Let’s face it — it’s tough to make a name for yourself in today’s consumer electronics world. With big names such as Apple and Microsoft spending millions upon millions of dollars on marketing, one must wonder how the little guys even keep up. Obviously, it’s by making fantastic products and letting word-of-mouth do the rest. Such is the case with a once-little-known company called Popcorn Hour. Said outfit is quickly transitioning from a no-name media streamer firm to one that is becoming the best in the industry.

Just recently, we were able to sit down with Intel and talk shop about its newest (and most powerful) Core i7 yet, and apparently the company is really fond of that “Core iX” naming convention. So enthused, in fact, that they have just announced plans to phase out some of its brands — including “Centrino” in order to hone in on fewer top names. Granted, we’ve certainly seen Intel and others try this re-branding thing before. Remember when megahertz ratings were all the rage? Now, Intel will stop using Centrino

Calling it an ultra-portable netbook, BenQ has launched its latest Joybook Lite T131. Running on AMD’s Yukon chipset and Sempron processor, the Joybook Lite manages to pack a 13.3-inch WXGA (1280×800) display with anti-glare, 1 GB of RAM (upgradable to 2 GB), a 250/320 GB hard drive, a 2-in-1 card reader, and built in 802.11b/g/n into its body. The T131 weighs just under four pounds and measures approximately 1.1 inches thick. The T131 ships with Windows Vista Home Basic, but you can upgrade to Windows Vista

For quite some time now, Google has enjoyed the top spot in terms of search traffic. As you can imagine, Microsoft is not content to simply exist in another company’s shadow, so the company has been attempting to put a dent in Google’s search traffic with a new search engine of its own. Microsoft’s Bing search engine launched June 3rd. While Google is still No. 1, Microsoft has enjoyed two continual weeks of growth according to industry tracker comScore Inc. According to comScore, Microsoft’s share of search

The versatile, Lite ON DH-4O1S-73C Blu Ray 4x ROM reads BD-R/RE/ROM/SL/DL media at a maximum 4X speed. This deal ends Thursday at 12:00pm ET.

As we all saw from our CES 2009 coverage, multiple companies announced they will be releasing bleeding-edge OLED displays. LG today has set a release date on their 15-inch model for this December! Don't expect to get one for any less than the price of an arm and a leg, but they will be insanely thin!

While 15-inches is small, it easily trumps the world's first production OLED TV, Sony's $2,500 11-inch XEL-1, and is a reasonable size for the bedroom (if you must) or kitchen counter. No word on specs but we expect the production set to offer the same million:1 contrast, 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution, and 30,000-hour shelf life as the prototype unveiled in January. The TV will launch first in Korea for an undisclosed price that is bound to be punishingly expensive.

It is not often that end users have the ability to offer feedback and direction to a large manufacturer regarding future product development, but that’s exactly what’s going on over at the WePC project website. If you’re unfamiliar with the WePC project, it’s a joint venture between Asus and Intel in which both companies are looking for input from members of the technology press and blogging world, and readers. This quote from the WePC site does a great job of summarizing the projects goal…”Imagine your perfect

ASUS AND DISNEY LAUNCH NETBOOK COMPUTER FOR KIDS– The Disney Netpal Makes Kids’ Computing Fun, Web-Safe And Easy With A Unique User Interface, Wi-Fi, Windows XP and Parental Controls — FREMONT, CALIFORNIA (June 17, 2009) – Disney Consumer Products (DCP) and ASUS, maker of the pioneering Eee PC netbook, have collaborated to develop the Disney Netpal, a netbook computer for children that’s fun, web-safe and easy to use. Developed with parents and kids in mind, the Disney Netpal by ASUS is durable, with a reinforced

We’re starting up a new featured section here at HotHardware, dubbed OEM Access. As its name suggests, we’re looking to enable direct conversations with Original Equipment Manufacturers, offering our readers the ability to better connect with them to ask questions, voice concerns, or to just comment on a particular product or technology. To launch the section and follow up on our original Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Edition coverage, we’ve enlisted the help of Intel and have a blog post available featuring a discussion

These days, power savings are just important as frame rates, gigahertz and megabytes. With the whole world going “green,” what better way to join the bandwagon than to slap an Energy Star 5.0-compliant motherboard into your main rig? This week, Asus has announced an industry first by bringing that very label to its mainboards. The Energy Star 5.0 standard is the latest and greatest, and it’s set to take effect on July 1st of this year. Asus’ motherboards exceed Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and