Tech Olive

Just a few days ago, Samsung unveiled their ultra, ultra-thin 9 series laptop to take on the MacBook Air head on. With its 1.6GHz Core i5 CPU, 128GB SSD, 4GB of RAM, a black-lit keyboard, 13.3-inch LED display, and 6.5 hours of battery life, it’s quite a competitor, especially for the fair price of $1,600. Samsung has just updated their press release and has given this bad boy a release date of “February 2011.” Not exactly a date, but it’s good enough for us.

[Press Release]

This week on Steam, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 loses its first place spot and drops down to number 5. At number one we find Never Winter Nights 2 Platinum, which was in the number 4 spot last week. Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition is at number 2 and Mafia II gets on the list at number 3. See the complete top ten list after the break.

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Bigfoot Networks, makers of high-performance ‘Killer’ network cards, have announced a partnership with motherboard manufacturers MSI, Gigabyte, and ASUS. The result of this partnership is, of course, the inclusion of Killer network card technology as onboard networking hardware on new motherboards, including Gigabyte’s new G1 Killer series motherboards and ASUS’ ROG Rampage III Black Edition motherboards. We even saw some details about future MSI integration, but no models were mentioned by name. No details on pricing or availability were announced.

With Bigfoot Networks also having recently announced plans with VisionTek to include Killer networking technology, it’s becoming easier and easier to get your hands on a fantastic Killer network card.

[MSI Press Release, Gigabyte Press Release]

Hot on the heels of the game’s PC release, Angry Birds is once again branching out to new platforms. This time, it’s with the help of giant toymaker Mattel. Angry Birds is getting its own board game. It’s only a singleplayer experience (just like the video game), with players drawing “Mission Cards” that will instruct them how to construct the pigs’ stronghold which they then destroy by launching birds from a slingshot, of course. It’s set to cost $14.99 and is aiming for a May 2011 release window.

via [Joystiq]

We can’t see we’re one bit surprised, but Apple’s new Mac App Store, which already consists of over 1,000 Apple-made and third-party applications (both free and paid), has gotten over one million downloads within the first 24 hours of its existence. This is mostly thanks to the extremely popular apps and games like Twitter and Angry Birds, which is currently the top-selling game in the App Store right now.

[Press Release]

Well, well, well. We already know that Kinect can work on a PC with a little hackage, but Microsoft wasn’t going in on that just yet. However, in an interview with BBC, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the company will support Kinect for PC “in a formal way in the right time.” He went on saying that when they “have an announcement to make, we’ll make that announcement.”

So it seems like Kinect for PC will definitely be coming officially at some point, and it’ll be interesting to see how they will implement the device within the PC platform.

via [BBC]

Though the game’s release date is still lost deep in the corners of time, it seems Microsoft is holding out on us as evidenced by their display of a playable PC demo of Fable 3 at their CES booth this year. No further information has been given regarding the game’s development or release status, but things are looking good for a Fable 3 2011 PC release.

via [Joystiq]

I suppose this isn’t a huge surprise at all. Thanks to Verizon’s current 3G “MiFi” mobile hotspot and their recently launched 4G LTE network, it’s a no-brainer that Big Red would eventually release a 4G version. This one’s being manufactured by Samsung and we hear that there’s no creative name for this new device except for “4G LTE Mobile Hotspot,” but that could easily change. Whatever the name, it’s good to know we’ll have some super fast 4G Wi-Fi waiting for us wherever we go.

No word yet on pricing for the device and the data plans or when it’ll be available, but it shouldn’t be long.

[Press Release]

Shocking the gaming industry, Razer announced a new project of theirs at CES. The project is titled Switchblade, and is still in conceptual stages, but details are promising. It’s still a “concept design,” so details are bound to change (including the name, according to Razer) before we see any more solid information or pricing. You can read Razer’s FAQ on the project, but we’ll summarize some features below.

• Tactile keyboard with full-color LCD backing for each key, allowing completely dynamic buttons images that change based on what game is running
• Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity
• Running Windows 7 OS
• Mini HDMI and USB 3.0
• Dimensions: 172mm x 115mm x 25 mm

via [Big Download]

That’s right, ladies and gents. Angry Birds has hit PC. For those that don’t know, Angry Birds was previously only available as a mobile app and quickly became the addiction of over 6.5 million people according to the sales numbers as of August 2010. The gameplay itself is a mix of strategy, physics, and reverse-tower defense that has the player launching birds at evil pigs to get stolen eggs back. PC gamers wanting in on the action or any mobile gamers wanting to play in glorious full HD graphics, head over to Intel’s “AppUp” digital distribution platform and download yourself a copy for $4.99.

UPDATE: We almost forgot. Angry Birds is also available in the Mac App Store for the same price of $4.99. Apparently it’s already the top selling game on there. Who woulda thunk it?

via [Big Download]