Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 leak says it’s a sequel!

Find Makarov did NOT result in the revelation of Modern Warfare 3 but now the REAL deal has been exposed and leaked by gaming website, Kotaku!

Remember when we highly let down less than three months ago when the “Find Makarov” teaser that hit the web turned out to be nothing more than someone’s backyard project on making a home video independently-produced movie version of the first Modern Warfare in the Call of Duty series? Yeah, I was too. But then I went on to provide my personal guess on what Modern Warfare 3 would bring: that it would be a sequel and bring in some stuff that will make multiplayer more exciting… and bam, just this morning, Kotaku has managed to get their hands on some leaked images and info of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. And turns out I was right!

Modern Warfare 3 IS going to be a sequel! Sorry, prequel and ‘Ghost’ fans, your dream ain’t happening (I would think a prequel on the character ‘Ghost’ from Modern Warfare 2 would have been quite boring and uninteresting anyway). As with the previous Call of Duty titles, the imminent announcement (probably at E3 2011 next month) and release (in November this year) of Modern Warfare 3 has been hyped up quite a bit with a storyline that takes you all around the world, from India to New York to various places around Europe.

But hype isn’t good enough when the previous title released in 2009, Modern Warfare 2 (read our review of Modern Warfare 2 here), had an extremely short 4 hour single player campaign and severely underwhelming multiplayer mode in terms of balance and support for PC gamers (lack of dedicated servers, no character ‘leaning’, no console menu, mods or proper gameroom administration controls that are a PC platform staple, are among the massive, disappointing regressions of Modern Warfare 2 from the original Modern Warfare). Here’s to hoping that Modern Warfare 3 will restore the features and functions in multiplayer that made Modern Warfare 1 so popular back in the day in 2007… and that with these new locations set around the globe, will have a story line that’s more than 4 hours (a solid 7 to 8 hours would be more like it).

I was also somewhat right about Modern Warfare 3 sporting new multiplayer features, but so far from the news, nothing revolutionary at all has been revealed (or looks to be added). Rather, Modern Warfare 3′s developers appear to have chosen to pull a leaf out of Treyarch’s book (Treyarch made 2008′s Call of Duty: World at War and 2010′s Call of Duty: Black Ops) by introducing a ‘survival mode’ of sorts, whereby you and your teammates hold back hordes of enemies for as long as possible. That wasn’t exactly Treyarch’s original idea either… it appears from the recent introduction of their new map pack for Black Ops that the folks at Activision (or their developers, at least) have been ‘highly inspired’ (to put it in a nice way) by multiplayer features that were popularized by Valve’s Left4Dead series.

It is currently unknown if Modern Warfare 3 will sport a new gaming engine, but it looks like they’re trying to milk as much as possible out of that IW Engine 4.0 (used on Modern Warfare 2) and leaked graphics of the game seem to support that, since the image ‘style’ is similar to that of previous games. Will we see DirectX 11 and PhysX support and more realistic environments in the final game when it comes out this fall 2011? We will just have to see, but judging from history, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that at all!

Let’s hope Activision doesn’t forget gamers on the PC platform and deprive them on features like they did the last two times, while making what is dubbed by the media and public as ’2011′s biggest game’, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3!

HP launches prepaid 3G DataPass with Sprint

Along with the new ProBook 5330m, EliteBook 2560p and 2760p and consumer laptops this morning, HP also announced a service called ‘DataPass’. HP DataPass is a service with Sprint involved that allows you to buy contract-free, prepaid Internet data access. HP is quoting a price range of $5 for 75 MB up to $30 for 1 GB of data usage, and mentions this will work on any of their laptop models equipped with Qualcomm Gobi un2400.

Will TouchSmart tm2 tablet receive ‘next-gen’ Sandy Bridge options later this year?

HP TouchSmart tm2 with Sandy Bridge: where for art thou?! (oh this picture above shows the existing tm2, in case you get too excited)

As of today, seems like HP has given a touch of Intel Sandy Bridge love to all its laptop models, from the humble Pavilion series up to the envy-instilling Envy models, and from their stylish ProBook business models up to the top-end EliteBook line… all except the little notebook in the corner, the EliteBook 2760p‘s faraway cousin, none other than the convertible tablet HP TouchSmart tm2!

Announced in January last year with a paltry Intel Core 2 Duo processor and ATI Radeon 4550M graphics, the TouchSmart tm2 received a much-needed refresh not long after in the autumn of 2010 with the ultra-low voltage dual core 1.33 GHz Core i5-560UM and Intel Radeon 5450M graphics. We haven’t heard anything since then…

…which gives us good reason to believe the HP TouchSmart tm2 might be in for a ‘next generation’ Sandy Bridge processor refresh once Intel releases their traditional ‘interim’ processor update, which should occur at a time spread far enough from Sandy Bridge’s initial announcement in January, but also not close to Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors (which should be launched in 2012) so they don’t instantly become outdated (and get buyers angry). That puts the announcement of Intel’s Sandy Bridge “1.5″ sometime in August or September.

Of course, one could argue HP could just stuff in the existing Sandy Bridge 1.4 GHz Core i5-2537M, or even better a 1.6 GHz Core i7-2657M; both are ultra-low voltage processors. But why haven’t they? If they were going to do that, they would have announced a refreshed TouchSmart tm2 with Sandy Bridge already this morning, along with the updated Envy 14 and new Pavilion dv4.

Updated graphics will also likely appear too, if you’re a critical thinker =) . I’ll make an intelligent guess that it’ll be the AMD Radeon 6470M… one does hope that an Apple-like move will not be pulled off, that is to let Intel’s Integrated Graphics substitute a dedicated or integrated dedicated card (like they did to the 13 inch 2011 MacBook Pro).

And did anybody mention a splash of black paint would be nice (and definitely sick looking!) too? Well, at least it’ll be a refreshing change from all those silver and beige laptops out there.

What do you think? Are you excited to want HP to get a refreshed TouchSmart tm2 out there like some readers? Or how about an Intel Ivy Bridge equipped TouchSmart instead in 2012?

HP updates Pavilion dv4, Mini 210 and Envy 14 for 2011

HP has just announced three new consumer-level notebooks: An all new HP Pavilion dv4 laptop, HP Mini 210 netbook (updated for 2011) and evolved Envy 14 with Intel Sandy Bridge processors.

New 2011 HP Pavilion dv4

First off we have the HP Pavilion dv4 (Note the “v” in the name; don’t confuse it with the HP Pavilion dm4 series) which acts as a more affordable alternative to the recently announced (last week), slightly more upscale Pavilion dm4x. It sports a plastic casing (versus metal on HP’s two other 14 inch laptops; the Pavilion dm4x and Envy 14) which comes in your choice of blue or black, has a 14 inch LED backlit display (1366 x 768 resolution), Intel Core i3 and Core i5 “Sandy Bridge” processors (naturally) and weighs less than 5 pounds. The HP Pavilion dv4 has a starting price of $600 and will be yours to configure and order starting next week.

New 2011 HP Envy 14

Next up we have the 2011 HP Envy 14 which features the most minor of updates of the three new HP laptops (and another three business laptop models) announced today. Three months after its big brother Envy 17 was updated, the Envy 14 has finally been refreshed with Intel Sandy Bridge processors (up to the top-end dual-core Core i7-2620M option) and USB 3.0 ports. Everything else remains the same as the original 2010 HP Envy 14.

While it’s slim, it’s no MacBook Air killer, but the Envy 14 will now retain its competitive position as a viable alternative to Apple’s 13 and 15 inch MacBook Pro models with its similar design, superior specifications (most notably a better graphics card, more ports and USB 3.0) and more affordable price tag… at least when it starts to become configurable with said Sandy Bridge options on June 15, at a starting price of $1000 (still lower than the 13 inch aluminum MacBook Pro’s starting price!)

New 2011 HP Mini 210

And finally, hot on the heels of the successful 2010 HP Mini 210 netbook comes the… you’ve guessed it… 2011 HP Mini 210! The Mini 210 this year adds a bunch of new colors for your choosing (black, blue, turquoise, red, blue, pink and purple!), Beats Audio branding for its speakers, redesigned 6-cell battery that fits flush with the notebook and powers it for “up to 9.5 hours” and HP QuickWeb, which is a separate web browser that starts up within seconds and without starting up Windows 7.

To the delight of some (and the dread and disappointment of the “I like my laptop to look as much like a Mac as possible” part of society), the HP Mini 210 brings back physical left and right click buttons this year; those disappeared into a single buttonless trackpad on last year’s model. Well, if you’re planning to pick one of these updated HP Mini 210 netbooks up, you’d better mark June 15th on your calendar and set aside $300 for the black model, or $330 for the other colors.

Meet the HP ProBook 5330m: MacBook Air killer and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 fighter?

HP ProBook 5330m: when a ProBook goes on a diet and dresses up like a pricier EliteBook

Not wanting to be one-upped and left out by Lenovo and their rumored ThinkPad X1 ultra-thin laptop, HP has busted out the doors with their new ProBook 5330m ultra-thin business laptop. The ProBook 5330m appears to have a slight costume malfunction in the identity-crisis sense of the word as it carries HP’s ‘ProBook’ branding while at the same time, sports a design similar to HP’s upper-tier EliteBook series of notebooks. But at least it’s super-thin and is visibly so, because HP’s 2011 EliteBook design has the tendency of bringing out the “fat” side of their notebooks when viewed from certain angles.

If you’re looking for an alternative to, or just plain sick of, the Apple MacBook Air’s (extremely dated Core 2 Duo) low voltage processor, lack of a backlit keyboard and proprietary flash storage, and looking for a ‘real’ notebook that’s both ultra-thin in form-factor and powerful under-the-hood (though you can’t exactly hit the pedal once to make the floor shake like a real EliteBook can), then the HP ProBook 5330m might be for you!

Here’s what’s brewing with the HP EliteBook 5330m:

• Intel Sandy Bridge full-voltage dual core processors: choose between the basic 2.1 GHz Core i3-2310M or the more powerful 2.5 GHz Core i5-2520M.
  Not sure why they left it out, but I’m sure HP could have easily slipped in the powerful Core i7 dual core mobile processor in there (the 2.7 GHz Core i7-2620M) since it doesn’t draw more power or run hotter than its Core i3 and i5 siblings
  Unlike previous EliteBook models, these are ‘full voltage’ Intel processors and HP has dropped the option to equip the notebooks with ‘low voltage’ (slower but less power hungry) processors
• Intel Integrated Graphics HD3000
  And for those who enjoy frowning upon integrated graphics, wake up! Times have changed and the Intel Sandy Bridge IGP can give the MacBook Air’s Nvidia 320M and some other dedicated graphics options from Nvidia and AMD a run for their money
• Two DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots up to 8 GB of memory (no word whether the ProBook 5330m will take 8 GB RAM sticks, but 16 GB of RAM in a super-thin notebook would be sick!)
• 2.5 inch user-accessible storage bay lets you select between a 500 GB hard disk or 128 GB solid state drive from HP (of course you’re welcome to swap it out for your own hard disk, 250 GB Intel SSD or something, since the drive IS accessible without undoing a bunch of screws and dismantling the notebook… unlike Apple’s MacBooks!)
• No built-in optical drive
• 13.3 inch matte (anti-glare) LED backlit display (1366 x 768); 16:9 ‘widescreen’ ratio
• Port selection: Three USB 2.0 ports total (one ‘standard’, one ‘always-on’ and one combo eSATA/USB port), HDMI port, VGA connection, two-in-one combo headphone/microphone jack, RJ45 LAN port, SD/SDHC card slot
• “Beats Audio” branding for the notebook’s speakers
• HD webcam
• Full-sized backlit chiclet style keyboard (yes it’s backlit!)
  Big multi-touch trackpad with dedicated left and right click buttons
• About one inch thin (2.52 cm) with consistent thickness around the whole notebook
  Weighs in at 1.82 kg (or 4 pounds)
  Removable/replaceable 4 cell battery

There’s also support for ‘business’ security features such as TPM and Intel vPro. The HP ProBook 5330m basically screams “bring it on [insert competitor with ultra-thin notebook here]“, while giving its own cousin, the HP EliteBook 2560p, a run for its money and looks (In fact I’m surprised HP didn’t rebrand this as the EliteBook 2660p or something!).

Starting price for the HP ProBook 5330m is $800 and you should be able to pick one up (or at least order one) later this month!