Tech Olive

Intel released the new Core i7 notebook processors today along with some benchmarks, all of which blow current notebook processors clear out of the water when it comes to speed, but lags behind in the battery life category. Released today in Toshiba, ASUS, Alienware, and HP laptops, the Core i7 notebooks are sure to be a crowd pleaser. These processors are also scheduled for release in the Dell Studio 15 laptop line with the starting price of $999.

For full benchmark coverage head here.

[Intel]

Intel has announced plans today at the Intel Developer Forum for a new technology called “Light Peak” which is capable of transfer speeds of 10Gb per second via extremely high speed optical cable. At the moment, the current speed is 10Gb per second, but is projected to be able to transfer data at over 100Gb per second within 10 years. Intel has high hopes to have this new technology implemented in consumer electronics next year. Join us after the break for a quote from Intel.

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Now that the hype on the Apple tablet has calmed down a little bit since Apple’s keynote event, Microsoft has decided to steal the spotlight for now with their new tablet, the Courier. This concept tablet is in its late stages of development. The 7-inch dual screens will support multitouch, writing, flicking, and drawing with a stylus or your fingers. The hinge will house an iPhone-esque home button and the back cover will include a camera and the status lights.

Details are still a little sparse, but we’re sure to hear more about this in the coming days and weeks.

via [Gizmodo]

Obviously if you play World of Warcraft you would have either downloaded or started downloading the new 3.2.2 patch dubbed Call of The Crusade.  This marks Onyxia’s 5th birthday. I hope you all bring cake when you go raiding in her updated raid. That’s right. They have upgraded the raid from a level 60 easy, weekly gold grabber to a loot worthy level 80 raid.  For the complete patch notes and changelog, hit up the link below.

[Patch Notes]

2K Games has confirmed today that the PC release of Borderlands has officially been delayed. Originally planned for an October 20th release in North America and the 23rd internationally, the game is now set for October 26th in N.A. and the 30th to everyone else. “We’re optimizing the PC version which takes a few days longer than expected,” said a 2K Games rep.

via [incGamers]

For those of you who have been looking forward to this as much as I have, at EA’s Tokyo Press Conference, the L4D2 demo has finally been announced to be released on October 27.  If you pre-order the game you get advanced access to the demo, but details of this are yet to be released.

EDIT by Tim: Also, just announced is the release date for L4D1‘s first addon campaign, Crash Course. It will release on September 29 for PC and Xbox 360. Free to PC, but it will cost 560MS Points to Xbox gamers.

via [Joystiq]

Finally! Another podcast ready to blow your ears out of proportion. In this episode, our newest staff member and UK native Andrew Kershaw makes his podcast debut and discusses the latest in MMO games. We also give you an update on upcoming Q4 PC games set to release and other general tech news going on in the world.

Download – mp3 (70.1MB)

Hosts: Craig Lloyd, Tim Hage, Andrew Kershaw
Intro/Outro Music: Cool Cavemen – Fusion

While Intel is just starting the production stage of 32nm chips, they’re already working on 22nm chips for a 2011 release date, as announced at the Intel Developer Forum keynote. Intel CEO Paul Otellini held up a 22nm wafer that “is made up of individual die containing 364 million bits of SRAM memory and has more than 2.9 billion transistors packed into an area the size of a fingernail.” Wow!

[Intel Press Release]

Image Credit: Engadget

Since The9 in china are being taken over by NetEase for control of Battle.net (which controls the online for World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and Warcraft) in China there has been a major server change as the monolithic system is having its provider switched.  But now, after three and a half months of being down and a closed beta, NetEase have finally brought World of Warcraft back online for the Chinese public to enjoy. They’re already spending over a million yuan (about $146,000) per day to keep the game alive so far, but the game is growing at an amazing rate over there and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

After some intense viral marketing, Valve has announced their newest TF2 update. It will add a new companion for the Sniper class. The Guard Dog can do everything from kill enemies to scavenge ammo and health for you and your teammates. For all the details on the class update, check out Valve’s announcement page.

UPDATE: It seems that this whole update was too good to be true.

[Thanks, Jake (Epidemik)]