Tech Olive

Bringing further fixes to the game’s multiplayer experience, a new patch has hit everyone’s Steam queues for Black Ops, but what changes are tagging along with this 63MB download?

Call of Duty: Black Ops

• MP Audio stuttering on certain systems.
• Playercards sometimes not showing properly.
• Added three Private Match Server Settings: Team Change, Team-Up Period, and Keep Balanced Teams.
• Added Alternate Color Scheme for accessibility: Settings / Multiplayer / Player Name Indicator.
• Changed Team-Up Period countdown interval to 10 seconds.
• Combat Training sessions are no longer counted in Server Browser Unranked tab.
• Friends on your team will now show as blue on your minimap.
• Prevention of various exploits.
• Objective markers localized for all languages.
• Various stability improvements

Call of Duty: Black Ops Rcon Tool
Recognize new “invalid password” server response

[Press Release]

For all the Dead Space fans out there (and even potential new-comers to the game), you can grab a copy of the original Dead Space for only $6.80, which is 66% off the retail price. If you want to get even more savings, you can pre-order Dead Space 2 to receive 75% off of the original Dead Space. This weekend only!

via [Steam News]

This is sort of one for the ages. One of the largest companies in the world will be going through a CEO change as of April 4th, which was mentioned in their Q4 earnings report. Co-founder Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as head hancho. Schmidt, who was Google’s CEO since 2001, will stick around as Executive Chairman and will be an advisor to Page and other co-founder Sergey Brin. In a blog post by Schmidt, he detailed that Page is now “ready to lead,” and “will merge Google’s technology and business vision brilliantly.” There wasn’t a particular reason why the CEO swap was made, but we all have our guesses that it might not have been as smooth and friendly as anyone hoped.

[Google Investor Relations]

What does EA have up its little sleeve? Looks like they recently bought a domain name, and not just any domain name, but a domain name that suggests they’re doing something special with PC gaming. In a gaming world where PC gamers get left by the wayside, will EA actually step up to the plate and deliver some awesome PC titles? Only time will tell, really.

via [Blistered Thumbs]

I suppose we could have saw this coming back in November and Microsoft’s head hancho Steve Ballmer even said it himself that Kinect would be arriving on Windows at some point, but we had no idea when. According to WinRumors, Microsoft is currently working on an SDK and official drivers of Kinect for Windows and will both be released in the next few months in beta form. It’s also said that the next version of Windows (i.e. Windows 8) will include full Kinect support out of the box, which will focus on gesture-based controls.

via [WinRumors]

Epic Vid of the Week is a weekly series that showcases an awesome video that we or our readers discover. Some you may have seen before and others you may have not. If you’ve discovered any videos that might be worthy of an Epic Vid of the Week title, let us know!

It seems difficult to think about having fun with boiling hot water since it’s…well…dangerous, but if you happen to be in a location that’s freezing cold (say, 22 degrees below zero) then it’s quite possible. Exhibit A:

The one-man developing team known as Eric Ruth Games has officially released his newest Pixel Force creation. This time, it’s in the form of a sci-fi title that’s apparently pretty popular amongst the Xbox 360 gamers of today, but what do we know? This is the closest that PC gamers will get to playing Halo, so might as well give it a try. While you’re at it, check out some of Eric Ruth’s other 8-bit titles like Left 4 Dead and DJ Hero and check out the trailer to Pixel Force: Halo after the break.

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We can’t say it’s the most creative or sweetest-looking logo, but we suppose it does the trick. Apparently, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) seems to really think it’s a solid logo:

“It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write. It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It’s the standard’s standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn’t use tables for layout.”

What do you think?

[W3C via CNET]

If you’ve been questioning the different audio formats and asking yourself whether switching to FLAC from MP3 would really make that much of a difference, How-To Geek has put together a detailed guide discussing the differences between the different audio file formats, which hopefully will answer your hankering questions. They talk about PCM, as well as the handful of both lossless and lossy formats and the uses for each of them.

In the end though, it comes down to your situation and whether or not it would be worth it to upgrade audio formats based on your equipment (and obviously your ears). If you’re low on storage space, a lossy format would be best, while a lossless format would be better for someone who has a lot of free space. Check out the complete guide by hitting up the link below.

[How-To Geek]

Image Credit: Patrick Lauke

Portal 2 has been announced as Valve‘s first game to use Steamworks on the PS3 (which was announced at last year’s E3). What does this mean for PC and Mac gamers? Cross-platform co-op play.

Also, even more surprisingly, gamers that purchase a copy of Portal 2 on the PS3 will be able to download a free copy of Portal 2 through Steam on their PC or Mac by linking their Steam and PSN accounts.

via [Big Download]