Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Sun’s Scott McNealy are expected to take the stage at the opening keynote of Oracle’s annual business technology conference. Those who are closely following the developments of the deal, including the European Union’s investigation over the competition concerns and Oracle’s roadmap for Sun’s products, will be watching the two industry bigwigs closely as they shed more light on their union.

Techgoondu will be livecasting the Ellison-McNealy keynote from the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Monday, Oct 12 at 8.45am SGT. Check out out Ustream channel at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/techgoondu, or watch the embedded stream here:

Singapore does do interesting infotech R&D. But it doesn’t get the publicity it deserves, which is such a waste.

Take for example the recent Techfest ’09, which was held at Fusionpolis last week from October 8th to 9th. Techfest, which A*Star I2R (Institute of Infocomm Research) started in 2005, is an open-to-public exhibition showcase of emerging technology research in Singapore. A*Star, for those of our readers who are not familiar with the brand, is a government institution dedicated to charting Singapore’s science and technology future.

Now A*Star has interesting research projects that make for great tech stories, but Techfest ’09 was a bland colourless event. It’s open to the public, but most of the attendees were government folks, and it felt as if many exhibitors — all A*Star folks — were there more because they were “arrowed” into showcasing their work instead of wanting to show off their work to a good audience. …

Maybe it’s the rumblings on the ground.

Maybe it’s StarHub playing the public card of late – appealing to the public, and more likely, its pay-TV subscibers, in full-page newspaper ads to group together and “share their views” on SingTel’s EPL (English Premier League) win for the next three seasons.

Whatever the reason, the red camp has today come up with prices to tune in to live EPL matches from next year, and it has kept to its promise of not asking for more cash. …

It’s not called the “thinnest and lightest Vaio” for no good reason.

The Vaio X,  Sony’s shiny new Atom-based netbook, went on display today, as the Japanese electronics maker took the wraps off its Fall 2009 lineup of Vaio PCs globally.

At the Singapore launch, Techgoondu managed to get a quick hands-on with the much-awaited Vaio X, which is one of the most eye-catching netbooks this goondu has seen so far. …

… a Logitech Harmony 1100 universal remote.

Yes, the holidays are still two months away, but hey, we can always start dreaming about new gizmos that we can get our wives and girlfriends to buy for us with their bonuses, right (since the economy seems to be recovering)?

For me, the Harmony 1100 better be in these shores by Christmas. Now available in the United States, the latest top-end, touch-screen remote from Logitech promises control for all your AV amplifiers and DVD players sitting snugly in your packed TV console. …

Now, that was fast. Less than 48 hours after SingTel and StarHub submitted their bids for the English Premier League (EPL) TV rights for the next three seasons, the red camp has just confirmed that it has won the fight to screen the live matches.

Yes, you will be watching EPL on a SingTel mio TV box from mid-2010, the first time that the broadband pay-TV operator has wrested the rights from the incumbent pay-TV provider.

Most importantly for football fans, SingTel Singapore CEO Allen Lew has promised no price hikes. …