Tech Olive

The past week’s best news…

Tech Olive’s Weekly Giveaway Bonanza
- After we realized that we have a ton of cool stuff just sitting around and collecting dust, we decided to get rid of it the easy way by giving it away to our loyal readers. This cool stuff ranges from stickers to gaming headsets to case fans to gaming mouse pads and more. Some items are brand new in the box, while others have been opened up for review purposes…

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Starting up something new and trying to get people to use it is no easy task, but Microsoft has managed it fairly well with their new Bing search engine. According to Nielson, Bing reached 12.5% market share in February, which is an all-time high. To add to that, Bing saw a tremendous 15% increase in market share from January (10.9%) to February (12.5%). Microsoft could easily catch up to Yahoo! where they have a 14.1% stake in the market and hold the number two position behind search engine giant Google, who holds a 65.2% share.

via [PR Newswire]

After finally giving gamers a solid release date, it seems Ubisoft is not done screwing over PC gamers quite yet. After their terrible DRM choice and in-game advertising usage (which, of course, does not lower the game’s retail cost), Ubisoft has announced that the PC release of Splinter Cell: Conviction will be April 27th, two weeks after the Xbox 360 version hits.

Why the further delay, you ask? No reason given. Thanks, Ubisoft. You clearly care about the community that made the Splinter Cell series what it is today. As a huge fan of the series since the first game, I can tell you that Ubisoft won’t be seeing any money from me on April 27th.

via [Big Download]

Electronic Arts has announced that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has already sold over 2.3 million units since its release on March 2nd (March 4th in Europe). It’s no secret that Bad Company 2 has been a critical success in the gaming world. Even despite the early multiplayer issues, the game has managed to push out some amazing numbers as far as multiplayer stats.

81B points have been earned in online multiplayer sessions

43M weapons and gadgets have been unlocked in online multiplayer

Over 6M video views on YouTube

2.9M hours have been spent playing online in the last 24 hours alone

230K peak-concurrent-users (PCUs)

Over 44k Twitter fans (most out of any EA title)

Could Bad Company 2 actually beat Modern Warfare 2‘s impressive numbers? BC2‘s entire marketing goal since the beginning was to expose and exploit MW2‘s flaws and short-comings while simultaneously trying to “one-up” MW2‘s features and options.

via [Shack News]

After the announcement of GTA IV‘s DLC breaking Xbox 360 exclusivity, it saw a few different release dates, but it seems there will be one final delay before we get our hands on the new content, with the release date now set for April 13th for North America and April 16th for the European gamers. If you’re especially distressed about theses further delays, then head over to Rockstar’s press release page for their reasoning behind the delay, as well as a few answers to some hankering questions.

As a weekend exclusive deal, Steam has cut the price of Aliens vs.Predator to $33.49.

Released this past February, AvP features three different campaigns (one for each species) and full multiplayer support. If that’s not enough, the game is also one of the early adopters of DirectX 11, so if you want to try that new graphics cards out, this is the game for you.

[Steam]

For all of those silently waiting anxiously for a Service Pack update for Windows 7, you’re in luck because Microsoft is in talks about it right now! However, your celebration might be a bit premature because it seems that SP1 for Windows 7 won’t include anything more than a few minor updates, as well as a Remote Desktop update that uses RemoteFX (which is a Windows Server thing and won’t effect us Windows 7 users).

For Windows 7, SP1 includes only minor updates, among which are previous updates that are already delivered through Windows Update. SP1 for Windows 7 will, however, deliver an updated Remote Desktop client that takes advantage of RemoteFX introduced in the server-side with SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2.

There’s no word yet on any kind of release schedule, but we can be sure that SP1 will be available conveniently through Windows Update when the time comes.

[Windows 7 Blog]

Seriously, Dell? You break our hearts and then say it was all just a big misunderstanding:

When folks discovered we had removed the Adamo XPS from online a couple of weeks ago there was some speculation that we had discontinued the product – this is not the case.  Demand for the Adamo XPS has been strong both online and in retail, where customers are able to see the amazing and award-winning design in person.  To avoid customer issues with longer lead times for online purchases, our intent was to point customers to key retail partners until we were able to build up sufficient supply.

via [Direct2Dell]

While Steam usually offers the best discounts/perks for pre-orders, it seems GoGamer is looking to gain some sale with the upcoming release of Just Cause 2. Of course, it’s not quite good enough of a deal to be featured in our Bargain Bin, but rather than paying the retail cost of $50, or even the $5 discount that most retailers offer for pre-orders, get it from GoGamer and you’ll save about 32% off the game’s sticker price. So, for $33.90, you get a brand new game. Sounds good to me. If you’re not sure about the game, then grab the demo from Steam and try it out. Act fast though, the discount is part of GoGamer’s 48-hour Madness, so this deal won’t last forever!

via [eXaminer]

IO Interactive has officially confirmed that Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days will release in North America on August 24, 2010 for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. The rest of the world will be getting the game on August 27th. IO had the following to say about it:

“We believe the unique visuals and relentless gameplay has created an intensity never delivered in a videogame before. In a genre where so many games look and feel the same, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days will make people double-take. We think it’s going to make quite an impression.” — Niels Jørgensen, general manager of IO Interactive.

[Press Release]