Tech Olive

Well folks, it’s all over. Thanks to those who stuck around. We sure did have a blast! If you missed it, you can still read our liveblog below.

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A Verizon DSL customer simply just wanted to upgrade his DSL plan, but for some reason the Verizon reps kept giving him a hard time and wouldn’t simply upgrade his plan. He spoke to several different reps, all saying different things. He was on the phone for a total of an hour and 42 minutes and went through seven phone calls. When he arrived to the last rep, here’s what went down:

I directly asked “why is it I can open a new account with 7MB but I cannot order it as an existing customer?”. Her response: “your home cannot handle the 7MB speed. If I put in the order for 7MB, it will burn your house down.”

Remember folks, don’t upgrade your DSL plan, because it could lead to your house being torched by the Verizon Mafia.

via [Consumerist]

When a country is growing insanely fast, you need a transportation system that can keep up. After four years of development and $15 billion, China has debuted the Wuhan-Guangzhou railway, which tops out at 235 mph (380 km/h) and apparently the ride is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. It’s also the longest rail line in China, traveling from Wuhan all the way down the south coast. The railway won’t officially open until later this month, but airlines have already begun slashing their fares to compete with the railway.

via [BBC News]

Right after the painfully delayed PC release of Borderlands‘ first DLC, Gearbox has announced their future plans for additional content. Their next DLC pack, titled Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, will add many things, most notable of which is three new “Riot Mode” arenas, an in-game bank (allowing you to store equipment without it taking inventory slots). Like the previous DLC, it will come to gamers at a cost of about $10 or your marketplace currency equivalent. It will be hitting Xbox 360 on December 29th, PS3 on January 7th and again, PC users are of abysmally-low priority and have no announced release date for the DLC, but we are assured with the following quote:

“The downloadable content will also be available on Windows PC.”

via [GiantBomb]

One of the most popular PC first-person shooters is now only $5.00 on Steam this weekend. There’s no reason not to get it. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever play it, it’ll be a nice addition to your game collection. Happy gaming!

[Steam]

After plenty of delays and general annoyances, Borderlands‘ first piece of DLC has released to PC. The Island of Dr. Ned was intended as a Halloween special release, but obviously, it’s a bit late for that. At any rate, you can pick up the DLC for a cool $10 from Gearbox’s online store.

via [RPS]

Ok, maybe not the ultimate gaming device, but one step closer at least. There’s no doubt that the iPhone isn’t very comfortable when it comes to prolonged gaming sessions. The iHandstick has come to save the day, although we’d rather prefer an Xbox 360 controller over a PlayStation controller any day. Nonetheless, it could very well make your PlayStation compatriots feel more at home, but we feel that our thumbs would have a hard time easily reaching the screen. The iHandstick will work with the 2G/3G iPod Touch as well as the iPhone 3G/3GS and can be yours for $17 plus shipping.

[USB Fever]

It seems that CryTek is feeling the sting of MW2‘s release in their online gaming community because they’ve just announced a new free trial period for Crysis Wars. Beginning December 19th and running until the 29th, anyone who downloads the massive game client will be granted free access to the game’s online servers. For details on the trial or the game itself, head over to MyCrysis for all the gory details.

The newest addition to the STALKER series has been hyped for a while now and an official release date has been announced by publisher bitComposer Games. Call of Pripyat, the terrifying DirectX 11 FPS/RPG is set for an international February 2010 release.

via [ShackNews]

The last time we heard about Mozilla’s mobile version of Firefox was when we found out it was coming to Android devices, but we had yet to be given a release date window. The Vice President of Mozilla says that mobile Firefox will have a beta released within the coming weeks.

Also, a quick note about the name of the mobile version of Firefox. Apparently it won’t be called Fennec like we’ve been hearing, but we still don’t know if there’s an official name other than “mobile Firefox.”

via [CNET]