Rudisha gets 800m gold with world record

David Rudisha of Kenya used his trademark running from the front to win the elusive Olympic 800 metres gold on Thursday in a world record time of 1 minute 40.91 seconds.

The world champion Rudisha, 23, bettered his mark of 1:41.01 from August 29, 2010, in Rieti, Italy, for the first athletics world record of the London Games.

Nijel Amos of Botswana got silver in a junior world record 1:41.73 and bronze went to Timothy Kitum of Kenya in 1:42.53.

By winning, Rudisha upstaged his father Daniel, who was part of the Kenyan 4x400m team, which got silver at the 1968 Games.

Michael Phelps ends Olympic career with 18th gold medal

  By Julian Linden

Michael Phelps, his emotions overflowing as he swam his last competitive race before retiring, ended his record-breaking career on Saturday the only way he knew how, by winning another Olympic gold medal.

Joining forces with his American team mates, Phelps gave the sporting world one last view of his incredible talent and determination to win when the United States blitzed their opposition in the men's medley relay on the final day of the swimming competition at the London Games.

"I couldn't ask to finish on a better note," Phelps said. "I have done everything I wanted to do. I am very happy."

It was the perfect ending for the most decorated Olympian of all time who built a stockpile of medals that once seemed unimaginable.

He finished his career with 18 gold medals, six from Athens, eight from Beijing and four from London, twice as many as the next best in any sport.

Phelps also won two silver and two bronze medals during his career, giving him a total of 22, yet another record. Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina held the previous record for almost half a century but Phelps set a standard that could last even longer.

When he finished his final race, the crowd at London's Aquatics Centre, including his mother Debbie, rose to their feet to give him a standing ovation.

Swimming's world governing body FINA presented him with their lifetime achievement award and Phelps' lifetime coach Bob Bowman whispered in his ear: "I love you."

"We hugged, he said 'We did it,' we smiled and I said 'yes we did' and that was it."

Microsoft pushdown Hotmail for Outlook

Microsoft is pulling the plug on Hotmail, one of the early leaders in web-based email, and plans to transition the service’s more than 350 million users to a new email service called Outlook.com, the software giant announced on Tuesday.

The new service will, as its name suggests, tie in with the Microsoft email program of the same name that is part of the company’s popular Office suite of business software. Microsoft touted the new system as the biggest change in web-based email since the introduction of Hotmail in 1996.

Microsoft bought the company a year later for an estimated 400 million dollars. According to a blog posting by product manager Chris Jones, Outlook.com combines contact information from emails and popular social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. Featuring a minimalist design, the new service boasts powerful tools for sorting emails, including automatic recognition of newsletters, social media updates and junk mail that, according to Jones, accounts for some 70 per cent of inbox content.

The service also automatically recognises emails with photos, documents or shipping information attached and sends these to pre-selected folders. While the free service is ad-supported, Microsoft said that unlike Google’s Gmail service the ads will not be related to the content of users’ emails. “We don’t scan your email content or attachments and sell this information to advertisers or any other company, and we don’t show ads in personal conversations,” Jones said. He said that Outlook.com was launched on Tuesday in a preview period and that eventually all Hotmail users would be switched to the new service.

No date was given for the transition.