Hasta La Gadget!

Half-Life is the game that put Valve on the map. The last full game in the franchise was Half-Life 2 way back in October 2007. Ever since that launch, fans have been clamoring for the next installment in the franchise – presumably called Half-Life 3. Recently, a trademark filing surfaced at a European trademark registration site leading to jubilation among fans.

That filing put fans of the franchise in a tizzy thinking a new game was in the works. It turns out that the trademark filing was likely a hoax according to reports floating around the web. The original filing looked legitimate, but it is now nowhere to be found.

There are a couple theories circulating explaining what has happened with one being that Valve is trying to hide the trademark approval now that it’s been given. That does make a lot of sense considering that Valve US has reportedly held the trademark on Half-Life 3 for a while. Another equally plausible theory is that the original filing was simply a hoax. If that’s the case, I like to believe there’s a special place in hell for whoever tricked us.

Regardless of the state of the trademark, there’s a reasonable chance that Valve is working on the game for next-gen consoles – but they’ll only tell us when they’re good and ready,

[via Hot Hardware, image: EspionageDB7]

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Earlier in September, Microsoft announced their plans to purchase Nokia’s smartphone division for a whopping $7.17 billion. This was hardly a done deal as regulatory bodies are expected to conduct their due diligence on either company and the deal to ensure that it meets certain guidelines, and that through this deal it will not allow Microsoft to become a monopoly of sorts. In any case so far it seems that the deal has not been thrown any curve balls or run into any obstacles, at least until recently when the Delhi High Court in India decided to announce an interim stay on the Microsoft-Nokia deal, at least until Nokia pays their fine for alleged tax violation.

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Microsoft-Nokia Deal Could Run Into Trouble In India original content from Ubergizmo.