Wow! These scenes were rendered using CryENGINE 2’s Sandbox 2 World editor. Three talented artists came up with the scene from the science fiction classic Blade Runner which won them first prize in the “Scene from a Movie” competition. The detail is amazing.

For more information: Scenes from a Movie competition results
Technorati Profile

Microsoft have made their Release Candidate 1 of Windows 7 available for download. It will be available until the end of July. To download Windows 7 RC 1, you need to join up to the Customer Preview Program.

Release Candidate 1 will expire on June 1, 2010. Hopefully by that time we should all be using the Final release.

Recommended system specs: a 1GHz processor or faster, DirectX 9-enabled graphics processor with WDDM 1.0+, 1 GB RAM and 16GB of storage for a 32-bit installation, or 2 GB RAM and 20GB of storage for 64-bit.

Both the 32- and 64-bit versions of Release Candidate 1 are available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish.

You can grab the 32 bit version here, or the 64 bit version here.

It should be noted that Release Candidate 1 and later versions will not be able to communicate with “pre-RC computers” remotely, because the default HTTP/HTTPS ports for WinRM and PowerShell have been changed.

My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20, then I upgraded to a Commodore 64, and then onto an Amiga 500. So you could say I was a bit of a Commodore fanboy in my younger days. The new incarnation of the Commodore company has released a series of Netbooks ranging from a 7″ up to 10″ displays.

Range

Commodore Kid

• 7”  Color Display
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Intel Atom Processor
• N270 Processor
• 1.6 GHz @ 533 MHz FSB
• 1 GB DDR
• 8 GB SD
• Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
• Built-in Wifi
• Battery: 3 cell Optional 6 Cell
• Weight: 1.6 lbs
• Multimedia: 1.3 MP camera, High definition audio speakers, digital array microphone
• Ports: 3 x USB 1.1, 1 x SD card Slot, 1 x Mic Jack
• Parental Control

Cruiser 8010 C

• Intel Atom Processor (1.6GHz @ 533 MHz FSB)
• N270 Processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 160 GB Harddrive
• Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• Battery: 3 cell Optional 6 Cell
• Weight: 3.1 lbs
• Multimedia: 1.3 MP camera, High definition audio speakers, digital array microphone

Freestyle 8020 F

• 10” Color Display
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Intel Atom Processor (1.6Ghz @ 533 MHz FSB)
• N270 Processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 160 GB Harddrive
• Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• Battery: 3 cell  Optional 6 Cell
• Weight: 3.1 lbs
• Multimedia: 1.3 MP camera, High definition audio speakers, digital array microphone
• Ports: 1 x 15-pin VGA port, 2 x Jacks (Mic in & Headphone out), 1 x LAN Port (RJ45), 3 x USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x DC-in port
• Light up Commodore logo

TRAVELER 8030J

• 10” Color Display
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Intel Atom Processor (1.6GHz @ 533 MHz FSB)
• N270 Processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 160 GB Harddrive
• Wireless LAN 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• Battery: 3 cell  Optional 6 Cell
• Weight: 2.6 lbs
• Multimedia: 1.3 MP camera, High definition audio speakers, digital array microphone
• Ports: 1 x 15-pin VGA port, 2 x Jacks (Mic in & Headphone out), 1 x LAN Port (RJ45), 3 x USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x DC-in port, Keystone Lock for system security

It’s nice to see Commodore make a come back and hopefully these new Netbooks are the start of better things to come.

For more information: Commodore

If you are currently testing Windows 7 Release Candidate and have a Nvidia graphics card, then you may want to download the latest Beta drivers (v185.81) for Windows 7 that were just released.

The update includes:

• Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 275 GPU.
• Adds support for Ambient Occlusion – the newest NVIDIA Control Panel feature to offer enhanced 3D gaming realism exclusively to GeForce GPUs.
• Adds support for CUDA 2.2 for improved performance in GPU Computing applications. See CUDA for more details.
• Expands GPU hardware acceleration for the NVIDIA Video Encoding library to GPUs with less than 32 cores. Applications using this library include CyberLink PowerDirector 7, Nero Move it 1.5, Loilo SuperLoiloScope MARS, and CyberLink MediaShow Espresso.
• Accelerates performance in several 3D applications. The following are examples of improvements measured with Release 185 drivers vs. Release 181 drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
  • Up to 25% performance increase in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
  • Up to 22% performance increase in Crysis: Warhead with antialiasing enabled
  • Up to 11% performance increase in Fallout 3 with antialiasing enabled
  • Up to 14% performance increase in Far Cry 2
  • Up to 30% performance increase in Half-Life 2 engine games with 3-way and 4-way SLI
  • Up to 45% performance increase in Mirror’s Edge with antialiasing enabled
• Automatically installs the new PhysX System Software version 9.09.0408.
• Supports GeForce Plus Power Pack #3. Download these FREE PhysX and CUDA applications now!
• Numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release documentation notes.
• Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.

You can grab the 32 bit drivers here, or the 64 bit drivers here.

UPDATE: About an hour after I posted this article, an updated version of Seesmic Desktop was released. The new version contains:

Seesmic Desktop is a new application that displays your Twitter and Facebook streams. It uses Adobe Air and runs on both PC and Mac.

Seesmic Desktop has many great features. Firstly, the ability to add multiple Twitter accounts (you can only add one Facebook account at this stage). Rather than having to swap between accounts to track your Twitter streams, it logs into all your accounts at startup and displays all the Tweets in one list (the Home window). A greatly requested feature is the ability to split off each account into it’s own window pane (or column). The Tweet and Facebook streams are then displayed in this new pane for the chosen account. This functionality alone really helps to separate Seesmic Desktop from all the other Twitter apps out there. Each account pane has the options at the bottom to show incoming Tweets, replies, direct messages, your own updates, and to use the Lookup feature of Twitter.

One other great feature is the ability to sort the people you are following into groups. By choosing the Userlist option, you can create a list and then start adding users. For example, you create a list called “Celebrities”. Inside this list you add Ashton Kutcher and Oprah. When you click on the Celebrities list, a new window pane is created with all the Tweets from all the users in that list displayed. This really helps you to segregate the stuff you find important from the not so important.

There is a link between Seesmic Desktop and Twitpic. By clicking on the Share Image button, you can drag and drop an image into the Share Image dialog and then Seesmic Desktop will post it to Twitpic automatically for you. Also mentioned is that video sharing will also be implemented in the coming versions.

You can, of course, post Tweets to Twitter and update your Facebook status as well. You can select from which account the message is to come from, enter your message and even shorten URLs by using either bit.ly, digg.com, is.gd, snurl.com, tr.im or twurl.nl.

The layout of Seesmic Desktop is extremely clean and intuitive. On the left hand side you have the standard Twitter navigation options (Home, Reply, Private, Sent). Below these are the Accounts, Userlists and Search options. When a search is performed, the keyword or phrase is stored under this option for future use.

As this is only a Preview release at this stage, there are still many features not yet implemented. Some of the features to come are:

• Block a user
• Spellcheck
• View Followers/Following
• Add services other than twitter (friendfeed, seesmic video, ideni.ca, laconi.ca)
• Read/Unread indicator

This video gives you a good overview of Seesmic Desktop.

Seesmic Desktop looks like it has alot of potential to become the king of the Twitter App heap. I’m looking forward to seeing the enhancements over the next few weeks.

For more information: Seesmic Desktop