Valve: Big Surprise Isn't Episode 3 (Booooo!)

So much for that theory.

ZoomLooks as though the speculation that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 would be Valve's "big surprise" come E3 2010 was shot down in fiery flames. Although it seems rather odd that Valve head honcho Gabe Newell would shoot down candidates for the mystery reveal, apparently heconfirmed Episode 3's exclusion in a recent private message, simply saying "it isn't Ep 3." Bummer.

Newell also confirmed that a recent teaser image--depicting the Half-Life symbol with the words "Freeman" and "June 14th" centered underneath--was a fake. The history of the document also shows a lot of tampering although the edits appear to have taken place on June 4. Clearly someone was really hoping for the long-delayed, third installment, and wanted to spread the love.

So what exactly will be Valve's big surprise? The company recently hinted that the mystery reveal wouldn't interest Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 gamers, indicating that PC gamers will receive some sort of high-profile treat come June 14. That's a nice surprise in itself given that many PC developers are slowly shifting over to the dark side (namely heavy console support).

Intel's Core i7 Solution for Shopping at the Mall

Intel makes a giant "Minority Report" style touch display for... shopping?

Well know what we like to do with Intel Core i7 CPUs inside our systems. But Intel has a different sort of application that it demonstrated using its latest chip technology.

At the Intel booth, we saw an interactive floor plan that could be used by retailers to both help the customer find what they are looking for, adding things to their shopping list, as well as advertise new products.

The software runs on Windows Embedded 7 and a Core i7 CPU.