a private Jewish ceremony.

Source: Elinor Mills, CNet News.com

Facebook has sued three men, alleging they used phishing techniques to get access to Facebook user accounts and then sent spam from the compromised accounts.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in a federal court in San Jose, California, and named as defendants Jeremi Fisher, Philip Porembski, Ryan Shimeall and the companies associated with them, Choko Systems, Harm, and iMedia Online Services, according to a Facebook statement late on Tuesday. The defendants could not be reached for comment.

The defendants are accused of launching at least four spam campaigns over the last couple of years, the latest in the last three months being responsible for nearly three-fourth of all spam on the site, according to the suit. The latest "escalated attack" included spam offering a colon cleanser, fake messages purporting to show a video of the recipient and offers for recipients to make money through a fake "Google Campaign." Clicking on the spam typically sends a user through various marketing sites before landing them on a page that prompts for their Facebook log in information.

It is unclear exactly how Facebook user log in information, used to send spam to friends, was obtained.

Facebook has spent US$5,000 combating the spam, according to the suit.

The lawsuit makes claims under the Can-Spam (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Anti-Phishing Act and the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, according to Facebook.

This is the latest legal action the social networking site has taken related to spam. In October, Facebook was awarded US$711 million in a judgment Thursday against self-described "spam king" Sanford Wallace.

The largest judgment ever under the Can-Spam Act was an US$873 million award Facebook won in November 2008 against Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, and his company, Atlantis Blue Capital.

Source: James Raia-Examiner.com

Winning 64 golf tournaments was more impressive than winning the Tour de France six times for members of the Associated Press who have selected Tiger Woods as the Athlete of the Decade.Woods received 56 of the 142 votes cast by the sports editors of publication clients of AP, the global wire service.More than half of the ballots were returned after Woods Nov. 27 car accident, subsequent infidelity tales and his decision to take an indefinite absence from golf. Lance Armstrong, whose first of seven Tour de France titles occurred in 1999, finished second with 33 votes. Roger Federer, the tennis Grand Slam champion, finished third with 25 votes.

It's difficult to compare sports. There are detractors who often claim golf is not a sport. And there are sports fans who believe cycling is little more than a collection of pedaling drug abusers. But Woods dominated his chosen occupation to a larger degree than Armstrong dominated cycling.

But certainly it's a worthy discussion. What do National Cycling Examiner readers think? Woods or Armstrong? Or is someone else more worthy of the AP honor? Or is the honor meaningless?

Source: Harold Nolte, Examiner.com

As 2009 ends, YouTube has enjoyed another year of amazing growth and use. Millions of videos have been uploaded and many have more than a million views. But which videos are the most viewed? Or, another way to put it, which videos went viral? Here are the top five most popular videos of 2009 on YouTube. You will probably remember them.


#5. Almost 14 million views. Evian Roller Babies. Companies would give almost anything to have a video go viral like this one has.

Evian Roller Babies

#4. Almost 23 million views. Twilight enjoys a large following. And this video of the "New Moon" movie trailer is no different. It took the number four spot for the most viewed videos on YouTube.

New Moon Trailer

#3. Over 33 million views. The JK Wedding Entrance Dance was very popular. It made number three.

JK Wedding Entrance Dance

#2. Over 37 million views. "David after dentist" is a funny video of a young boy that is still on his medicine after a visit to the dentist.

David After Dentist

#1. 81 million views. Who hasn't seen the Susan Boyle video from Britain's Got Talent? It has enjoyed over 81 million views so far this year. In comparison, it took several years for the original Shrek movie to be viewed by 50 million people. Susan Boyle did this in just a few weeks.

Susan Boyle

As you can see, the most viewed videos on YouTube can be anything from a company's commercial that cost them a lot to produce to a quick movie of your son after the dentist.
Who knows - maybe the video YOU upload to YouTube next year will be the video sensation of 2010.

Source: Elie Seckbach, Boxing Fanhouse

Longtime boxing fan Ron Artest blessed FanHouse with his thoughts on the much anticipated Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.

As a kid growing up watching my dad anticipate big fights such as Hagler and Leonard, Tyson and Spinks, Tyson and Holyfield, Tyson and Berbick etc., I never appreciated the energy and excitement behind boxing. I was young and just a kid, playing tag and getting in minor trouble. Paying more mind to the music of Michael Jackson, the O'Jays, Temptations and all the other "Oldies but Goodies" artists that my mother and aunt were listening to.

But my dad, Ron Artest, Sr., eventually turned me into a big boxing fan. I remember that historic fight when Iron Mike lost in Tokyo to Buster Douglas. My dad was upset how Mike did fight right but still lost, and my sisters and mom were flabbergasted. I actually cried, and my dad put me on punishment -- which in retrospect, I think was more for Tyson's shocking and unexpected loss than anything I did.

That same type of energy and anticipation surrounds the upcoming Pac-Man vs. Money May fight. Pac is a good guy and has let me enjoy the training process through being around his training camp. Money May is a loyal friend and great-hearted person. A couple years ago, Mayweather paid for me and my friends to come perform at his charity event in Grand Rapids, Mich. -- which was a great experience. But I'm actually closer to the Pac-Man camp than the Money May camp. Both these fighters give back to their communities and never forget about their friends. So now when I'll watch the fight, I really won't know who to cheer for. If I had to choose to watch these two legends fight or not see them fight -- I have no favorites and would not want to throw my support for any particular fighter -- I would choose to see them fight.

Before I caught on to Pac-Man's exploding career, I was a heavy Money May fan. I did not believe anybody could beat him. (I did originally think Zab [Judah] could win because he was so quick, but I think Zab was partying too much and it caught up to him in that fight.) I also wanted to see Money May retire undefeated. Sometimes I wish he didn't fight so he could retire untouched. I also believe Money May could beat Pavlik and Hopkins if he ever moves up in weight.

Speaking on the same welterweight class, however, I believe Pac-Man is the only fighter who can beat Money May. I feel if it goes the distance that Pac will have got some shots off to gain points. I do believe May will hit with clean shots that Pac won't see, and may be able to win with a knockout. My heart will pump faster if I see Pac hit Money, and if Money knocks Pac down I may break a sweat. I'm totally upset this fight is not tomorrow.

Since I'm friends with both, may the best man win.

Source: Inquirer.net

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong teenager tried to auction her virginity on a social-networking website with the highest bidder offering US$7,800, police said Tuesday.

The girl, whose online ad said she was desperate for money, had set a minimum price equivalent to US$1,300 for sex, a police spokesman said.

The ad on the website hkmensa.net did not give the girl's age, but said she was a teenager and included details about her height and weight.

About 100 people responded to the December 9 ad, which the police spokesman said was taken down by the girl herself before the auction was over.Police said they had launched an investigation, and posted a warning on the website advising girls not "to sell your body for money".

"One should value morals highly and respect self-esteem," said the warning on hkmensa.net, which is targeted at secondary school students.Soliciting "unethical conduct" or having sex with an underage person are crimes under Hong Kong law.

In recent years, there have been an increasing number of teenaged girls in the city offering their virginity online or going on Japanese-style "compensated" dates with older men, which can include sex for money.

A 22-year-old US woman sparked controversy last year when she auctioned her virginity online to pay for her college education. Her offer reportedly attracted thousands of bids going as high as $3.7 million.

Independently-made Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker has won a second key film critics award in a week heavy with nominations that are likely to set the stage for the Oscars.

The New York Film Critics Circle named The Hurt Locker its film of the year and gave Kathryn Bigelow her second directing award in two days.

Bigelow and the movie also won honours on Sunday (US time) from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

George Clooney was named best actor by the New York critics for his roles in both Up In The Air and for voice work in animated movie Fantastic Mr Fox.

Veteran Meryl Streep was a surprise choice for best actress playing television chef Julia Child in Julie And Julia.

But some of the most influential choices will come later today with the Golden Globe nominations, and on Thursday when the Screen Actors Guild announces its list of contenders for the top movies and performances of 2009.

Until now, most nominations and awards have been picked by various US critics and independent movie groups and have shown little broad consensus.

On Monday, the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) gave Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and the Fellini-inspired musical Nine a leading 10 nominations each.

Sci-fi movie Avatar was close behind with nine BFCA nods and The Hurt Locker picked up eight.

Taken together, critics awards and nominations often give a movie momentum heading into the race for Oscars - the movie industry's most coveted awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on March 7, 2010.

Oscar nominations are announced in early February.

Source: Reuters / ABC NEWS

Watch this great steal by Lebron James of Cavaliers against Oklahoma. After the great intercept and a shot, he took a fries break from a young fan. The funny thing? The young fan was wearing Durant jersey! :)

Join this great gadget giveaway contest by Yugatech. Simple steps to qualify for this contest. It's absolutely FREE!! Many options to choose from to have a valid entry. Cool Gadgets awaits you!! Join now...




Starting this week, YugaTech will be doing a series of different contests for our “YugaTech Great Gadget Giveaway” with a major theme around it. It will be really simple and have easy mechanics. Our contest for this week is called “Merry Tweetmas”.


Round 1: Our theme for this week will be Twitter. Here’s the mechanics:
1) Follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe on Twitter.
2) Post a tweet “Just entered to win a Modu Phone. Quick! Go follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe and retweet: http://bit.ly/6e2q7O #thanks2yugatech”
We’re giving away a Modu phone, 10 Globe Tattoo and 20 Php500 prepaid call cards randomly. That’s 31 winners in all for the Twitter giveaway.


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Note: Anyone can join in the contests as many times since we’ll have more rounds in the coming weeks and months. Items will be shipped anywhere in the Philippines for free.

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Awesome Kobe! A buzzer beater 3 point shot by Kobe against Miami Heat..

Professional athletes consider stretching as one of the most important pre and post activity in any sports. But for any normal athletes and sports minded people, stretching is not relevant. Because of our excitement to immediately engage in the sport, we tend to forget stretching.

But studies, dont have that facts that stretching would really prevent muscle soreness before and after athletic activity. Some experts would also say that it can prevent injuries. In fact, some researchers found only little support that stetching before the actual play can prevent either acute or overuse sports injuries.

Source: TIM DAHLBERG, AP Boxing Writer Tim Dahlberg

LAS VEGAS – Promoters plan to go to Dallas to meet Wednesday with Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones as the momentum continues to grow for a March 13 megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Promoters Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer were to tour the new Dallas Cowboy stadium along with HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and listen to a proposal from Jones to host the fight, a person close to the promotion said.

Other leading contenders for the fight are the MGM Grand hotel arena in Las Vegas and the Superdome in New Orleans, said the person, who requested anonymity because both sides agreed not to speak publicly during negotiations.

Neither fighter has formally signed for the fight, though both have agreed in principle to terms. Promoters are so confident it will happen that they are also scouting sites in New York City for a Jan. 6 press conference to formally announce the bout.

Most major fights in recent decades have been in Las Vegas, and Pacquiao and Mayweather have fought their biggest fights at the MGM Grand, which seats about 16,000 for boxing. Many in boxing still consider the MGM to have the inside track on landing the fight, but the trip by promoters to Dallas indicates that they believe Jones will make a competitive bid.

The anticipated demand for the fight brings both the Cowboy stadium and Superdome into the equation because they can seat far more people. The Dallas stadium could hold 100,000 or more for a fight, including seats on the football field.

The biggest gate in boxing history was the $18.4 million in tickets sold for Mayweather's 2007 fight with Oscar De La Hoya, and promoters believe they can get a bid of $20 million and more from one of the three contending sites.

Jones said last week he was "still desirous of looking at what we can do here with the fight" at the new $1.2 billion stadium, which landed a Super Bowl, Final Four and Notre Dame home game before it even opened. The stadium's massive high definition television screens would allow even those far from the ring to see the action close up.

Working against any bid by Jones is the lure of Las Vegas, where the biggest fights are usually held. Mayweather lives and trains there, while Pacquiao celebrated his win over Miguel Cotto last month by doing a concert on the city's famed Strip.

After the car crash incident by Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfer and No. 1 highest paid athlete in the world, more and more women came out and claiming that they have an affair with him.

Sports relieves stress from our stressful daily routine. It is a good exercise for us to be physically and mentaly fit. It energizes our body and releases toxins through sweating. To have healthy living, it's time for us to get in to sports! There are just among the hundreds of sports that we could try, basketball, volleyball, badminton, lawn tennis, boxing and many more.