From Bit-tech.net:

Every year we challenge the world's leading professional PC builders to craft the most technologically advanced, innovative, eye-catching PCs they can. We call this competition Dream PCs, and here is the fourth entry - the TEC water-cooled Kobalt Daedalus.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. To celebrate the past five years of brown, we decided to have a look at five ways that Ubuntu has helped make the open source Linux operating system more human.

By Ryan Paul | Last updated October 20, 2009 9:28 PM CT

Microsoft and its network partner insist they're making progress salvaging users' lost information.

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek
October 21, 2009 12:46 PM

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and T-Mobile have released an online tool that the companies say will allow Sidekick mobile device users to recover data lost during a server outage last week.

"Log into the My T-Mobile Web site, where there will be a recovery tool to restore contacts you may have lost during the recent service outage," Microsoft said in a statement Tuesday.
The catch: Microsoft said the tool will only restore data that users had stored as of Oct. 1. And, as for now, only information on personal contacts has been recovered. [Comment...]

Windows 7 hit or miss?

Microsoft's new operating system is officially launched today, so here's a collection of news and reviews.

The Sorry State of Windows 7 Gaming

Matt Peckham from PCW takes a look at the gaming side of things here.

Attackers use phony messages of system upgrades, Outlook updates, and Microsoft Conficker 'cleanup tool' to spread malware

Oct 19, 2009 | 05:31 PM
By Kelly Jackson Higgins
DarkReading

The massive Zbot botnet that spreads the treacherous Zeus banking Trojan has been launching a wave of relatively convincing phishing attacks during the past few days -- the most recent of which is a phony warning of a mass Conficker infection from Microsoft that comes with a free "cleanup tool."

From X-bit Labs:

Many users believe that the times of dual-core processors are coming to an end. However, so far there haven’t been any inexpensive processors with more than two cores in the market. Today AMD is correcting this: the new triple-core 45 nm CPUs are priced starting at $76!

In the wake of some recent comments made by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, Ars reached out to a number of game developers to get their thoughts on Valve's digital distribution platform, Steam.

By Andrew Webster | Last updated October 19, 2009 9:48 PM CT

In a recent interview, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford—the developer behind the upcoming Borderlands—revealed some surprising opinions about Valve's Steam digital distribution platform. While the common sentiment among both gamers and developers tends to be positive, Pitchford told Maximum PC that "I don't trust Valve" and that he believes "a lot of the industry doesn't" as well.

Sony is expected to show-off a new 3D display at the Digital Content Expo in Japan, which runs from October 22^nd to the 25^th.

Apparently, the 3D image can be seen without need for special spectacles, and from any viewing position.  The device will show a 24-bit colour image which is 96 x 128 pixels in size, so it looks like playing Call of Duty with this is a no-no.

Government program distributes laptops to almost 400,000 students

Jansen Ng (Blog) - October 19, 2009 12:17 PM
DailyTech

Computer literacy is an important aspect of education, but may seem out of reach for many people around the world due to hardware costs. The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project has sought to develop and distribute a low-cost and rugged computer to children around the world in a bid to raise global standards of living. That includes children living in poverty in the United States.

The government of Uruguay was very enthusiastic about the project, and created "Plan Ceibal" (Education Connect) to fund and distribute XO-1 OLPC laptops to every state-funded elementary school in the country.  Uruguay was the first country to place a full order for XO-1 laptops, with an initial 100,000 order in October 2007. It was also the first to deploy them in a non-pilot project just two months later....   [Comments...]

Many more casualities will pile up, but policy and agreements will prove meaningless against today's anonymous cyberwarrior.

By Fritz Nelson
InformationWeek
October 19, 2009 10:45 AM

Gladiators and jousters, Wild West gunslingers and kamikaze pilots, are long retired to history books and celluloid epics, each a reminder of war tactics from a bygone era. They're supplanted today by anonymous warriors--pseudonyms sitting in virtual garrisons, spying, probing, and launching attacks from non-descript buildings all over the world. This is not your father's war. It's not even your older brother's war. In cyberwarfare, there may be no victors, no spoils, just havoc, theft, and assault.