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Acer TravelMate 8481 lands late August, £700 price tag in tow
Back in May, we caught a glimpse of Acer's TravelMate 8481, rocking an extra thin bezel and up to 13 nine hours of battery life for the road-weary sojourner. At the time, Acer was touting a mid-June launch, but we've just received word that the Core i7-packing notebook won't make it into carry-ons until late August. As of now, we've only got UK pricing -- £699, to be exact -- leading us to wonder when the thing will make the journey stateside. As per usual, we will keep you abreast of the details as they roll in. Until then, you can peep the full PR after the break.
[UPDATED] More Beta invites to be sent out *after*August 1st
My favorite blue poster in the Customer Service Forums has to be Belfaire. He's always got something smart and funny to say, usually in response to annoying forum trolls and others trying hard to be upset about a game. Besides his witty and crazy remarks, he also likes to drop all of us little bits of information here and there. Such is the case in a post today.Belfy confirmed that the next round of Beta invites will be sent out "around" Friday, August 1st "and on." This is another chance for more people to get into the beta. With some luck you might be able to run around and explore the wonders of Northrend. All previous waves of invites have included both BlizzCon, WWI, and Opt-In people.Check your email on the 1st! And check it often! You might just get one. And if you haven't yet, be sure to sign up for the Beta Opt-In.EDIT: Belfaire has issued a correction: "I need to reiterate there that I'm not confirming an August 1st distribution date. I'm confirming that a wave after August 1st will be the one that incorporates the remaining BlizzCon, WWI, and Dell Beta Club invites."
Beta opt-in F.A.Q.
More beta news for everyone to enjoy tonight. Bornakk has posted what Nethaera promised earlier in the day, a Wrath of the Lich King beta opt-in F.A.Q. The complete F.A.Q. is republished here for your convenience, and is definitely something everyone should read and re-read. Some of the key things to come out of the F.A.Q.: You are not guaranteed to get into the WotLK beta if you have a BlizzCon or WWI beta keys. These keys might go to another beta (like Diablo III). You can opt-in on multiple accounts, but each account can only opt-in once. If you get a key with one account, you can use it on another account of your choosing. However the key can only be used once. Opting in early does not necessarily mean you will get a beta slot early. Everything is random (as we previous reported). If you get a beta key from another source and are selected via the opt-in process, you can give your key to a friend or family member. Full F.A.Q. after the break.
New account management options: Blizzard Authenticator and Beta Opt-In
Many thanks to my buddy Taeous for discovering a new link on the account management page yesterday evening. Currently there are two new small items that are going to be of interest to nearly every WoW player out there: "Blizzard Authenticator" and "Beta Opt-In". We already know about the Blizzard Authenticator that'll be coming out soon enough. It is a little (optional) device that will act as a hardware based key which will be needed to log on to your account. This looks like the spot that you can associate one to your account with. However the Beta Opt-In link is really interesting. This is just in time for all the activity at the World Wide Invitational 2008, and those of us at WoW Insider are speculating that all those beta keys people are getting at the WWI08 will be used there (there will be a goodie bag handed out to each attendee). However hopefully this will also let others get into the beta as well. Right now the beta link points to the resurrect-a-friend program, and the authenticator link points to an un-published page - we'll let you know when they change over to a page with more useful information. Nonetheless, definitely something we all want to keep an eye on.
Bone: DS adventure renaissance continues [update 1]
[Update 1: The announcement was about Bone for the PC and not for the DS. It mentions that the publisher is "focusing on the PC and Nintendo DS markets", not the game. We apologize for the misunderstanding. Thanks to eric c for the correction!]Before the episodic Sam & Max games, Telltale Games were known among adventure game holdouts for their adaptations of Jeff Smith's Bone comic series. They followed a similar business model: periodic, bite-sized chunks of delicious puzzle solving, set in cult comic book trappings.Now publisher Xider is bringing the Bone games to the DS PC and unidentified games to the DS in Europe in 2007. We hope that they decide to bring them stateside as well, and that they don't decide to shoehorn weird touch screen/microphone puzzles into what is supposed to be a pretty good adventure series. It's still possible, but the identities of the DS games have yet to be announced.We're so proud of our little DS, bringing back two of our favorite long-lost game genres: the graphical text adventure and the 3D adventure game.
Your Week in Nintendo - 11/6/06 - 11/12/06
Every week we provide Your Week in Nintendo, a feature that revisits the top 5 stories of the week. Top stories are chosen based on relevance and reader support. For the week beginning Monday, November 6th and ending Sunday, November 12th, Your Week in Nintendo brings you: 5) Internet weighs in on Zelda During Nintendo's special event in Redmond, WA, they let press get their hands on the final build of Zelda: Twilight Princess. 4) Internet settles debate A Japanese blogger decided he would document several different popular websites' results on both PS3 and Wii. Who wins? Wii, of course! 3) The Wii demo kiosks go up Finally, readers can now go to their local EB Games or GameStop store and play with the Wii! Also, they helped shed some light on that awkward Startup Disc issue. We still can't believe they're using composite cables though ... 2) We showed you ours, now show us yours We went through the effort of showing ourselves and the readers responded in kind. Rock! 1) We get the Wii!Nintendo sends us a care package and we do our best to cover it for you.
Video Games Live seats in Indy up for sale
Tickets are now on sale for the two Video Games Live shows planned in conjunction with Gen Con Indy Friday & Saturday, August 11-12.After a stop in Philly earlier this month, the VGL tour is moving on to Houston July 14th, Chicago August 5th, and then Indianapolis the weekend after that. More on reserving seats for the Hilbert Circle Theatre can be found on the official announcement page (via the pic to the right or the Read link below).Judging by the reviews of the Philly show so far, Video Games Live sounds like it could be a lot of fun. If they keep providing public access to Guitar Hero II, they may have sold this blogger on going already. We hope Midwestern gamers not attending the Chicago show can make a pitstop in Indy to keep Tommy's show on the road. So, yeah ... rock on.See also: Official VGL report from Philly (with some local links to boot) Video Games Live ticket purchases opened a bit early The official page for Gen Con Indy PS2 impressions: Guitar Hero II
Hell's Highway trailer
Clicking on the "Read" link will take you to the trailer for the upcoming Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. More than likely, the largest concern that rests upon the thoughtful brows of those awaiting the launch of the PS3 with fevered anticipation is just how good could this game could be. Considering that the last two entries in the series that graced a Sony system were the poorest editions when compared to their counterparts on the PC and Xbox, should we assume the third time will be the charm and this title could excel, if not totally demolish, the PC and Xbox 360 installments?
